Presty the DJ for May 24

Two Beatles anniversaries today:
1964: The Beatles make their third appearance on CBS-TV's "Ed Sullivan Show."
1969: "Get Back" (with Billy Preston on keyboards) hits number one:

Meanwhile, today in 1968, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithful were arrested for drug possession.

Birthdays today start with Bob Dylan:

Derek Quinn, guitarist for Freddie and the Dreamers ...

... was born the same day as Sarah Dash of LaBelle, who was born two years before the eponymous Patti LaBelle ...

... who was born the same day as this one-hit wonder, who claimed to be ...

John Ilsley of Dire Straits:

Red Rider drummer Rob Baker:

Rich Robinson of the Black Crowes:

A pause to ponder punditry

An oddity about my current employment situation is that I have never been this popular as a pundit before now.

On Friday, I was on Wisconsin Public Radio. The previous Sunday, I was on "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes," andEaster Sunday before that. The week before Palm Sunday, I was back on Wisconsin Public Radio. I have had more blog entries posted at WisOpinion.com now than I had when I was at the late Marketplace.

One reason is that my policy (even before March 30) has been to always accept media invitations. (A former colleague of mine called me a "media whore," and Sykes called me a "media ho," and to both I'd say I resemble those remarks.) Visibility is important (particularly when you're looking for your next job) in the 15-minutes-of-fame media universe. Almost no one knows me outside of Wisconsin, but thanks to the Ideas Network, the state's oldest TV station and this and my previous blog, I have some level of notoriety among the opinionators statewide.

Part of the reason is that, with this new blog, I'm writing m0re original pieces than at Marketplace. Depending on how busy my week was, I'd write between one and three original pieces, and the rest of the week would be taken up with repeating posts of others that I liked or found provocative or at least interesting.

Since I have this blog linked to Facebook (as well as LinkedIn and Twitter), I assume the people I have now Friended (including,  it seems, most of the members of the La Follette High School Class of 1983) and vice versa will find out that, wow, Presty is really a right-winger. (I've been a proud member of Hillary Clinton's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy since the 1990s.)

The thing, however, is that (1) I am perfectly capable of not talking about politics (the phrase "the personal is political" did not come from the right side of the political aisle), and (2) I have no problems arguing ideas because ideas are supposed to be argued, and the way one improves the process of delivering opinions is to debate opinions. And, now that I think of it, there is a (3): If you don't like a blog entry, don't read it.

For those who haven't read this blog before and wonder where my libertarian/conservative/anti-government ethos came from, it came to me at, of all places, church Sunday. (Yes, there was church Sunday, because The Rapture didn't happen Saturday.) The priest was talking about the PBS documentary "Freedom Riders," about the civil rights movement in the South in the 1950s and 1960s. I didn't see much of it, but I've seen videos and photos of police officers beating on protesters, bullwhips, police dogs, tear gas, etc., against nonviolent protesters.

Here's the punch line: The police were hired by a police chief who was hired by the duly elected representatives of the Southern city of your choice. Orval Faubus, George  Wallace, Lester Maddox and the other racist governors were all elected by the citizens of their state. (In Wallace's case, Alabama's solution for their gubernatorial term limits was to elect Wallace's first wife, Lurleen, as governor.) People who lacked any rational evidence beyond their own prejudice voted for politicians who created and enforced Jim Crow laws and stuck a giant middle finger at the U.S. Constitution, one hundred years after the end of the Civil War.

That is the face of democracy. So is interning Japanese Americans during World War II because, you know, there were just too many Americans of German descent to lock up all of them in internment camps. Your federal governmentinjected black men with syphilis just to see what would happen to them. The Vietnam war has both parties'  fingerprints all over it. Some municipal governments in this country think it's perfectly OK to take land away from its rightful owners because the politicians think they have a better use for that land. (And the U.S. Supreme Court stupidly reinforced government's right to eminent domain under the abominable Kelo v. New London decision.) And I live here in the birthplace of the Republican Party, whose founders started the GOP in an era where most Americans either thought slavery was a good thing or was none of their business.

Democracy is flawed, and our government is flawed — indeed, every human institution is flawed — because humans are involved. The Constitution was written not just to design our government, but to protect us from our government. The Bill of Rights gave the citizens the rights to free expression and ownership of guns and against unreasonable search and seizure and self-incrimination. Leave it to democracy, and as the saying goes, 51 percent of the people can vote to imprison 49 percent of the people.

I know who I don't want responsible for upholding or enforcing my rights. Ruth Conniff of The Progressive was perhaps more revealing than she thought she was being in Friday's discussion about voter ID. When I pointed out the list of things for which an ID is required, including getting a library card and cold medicine, she retorted that there is no constitutional right to buying cold medicine.

