How come it's Halloween and also 70 degrees? I don't remember sweating in my Halloween costume.

I heard one of my students from a very conservative Roman Catholic family saying to a friend who leads the school club, Fellowship of Christian Students, "How can she be for John Kerry? He's for murdering babies."

Procreation is the thing isn't it? What would the world be like if sexual intercourse was not related to procreation or to disease? Would we all be polygamous? Or would we be the same?

Pregnancy is a strange process. From the male point of view it is scary. What must it feel like to have it happen to you? I don't know. Abortion must be likewise and unimaginable for men. I've always thought that men should have no say so in the abortion debate. (I think I'd like it better if women decided when we should go to war too. They bring life into the world. Let them decide when to sacrifice life. I think more people would be alive.)

I'm drawn back to my student's accusation, "He's for murdering babies." The mystery for me is when does a child become a child. Is one cell a child? Are two, are four? Does a fertilized egg have a soul? When an egg becomes fertilized, does a bell ring in heaven and God and his angels grab a soul from the soul bank and immediately transfer that soul to the egg? Is there a different soul prepared for each of the possibilities of combination of sperm and egg? How about all those unplanned pregnancies? How does God get the souls ready for them? Are souls blank slates, imprinted after birth? Since God is all knowing, and he knows that some fertilized eggs are going to miscarry? Does he put a soul in those eggs only to have them die? Can he use that soul again later in a child that will be born, or is it gone forever? An all knowing God would know if a child was going to be aborted too wouldn't he? Is there a soul in every egg? Do we sin when we use birth control methods? I only had two children. Am I a murderer? Isn't that the position of the Roman Catholic Church, that no birth control should ever be used? Does the church believe that every egg is a soul?

This is a mystery to me. I don't know when a fetus becomes a child, a person. When a pregnancy threatens the mother's life should we let the mother die because to endanger the fetus would be murder? When the fetus is badly formed and cannot survive, and the doctors know that, should a miscarriage be induced?

Amazingly, there are people who think they can answer these riddles I have posed. I used to know more myself. As I get older, study more, ponder, reflect and research issues, I seem to know less. Intellectualism is the enemy of simple answers and that's why the intellectuals are rounded up and eliminated when governments are making changes.

There are a lot of questions in life that I cannot answer. I have decided that I'm okay with not understanding. It is okay with me if a woman and her doctor make a decision about this on their own. I hope that the country remains free to handle this issue in this manner. Why should a bureaucrat interpreting a statute be in charge of such a mysterious and difficult decision?

Why does no one say to President Bush "911 happened on your watch?" I just heard Republicans spinning toward the election say that intelligence crashed during the 90's allowing 911 to happen. Uh, I believe that Dubya had been President of the United States for some time on 9/11/01 and it is clear that his administration was doing nothing to improve intelligence, in fact they were ignoring intelligence about planes flying into buildings. Shouldn't he just say "This happened on my watch. I should have been more vigilant. I'll catch the perpetrators. It won't happen again." If we follow the same logic of the Republican spin does that mean any future terrorism in the next 4 to 8 years should be blamed on the current president, not on whoever is in office then.

Did I hear Cheney say into the microphone, if Americans make the wrong choice for president it is likely to happen again?

Does that mean, vote for my team or die?

This week there was a story that the major funding for the Iraq insurrgency is coming from Saudi Arabia. What does Dubya have to say about that? {nothing so far}

Shouldn't we say that the terrorism is the fault of the terrorists?

If George Bush is more likely to protect us from terror, why didn't he help protect us during Viet Nam? Why didn't he sign up to fight? Why did he stop showing up for the National Guard? Why wasn't he put in jail for being AWOL? Why does no one ask President Bush "How many times have you been arrested?" I understand there is a considerable reward available for anyone who will ask him that question. Have we had other presidents who have been arrested?

Where is Osama bin Laden and why aren't we in hot pursuit of him?

Why does no one ask why the stock market is down 2300 during this administration? Dubya tells me the economy is doing great, but I'm losing money every day. Who has my money?

It is difficult to imagine the number of cones on your average pine tree. When Ivan roared by it pushed our neighbor's pine onto the corner of our house. That is working out to be a lot of trouble, but that's another story. The tree has been cut up and hauled away. It was surprising that after the debris removal there were still so many pine cones. Not dozens, not scores, but hundreds remained on the ground. And they were buried in the dirt as though they had been hurled there with ferocity, which of course they had. In the area where the top of the tree had fallen, I could not put my foot on the ground without standing on a pine cone.