I had no idea Conniff was such a strict constructionist. That to me says that to Conniff, y0ur rights — such as your right to the medical treatment of your choice — are whatever the government says they are. (The pro-abortion-rights movement better figure out that the same government that gives the right to an abortion can take that right away.) If Conniff represents the prevalent attitude in the People's Republic of Madison, that would explain why I hate my hometown. (Which has changed, and not for the better, since my high school days anyway, as demonstrated by the first drive-by shooting at my high school shortly after I left Madison.)

This is not, by the way, an argument in favor of the GOP since the GOP infringes upon different rights from the Democrats. If you like government's stealing your money through taxes and wasted government spending, be a Democrat. (If you like government's stealing other people's money through taxes but not yours, you're a hypocrite.) If you like government's interfering with your personal life, be a Republican. If you like neither ... what is the answer to that?

Before Jesus Christ's birth, the psalmist wrote in Psalm 146:3, "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help." If you're expecting help from the government, regardless of who's in charge of that government, you've gone to the wrong place.

What new blog? The apocalyptic event known as my joining  Facebook was accompanied by advice to move my blog to WordPress. At the moment, I'm posting on both while I evaluate which works better for my purposes. One or the other, or maybe both, can be accessed via Twitter, my Facebook page or LinkedIn. You have been warned.

Presty the DJ for May 23

Today in 1969, the Who released their rock opera "Tommy" ...

... two years before Iron Butterfly disbanded over arguments over what "In a Gadda Da Vita" (which is one-third the length of all of "Tommy") actually meant:

With another short list (evidently parents of future rockers weren't doing much in October), here is another cover twofer, the latter of which comes from someone who made an entire career out of covers:

"Le National Weather Service a émis ..."

Because we always like to entertain our guests:

Earlier today the National Weather Service suggested the chance of severe weather, including tornadoes.

The first wave of storms came this afternoon, with (as photographed by Erica Dakins) storms well north of Ripon:

So we went to Cedar Ridge Ranch for the farewell party, where food was eaten, horses were observed and video was shot for the next Ripon Channel Report (coming to a TV near you if you're a Charter Cable subscriber in the Ripon area).

We had been home not one minute when our weather radio went off to report:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN SULLIVAN HAS ISSUED A

* TORNADO WARNING FOR...
 NORTHWESTERN FOND DU LAC COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL WISCONSIN...
 SOUTHERN GREEN LAKE COUNTY IN SOUTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN...

* UNTIL 830 PM CDT

* AT 742 PM CDT...NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DOPPLER RADAR INDICATED A
 SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING A TORNADO. THIS DANGEROUS
 STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR MARKESAN...OR 15 MILES SOUTHWEST OF RIPON...
 AND MOVING NORTHEAST AT 45 MPH.

* THIS TORNADIC STORM WILL BE NEAR...
 GREEN LAKE AROUND 755 PM CDT.
 RIPON AROUND 805 PM CDT.
 ROSENDALE AROUND 810 PM CDT.

So at least at the Prestegard house our French Adventure guest got to see what Americans who live in or near Tornado Alley do in tornado warnings: Head to the basement.

The storm went south and east of Ripon. If there was a tornado (and someone from Markesan apparently called the Green Lake County Sheriff's Department to report a tornado going over his house), it missed here.

But at least we got to see a rainbow (which you can only sort of see in this photo):

Une veille de tornade

It looks like the (two-days-before) farewell party for our French Adventure students may be enlivened by ...

... a Tornado Watch until 10 p.m.

Presty the DJ for May 22

Well, now that Matthew 24:36 trumped Family Radio ...

Today in 1965, the Beatles found that "Ticket to Ride" was a ticket to the top of the charts:

The short list of birthdays includes Specials keyboard player Jerry Dammers:

Patrick Morrissey of Depeche Mode:

Time for a twofer from this past week:

Presty the DJ for May 21

One strange anniversary in rock music Saturday.

In 1968, Paul McCartney and Jane Asher attended a concert of ... Andy Williams:

Eleven years later, not McCartney, but Elton John became the first Western artist to perform in the Soviet Union.

Four years later, David Bowie's suggestion reached number one:

Birthdays start with Ronald Isley, one of the Isley Brothers:

Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine:

Bill Champlain, who sang for Chicago, the greatest rock band in history ...

... although his tenure with the band was during its late-'80s-and-onward descent into ballad hell, instead of:

Leo Sayer was born a year later:

Roger Hodgson of Supertramp:

Molly Hatchet keyboard player (who knew they had one?) John Glavin ...