If a tree has that much interest in reproducing itself is it any wonder that musicians have so much desire to create more musicians. There is the hope, I suppose that the music will keep going, perhaps even spread, after I'm not making music anymore. Perhaps a grandchild musician, or great grandchild will be a significant contributor to art. A creative artist or master interpreter. There will be no line in his or her bio that mentions my name, but I will have played a critical role for I taught her musical progenitor. I have 6 music majors at LSU, 3 at Georgia Southern, 2 at Georgia State, 1 at Mercer University, 1 at East Carolina. Then there all the singers out there that are not music majors, some of my best, at UGA, Vandy, Rhodes, Samford,Berry. And there are the grads from UGA, Berry, West Georgia, Cincinnati, Georgia College, James Madison, Middle Tenn. State, who are singing and teaching somewhere. And there are a dozen more in my care today. Anne, Bryan, Diana, Johanna, Lauren, Laurel, Jessica, Morgan, Ellen, Elizabeth, Craig, Grant, Karl, Andrew.

My last students are in 5th grade. Not thousands but perhaps it will be enough to create a legacy.

The lead article in Saturday's letters to the editor, published in the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, today, Saturday, Oct. 16, 2004.

"God truly blesses Bush's performance

No doubt God was with President Bush during the second debate. Bush was awesome--forceful but courteous, knowledgeable, concise and humorous.

Among the many reasons I will vote for Bush is that he is against "partial birth" abortion.

I believe Sept. 11 was a warning to America, and if we vote for men who condone the murder of babies, America will suffer God's wrath.

Maxine Thomas Orr, Lawrenceville"

I was wondering what had caused the 911 tragedy. How did 19 men act in unison to murder thousands of innocent people and cause collateral damage to millions. I didn't understand it in my simplemindedness. But it is good to know that Maxine Thomas Orr (who only represents a sample of the letters the AJC received of like point of view, as I understand the AJC letters policy) has sorted through the complexities and found the answer in God. Not only was God sending a message to us on Sept. 11, 2001, but the message is "Vote for John Kerry in Nov. 2004, and you'll get more of the same. Or worse."

Well now that's cleared up.

I wonder if Maxine knows that EVERYONE is against partial birth abortion. It's a lifesaving procedure in some emergencies. I guess Maxine would be pretty sure that it would be God's will for the mother to die.

I like reading the paper with breakfast in the morning. Maybe I'll do that everyday when I retire. I was feeling pretty good about retirement four years ago. Even a minimum return on my investments would have put me in position to retire at 60 and live well. Debt free with spending money. But then the Clinton era of economic prosperity and fiscal conservatism ended.

It seemed to me that before the inaugaration I remember Mr. Bush saying the economy was in terrible shape, but not to worry, he had a tax cut plan that would make things hunky dory. He sent me $600 in the mail. Since then I've lost about $125,000 from what I expected to have, minimum, in 2004. I want to send my $600 back to President Bush and trade for a decent economy. I'll not be retiring at 60 anymore. I can't see a date in the future right now when I can retire. I guess I'll retire when I'm too tired to work and make the best of it.

And don't worry about Social Security. You can make it without Social Security. In fact the government has it fixed it so teachers can't draw social security. That would be TWO government pensions don't you know. Oh I paid my 40 quarter into the system, actually more like 80 quarters, but Uncle Sam is just going to keep my money. So a teacher that works for 30 years with a master's degree in Georgia and retires can draw about $33,000 a year in retirement. That sounds like enough to live on. (If you move to Mexico).

Back to the newspaper. If the AJC is a liberal newspaper like the conservatives say, why do they bury articles that make President Dubya Bush look bad?

Today's front page says, Flu Shots are causing panic, Delta is going bankrupt sooner than they expected, the State Majority Leader, Republican Bill Stephens, has been given a record fine from the State Ethics Comission for stealing his campaign contributions, Coke and Pepsi embrace nutritional labels, and GA Polls show Bush, Isakson in the Lead (by a lot). But then a really scarey article by Brent Scowcroft (remember he was national security advisor to President George Bush, is considered Condoleezza Rice's mentor, and is a close associate of former President Bush). He blasts Dubya's handling of foreign policy in the middle east, saying Iraq is "a failing venture" and that the administration's unilateralist approach has harmed relations between Europe and the U.S. Brent is sandwiched in between a car ad and the antiques show on the next to the back page of section B.

The AJC is not a liberal newspaper.

For a real review of President Dubya Bush's record you could read the editorial endorsement of Dubya's home town Texas newspaper. They were wholehearted Dubya supporters in the last election. Doonsberry has been citing conservative writers opinions all week and this may be the most comprehensive article.

http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/Columns/Editorial/editorial39.htm

A former student asked me to fill her in about some music we sang a couple of years ago so she could talk about the music as part of a college project. I wrote her the following message and decided to save it on the blog as well.

I imagine that you are talking about the Kyrie eleison that was from the Francesco Brusa Mass. (Actually there were two). Let's break it down this way. The Roman Catholic worship service is called the "mass". This title comes from the last sentence of worship which is "ita missa est" ("the service is ended") in Latin. Parts of the text of the mass change for every day of the year. However certain words are spoken in every recitation of the mass. This repeated portion is called the "ordinary" (everyday). Composers often set the text of the ordinary to music because it might be sung at any time! Last year and the spring before we sang the "Missa pro defuntis" of Francesco Brusa. Missa pro defunctis means "mass for the dead." A mass for the dead is often called a "requiem" mass. Such a mass would be spoken or sung as a funeral remembrace of someone or sometimes as a memorial service for all members of a congregation that have died in the past year. The text of the requiem mass is somewhat different from a regular mass, as you might expect. The particular text of the mass we sang was the same text used by W.A. Mozart in 1791 when he wrote his final composition, the Mozart Requiem. The work we sang was written by Francesco Brusa (1700-1768) in 1767, to be performed by the girls of the Venetian Ospedali. The ospedali was started by Venetians around 1100 a.d. to provide for the welfare of orphaned or unwanted girls. Venice was a very forward thinking city in many ways and over the years the terms Venetian Ospedali came to mean any of four different institutions that provided education and welfare for these young abandoned girls. Those who were able were educated and taught music skills. They became world famous performers. By the 1700's Venice was the entertainment capital of the world and people vacationed there. One of the must see tickets in Venice in the 1700's would have been musical performances by the Venetian Ospedali girls. The most famous composers in the world wrote music for them and came to work as their conductors. A famous contemporary of Bach's, Antonio Vivaldi, was perhaps their most recognized leader. Brusa is little known and most of his compositions may not have survived to the modern day. We do know that he was born in or near Venice and that he worked as an organist for the Venetian "ospedali" (hospital) as early as 1720. He was well known as an opera composer during his lifetime. In 1767, when he was 67 years old, he was asked to fill in for another famous conductor/composer (Galuppi) while he went on a trip to visit Russia and compose music for the Russian noble court. I imagine he saw this as a short term job to help him with his "retirement" years. The story is that Brusa was well liked by the performers who begged him to write a composition for them. The performers included instrumentalists and singers. Brusa then composed a requiem mass for women's voices and strings for the girls to play and sing. That musical work was fairly short, about 20 minutes long in total. Following its performances in 1767 it was put in the library at the ospedali. Shortly afterward, in 1768, Francesco Brusa died. Fortunately, although the work was never published nor received wide performance during it's own day, the libraries of the ospedali have been kept intact to this day. The Venetian ospedali went bankrupt in the 1770's and the music education and performances for the girls ended. In the last 25 years there has been increased interest in bringing the music of this institution back into modern performance editions. Around 1994, Dr. Sharon Paul, who teaches on the west coast, brought a copy of the Brusa mass to San Francisco. She was the conductor of the San Francisco Girls Chorus and had a music editor, Peter Simcich (pronounced Sim Kich) prepare a modern edition for the girls to perform. They recorded this music around 1995. I heard it on CD some years later and began to search for the music. It still had not been published and the San Francisco Girls Chorus would not loan it to me. I looked up Peter Simcich however and told him how much I wanted to perform the music and over a period of time he was able to get permission from the San Francisco Girls Chorus to publish an edition. He worked with me on the edition and I corrected many errors in the text, both in spelling and in positioning the syllables underneath the notes. Finally the edition was published in May, 2003, and we performed the world premiere of the modern published edition of Brusa's Requiem. So there was a lot of history behind our performance. The text you remember "Kyrie eleison," is the opening sentence of the mass. Oddly it is not latin, but even older, one of the first remnants of Christian worship. These words are Greek, the language of the early church, and they mean "Lord, have mercy (on us)." The next line is "Christe eleison" and then "Kyrie eleison" is repeated again. The opening text of the mass expresses the idea that as believers come into the presence of God, or begin to think about God in worship, confronting the holiness of the deity causes them to recognize their own sinfulness and lack of standing before God. Their first words then are, "Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy."