... and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch were born the same day:

Just in case, thanks for reading

The subject of this post requires its own soundtrack:

Family Radio has been broadcasting and advertising that the end of  the world will occur Saturday at 6 p.m. wherever you are.

RBR.com reports:

According to a fact sheet published on the group’s website, this is what is about to happen: “On May 21, 2011 two events will occur. These events could not be more opposite in nature, the one more wonderful than can be imagined; the other more horrific than can be imagined. A great earthquake will occur the Bible describes it as ‘such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.’ This earthquake will be so powerful it will throw open all graves. The remains of the all the believers who have ever lived will be instantly transformed into glorified spiritual bodies to be forever with God.” The rest will be “thrown out upon the ground to be shamed,” and will experience “horror and chaos beyond description.”

There will be an interim period running from 5/21/11 until 10/21/11, when Family Radio says final destruction of the Earth take place.

The Family Radio website notes that it is still accepting donations, and although its donor computer operation is said to be undergoing maintenance, the group says it has representatives on hand to process donations from call-in givers. It accepts credit or debit cards.


So any ministers reading this apparently need not bother to prepare a sermon or homily for Sunday.


I pointed out in selecting Family Radio my "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes" Loser of the Week that evidently Family Radio was unfamiliar with Matthew 24:36, which readeth: "But of that day and hour knows no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."


Oh, but Harold Camping, owner of Family Radio, has an explanation:

In the Bible a wise man is a true believer, to whom God has given a profound trust in the authority of the Bible. True believers have been in existence since the beginning of time. But the timeline of history as it is revealed in the Bible was never revealed to the hearts of the true believers. For example, throughout most of the church age it was generally believed that Creation occurred in the year 4004 B.C.

However, about 35 years ago God began to open the true believers’ understanding of the timeline of history. Thus it was discovered that the Bible teaches that when the events of the past are coordinated with our modern calendar, we can learn dates of history such as Creation (11,013 B.C.), the flood of Noah’s day (4990 B.C.), the exodus of Israel from Egypt (1447 B.C.) and the death of Solomon (93l B.C.)*

However, it was not until a very few years ago that the accurate knowledge of the entire timeline of history was revealed to true believers by God from the Bible. This timeline extends all the way to the end of time. During these past several years God has been revealing a great many truths, which have been completely hidden in the Bible until this time when we are so near the end of the world.

(The essay gets more creative from there, believe me.)


So Camping is, similar to Matthew Harrison Brady (that is, William Jennings Bryan) in "Inherit the Wind," a believer that the Earth is only tens of thousands of years old. I am neither a scientist nor a theologian, but it seems rather presumptuous to limit God to a 24-hour day, does it not? The Episcopal Church, to which I've belonged for a decade, describes itself as a tricycle of Scripture (the big wheel), tradition and reason. And there is no real reason that evolution is incompatible with God's creation.


The minister who married my wife and me claims that there is only one verse of the Bible, John 3:16, that does not require an additional verse to back it up. Matthew 24:36 has two — Mark 13:32 ("But of that day and that hour knows no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father") and, from my favorite book of the Bible, Acts 1:7 ("And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father has put in his own power"). Moreover, the quoted words of Jesus Christ would seem to have paramount ranking as a source of information for Christians, would they not?


A Brief History of the Apocalypse has a listing of predictions of the end of the world dating all the way back to 2800 B.C. A real wave of apocalysomania took place in 1000 A.D., which I guess would have been Y1K. (I remember Y2K, when driving back home after a sumptuous not-really-millennium meal we listened to that paragon of reason, Art Bell, report about mysterious blackouts. Bell somehow neglected to mention that the University of Wisconsin football team's going to back-to-back Rose Bowls must have been a sign of the end times.) And we've had predictions of the end practically every year since 1972. (No, Richard Nixon's reelection was not one of them, but at the University of Wisconsin, Ronald Reagan's reelection was.) Before Pat Robertson was claiming that 9/11 and hurricanes were divine retribution, he predicted the end of the world would take place in the fall of 1982. (Breaking up with my first girlfriend and losing my job in the same week seemed like the end of the world, but it wasn't.)


I recall two specifically. In 1978, Pope Paul VI died, and then his successor, John Paul I, died a month after becoming pope. Newspapers at the time noted the legend of St. Malachy, an Irish priest who wrote down descriptions of every pope from Peter forward. When the list of popes runs out, the legend has it, our time runs out. And there is only one pope left on the list, Benedict XVI's successor, who by the way is supposed to be the Devil incarnate. (That should make the next College of Cardinals meeting after Benedict's death really interesting.)