I wrote this letter to my cousin and also formed it into a blog today.

My wife and I teach a combined total of 570-- 6th through 12th graders a day. About 80% of that total is girls and the rest boys. We don't teach in a typical cross section of American values, our community is pretty conservative, but we do see the difficulties of modern adolescence in some degree. I think the key paragraph in the article you forwarded is the one I have cut out and include below:

"RAND also said adolescents were less likely to initiate sexual intercourse if their parents monitored their activities, if their parents had more education, if they lived with both parents, if their parents did not approve of them having sexual relations, if they were religious and if they were in good mental health."

Television does not carry the same programming as when we grew up. Today, crude and vulgar, immorality portrayed as "normal," and sex or skin to draw viewers are certainly the average fare. The key is that children not be left on their own to choose programming. More than that, the key is that children not be left on their own, period.

One big problem that we see at school is that both moms and teenaged girls have bought into the sexual dress portrayed on TV and in the movies as being acceptable. When we discipline a girl who is wearing too short of a skirt, see-through clothing, cleavage to her belly button, or pants that don't cover her midriff for example, her mother may arrive at school and berate the administration, saying that the student's outfit is just fine. What is wrong with us? (They ask.) When they bring the young girl more clothes, those moms are sometimes dressed inappropriately to be at school themselves. I've seen moms in tight shirts with bulging cleavage, braless moms, moms wearing "daisy-dukes" short shorts, and even a sports bra and spandex bike shorts walk into the school. Somehow we have traded modesty in for exhibitionism. The men have always wanted it that way (as long as it was not our wife or daughter who was immodest). Our dream was that our neighbor's wife or daughter would be immodest. That male attitude has been taken over by many women today. They want to exhibit their "buff" bodies and say "what do you think of that!" Well we think it is sexy. It just may not be appropriate in every setting.

On the other hand. . .we have many deeply religious students who never wear inappropriate dress. Even though we grew up in the 60's and 70's with hippies, flower children and free love, on the whole, students are now having sex at a younger age, with more partners, and more often than was happening in the free love society when we were in college. The most striking change to me is that "oral sex" is considered no more than "foreplay." Many of our young "virgins" regularly service their boyfriends with oral sex while maintaining their "virginity." In fact some have had oral sex with a dozen or more boys and maintain that they are virgins. Many also expect to receive oral sex in return. We also hear about middle school girls being invited to parties to strip and give oral sex to high school boys. Seems like a topsy turvey world. How did orgies trickle down to our 12-14 year old daughters?

In truth though, this is not happening to any great degree among students whose parents are active in their lives. Parents who don't leave their students unchaperoned or let them go to unchaperoned parties have much safer children. Parents who ask questions and investigate answers have students walking the straight and narrow. I do still see innocence in many of my students and I think that is a wonderful shield that allows them to mature in a non-sexual environment.

I like to see my little girls and their cellphones. I hear them ring after school and the students answer and say "hi, mom." Mom wants to know where they are, when they'll be home, where they are going, who is going with them." It is almost like putting a leash on the child in this modern society. I think many parents are finding benefits in putting a mobile phone in their daughter's purse.

I'm not sure TV is the problem. I think TV is just a symptom of the excesses of a capitalistic economy/society. I was just reading yesterday about how completely underground pornography was under communism. Immorality was kept under much stricter control than we have in a free society. I like freedom. I think lack of parental involvement and sometimes bad judgement by parents is the problem. Many of my students are too busy for TV. They have music lessons, dance, art class, debate team, service clubs, church activities, scouting, 4 H, homework, drama, riding lessons, SAT classes, sports, cheerleading, part-time jobs, and driver education after school.

I remain an advocate for public education. Teachers on the whole are doing well. Students are learning well. Order and discpline is being taught. Safety is a primary concern. It is a big system and problems arise. But we are dealing with them one at a time--one student and one parent at a time. I believe that public education is the number one reason that the United States of America is the leader of the world.

Ronald Reagan defeated Communism.