The other prediction, in 1982, was not exactly a prediction of the end, but of galactic disorder caused by all the planets in this solar system lining up. Leonard Nimoy narrated an episode of "In Search Of" that warned of the calamity on the way. Nimoy's most famous character, Mr. Spock, would have pointed out that such a theory is illogical because the planets are not all on the same plane. (To which Dr. McCoy would have contributed, "How do I know? I'm a doctor, not an astronomer!")


The planetary alignment previously occurred Feb. 4, 1962; astrologer Jeane Dixon predicted that the Antichrist would be born the next day. (Which means the Antichrist is actress Jennifer Jason Leigh.)


Remember the earthquake that destroyed Taiwan and created the tsunami that killed millions May 11? You don't, because the prediction of someone named Professor Wang didn't happen. Of course, this year is less than half over, so we may still enter the Photon Belt (no, that was not an episode of Star Trek) before the end of the year. 


The next prediction of our doom is Dec. 23, 2012, according to the Mayans, whose calendar runs out on that day. (So don't bother getting Christmas presents next year, and you can skip gassing up the snowblower, when by then gas should be about $14 a gallon.) But if that prediction isn't accurate, there are plenty of others waiting in the wings. For instance, back in 1960, Science magazine predicted that on Nov. 13, 2026, the world's population would reach infinity.

Steve Media: All Steve, All the Time

Less than a week after my latest "Sunday Insight with Charlie Sykes" appearance, I was on the Ripon anti-slavery walk (the Little White Schoolhouse, the Abraham Lincoln statue at Ripon College, a cemetery where an ex-slave is buried, etc.) with my oldest son when I got the call from Wisconsin Public Radio. I'll be on WPR's Joy Cardin show with Ruth Conniff of The Progressive Friday at 8 a.m.


As always, Wisconsin Public Radio’s Ideas Network can be heard on WHA (970 AM) in Madison, WLBL (930 AM) in Auburndale, WHID (88.1 FM) in Green Bay, WHWC (88.3 FM) in Menomonie, WRFW (88.7 FM) in River Falls, WEPS (88.9 FM) in Elgin, Ill., WHAA (89.1 FM) in Adams, WHBM (90.3 FM) in Park Falls, WHLA (90.3 FM) in La Crosse, WRST (90.3 FM) in Oshkosh, WHAD (90.7 FM) in Delafield, W215AQ (90.9 FM) in Middleton, KUWS (91.3 FM) in Superior, WHHI (91.3 FM) in Highland, WSHS (91.7 FM) in Sheboygan, WHDI (91.9 FM) in Sister Bay, WLBL (91.9 FM) in Wausau, W275AF (102.9 FM) in Ashland, W300BM (107.9 FM) in Madison, and of course online at www.wpr.org.


Meanwhile, Charter Cable subscribers in Ripon can watch the new (as in it didn't exist before Monday afternoon) Ripon Channel Report this weekend starting Saturday at 9 a.m. The Internet being what it is, The Ripon Channel's Kenton Barber captured the taping Thursday afternoon.


The video may also be online this weekend, complete with weather forecast.

Presty the DJ for May 20

Today is famous in rock history for two reasons. The second was in 1980, when drummer Peter Criss quit Kiss. The first was in 1967, when the BBC banned the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" due to its alleged drug references:

Birthdays start with soul singer Shorty Long, who warned people that ...

Who is Jill Jackson? She was the Paula of Paul and Paula, the former of whom (whose real name wasn't Paul either) sang to her:

Joe Cocker did one of the best covers of all time, a song so nice he covered it twice (with Leon Russell on piano):

One wonders if James Henderson, lead singer of Black Oak Arkansas, was Jim Dandy to the rescue:

Mr. Mister keyboard player Steve George:

Oconomowoc native Jane Wiedlin, guitarist for the Go-Gos:

Today is the birthday (in separate years) of John and Susan Cowsill of the Cowsills:

John Cowsill also played drums on this '80s one-hit wonder:

Apparently I am a sign of the apocalypse

Judging from the reactions, I am one of the few people that, until yesterday, was not on Facebook:

OMG Hubby has finally joined Facebook. Friend him NOW!

FB will NEVER be the same

How did you do that...John still won't!

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria! 12/21/2012 is soon approaching! and yet another sign...Steve is on Facebook

HI! i see facebook won again...

But now I am. I found out that there was no one by my name on Facebook, so if you do a search for my name, you are guaranteed to find me. (I am also on LinkedIn, and you can see from the right side of this page that I am Presty1965 on Twitter.)

Until now I had assumed that Facebook was, well, too social for, you know, a business magazine publisher/editor/pundit. Then I was advised by someone considerably more savvy than I in social media (you know who you are, Todd, and thanks) that if it were a country, Facebook would be the third largest country in the world. (I wonder if Facebook is run any better than countries one and two ... or for that matter this one.)

Since I have this blog linked to Facebook (as well as LinkedIn and Twitter), I assume all the people I have now Friended and vice versa will find out that, wow, Presty is really a right-winger. (I've been a proud member of Hillary Clinton's Vast Right Wing Conspiracy since the 1990s.) The thing, however, is that (1) I am perfectly capable of not talking about politics (remember that the phrase "the personal is political" did not come from the right side of the political aisle), and (2) I have no problems arguing ideas because ideas are supposed to be argued, and the way one improves the process of delivering opinions is to debate opinions. And, now that I think of it, there is a (3): If you don't like a blog entry, don't read it.

Les aventures Français

It is hard to believe — mon dieu! — that the Ripon French adventure is more than half over and less than a week away from being over.

You read that Moritz arrived in the overnight between May 5 and May 6 ...

... and was to do whatever his host family did in addition to the other activities planned for his class.

Put the two together, and his weeks have included going to two different churches (ours plus a confirmation ceremony at another church), going to Michael's baseball practices and Boy Scout meetings, seeing minor league baseball ...

... playing minigolf (followed a week later by bowling at the same place) ...

... going to Lambeau Field and the state Capitol, swimming and skating at the same place  ...

... going to one of Ripon's best known employers — Rippin' Good Cookies — on a walking tour of the city ...

... Crazy Dress Day at school Wednesday ...

... and, you know, school. (He has homework, which is more than I can say of his host.)

His schedule still includes a farm trip, a trip to the Wisconsin Dells (what the French might call un piège à touristes if they have such a phrase), a going-away party at a horse ranch Sunday night (at which if he's not careful he might end up on TV), and then his actual departure Tuesday morning. It would be worth flying back to Paris with the class merely to see their zombie-like states the first couple of days back in France.

The experience shows, for one thing, the technological miracles we take for granted. The first photo in this blog was shot at 12:04 a.m. after the students had arrived, with my cellphone. I emailed the photo to his parents in Paris; they got it sometime after 7:04 a.m. Paris time through the Internet, satellites and who knows what else. A week later, his parents called Moritz ... from Rome to my cellphone. (Paris and Rome are in the same time zone.) Moritz talked to them in the lobby of the Oshkosh 20th Avenue YMCA.

As I mentioned earlier this month, it amazes me that 11-year-old kids are international travelers. (Moritz was watching CBS-TV's "The Amazing Race" season finale, in which the final contestants were in a museum in Rio de Janeiro. Moritz looked up and casually said, "I've been there.") Moritz's school, L'École Active Bilingue Jeannine Manuel, is the largest nondenominational private school in France, so one might expect its students' families are reasonably well off, but there is the issue of whether 11-year-olds are mentally and emotionally ready for different cultures from theirs. From what I've seen, these kids obviously are.

Tuesday will be a hard day. The biggest problem we've had with Moritz is making sure we choose the right vehicle for the activity, given that my car seats five, which is one too few for everyone. (The skating and bowling involved extra people; fortunately Jannan's minivan seats seven.) Other than that, he's fit right in, including eating my spaghetti sauce and lasagna. (I was told lasagna was his favorite food, but only his mother's lasagna; that was proven untrue two pieces later.) He's quieter than his host siblings, but his host siblings are pretty much a nonstop run-on sentence. And he is so laid back that he hasn't objected to anything we've dragged him to so far.

The experience has been (pardon my high school French) "formidable!" I hope we keep in touch with Moritz, and I'm thinking we'll be doing this again in a few years if circumstances work out.

Presty the DJ for May 19

Three events in rock — well, music — history are of note today:
1958: The soundtrack to the musical "South Pacific" went to number one and stayed there for 31 weeks. The film version starred Mitzi Gaynor, who looked very much like my mother a few years later.

1960: DJ Alan Freed (mentioned in this space last week) and eight others were indicted for payola.
1979: Eric Clapton married Patti Boyd, the former wife of George Harrison and the muse for the song "Layla." The song lasted much longer than the marriage.

Birthdays today are led by Pete Townshend of The Who:

AC/DC drummer Phillip Rudd:

Two members of Blood Sweat & Tears: trombonist Jerry Hyman and saxophone and flute player Greg Herbert:

Bass player Dusty Hill of ZZ Top:

Ramones lead singer Joey Ramone (born Jeffrey Hyman, so he must have been adopted by the Ramone family, right? Right?):