I watched the entire presidential debate the other evening. Every media outlet is scoring it a lopsided win for Senator Kerry. I've also seen reported that there have been a string of democratic party debate winners that have lost elections. The comparison of the two candidates was rather severe. One candidate was flustered, made faces, stammered, repeated the same lines over and over, regardless of what was asked, paused and stuttered and finished answering before his time was up. The other was coolheaded, relaxed, gave clear, concise answers, chapter and verse, 1,2,3. He worked the clock and finished his answers at the last moment of time. Okay sure, say the Republicans, if you are talking about technicalities as if this were college debating, perhaps the President didn't score as many points as his opponent. But his opponent is an evil doer!

There are reasons why it doesn't matter who wins the debates.

The Republican base has a solid coalition of one issue Americans. Their central issue means that they can't ever vote for the democrat. It doesn't matter who she or he is, how smart the person is, how dumb the republican candidate is, how disasterous republican policies are. They have overriding issues that the republicans have collected under their umbrella in order to get votes and stay in power. The democratic party won't even lie and say they embrace these issues in order to garner votes, because they seem fundamentally illogical, unAmerican, or unconstitutional to them.

You can picture in your mind the members of these groups that are crazy and have made headlines, but these groups have millions of quiet members. They feel like they feel and they are going to vote that way.

Racists (invited to the table by Richard Nixon)
Pro Life movement
Anti public school movement (all home schoolers, all parochial schools)
Advocates for unlimited gun ownership
Anti tax and government movement
Those afraid of homosexuals
Those who are against separation of church and state (religious zealots)
The group who say harsh punishment for criminals is more important than eliminating things that foster criminal behavior.

There may be some more members under the umbrella, but I'll stop there for now. None of these folks can ever vote for a democrat. Of course some folks would swear allegience to all those groups, but even if they only fall into one of the categories, they are going to be at odds with any democratic candidate.

The motivations of these people fall into one of a short list of categories.

Fear. Religious zealotry and guilt. Anger against a wrong. Self centeredness. It's all about protecting vested interests (lifestyle, beliefs, family). While these are pretty negative motivations, they are not inherently bad. It's good to protect your family, hold fast to beliefs, protect wealth, and even protect yourself. What's the problem then?

There is no room for altruism. The only way to help others is to insist that they be just like you.

44 million Americans don't have access to healthcare.
Over fifty percent of Americans that live in poverty are children under 12.
Access to economic success is still limited if you are not white or if you are not a man.
People in most other countries are not enjoying the economic prosperity of middle class Americans. And, we are not trying to find ways to help them. Instead, we are surprised when they hate us or kill us.

I love to hear that Ronald Reagan defeated Communism and won the cold war. Making such a proposterous statment brands the speaker as an idiot. I read book MIG PILOT back in 1980, about Lt. Belenko, a soviet top gun who defected by flying his MIG to an airstrip in Japan. It was obvious to me then that the soviet union was all set dressing. They put their best face on TV, but they had nothing. The country was held together with string and glue. The overwhelming poverty broke the underpinnings shortly afterward. The communists were never even the enemy. It was the poverty. The terrorists are not the enemy. It is the poverty that breeds the terrorists. If I had nothing, my father had nothing, my children had no prospects to have anything and I could see Americans on TV in a shop window or a movie house, I'd hate us too. We have so much. We must find a way to share. We must find a way to not be afraid of a different skin color, religion, or lifestyle.

Friday night. High School Football in America. Homecoming activities. Princes and Princesses. Roses and tears. Smiles and Photographs. Somehow this is all connected with the American dream. It seems far, far away from politics, religion, work, or almost anything else. In attendance are hundreds of youths and hundreds of parents. The kids group themselves: cheerleaders, pep squads, junior class, guys with painted faces and chests, football players, band geeks. The parents do the same: coaches and wives, dance team and band parents, concession stand workers, ticket takers and gate workers, announcers and scorekeepers, touchdown club members in reserve seats on the 50. There are couples there on dates; groups of boys and girls cruise the stands, eyeing each other. It is a cultural phenomenon. The scale of it all is almost unfathomable. Winning teams draw larger crowds, but crowds arrive to support the losing teams too. In a way, the team's success doesn't seem to matter that much. Some success in nice, but it's Friday night in America and Americans are at the game to have fun. Make the catch in the big game, break free and run for 50 yards and a touchdown and that five seconds will be rerun a thousand times by countless tongues, becoming grander and grander in direct proportion to the passing of time. Maybe the Varisty Glee Club will sing the Alma Mater. Maybe Christy or Rachel or Kaitlyn will smile at you or hold your hand. Emotions run high. On Friday nights anything seems possible.