Katie’s Beer

A little bit of unknown history…

Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York . This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost. The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day. The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko De Mayo.

From Ian Punnett via Melissa

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This morning I found a thread on MNSpeak that pointed out a great YouTube video clip of an all-star tribute rendition of While My Guitar Gently Weeps, featuring George’s son, Dhani Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, Prince and others (if you can help me name them, that would be great). Few commenters seem to “get” the historic value of the performance (historic for modern times, at any rate). Prince shines! He provides the highlighted guitar work and seems to be showing Dhani that he can still do one of his signature moves (laying back while playing), albeit with a little assistance (this was a few months before his reported hip surgery, to be fair). Dhanni responds with delight and a big grin. It is eery how Dhani looks just like his father, especially when singing. To me, the star of the performance is Jeff Lynne and he provides the highlighted vocals for the tribute. He’s played this song many times and can sing it like no other. Here he sings with with George, Elton, Ringo, Paul, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and others in 1987,

The remaining Beatles, with Eric Clapton, performed the song at the Concert for George in 2002. Clapton, in this version, provides both the guitar and vocal highlights, though Jeff Lynne is there to play along. Dhani Harrison, Billy Preston and many others are on stage.
You can download a much better version of the VH1 tribute here. Some people claim this is the better version, but I disagree.

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Yes, SpongeBob has a great version of the F.U.N. song, but here’s an even funner song.  Funner is a word…right?

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My favorite local radio station is giving away tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar and I’m sitting here wishing I had tried a little harder to win tickets. It was one of my favorites as a young teen. I had the album from the musical and played it many times a day. However, after finding the following reader comment last night posted on my favorite American Idol blog, I think that the tickets should be used to educate our youth:

“… Carly sang very good last night but maybe if she realized that “Superstar” was not a FUN song, but a song that is about Jesus dying and crying and asking why. She then would have connected with more passion to pull her thru…”

Thankfully, another reader corrected her:

“In the play, the song is sung by Judas and he was questioning some decisions made by Jesus. It was sung in rockstar fashion. ETA: I found a clip from the movie on YouTube.”

Judas sings somewhat angrily:

Ev’ry time I look at you I don’t understand, why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You’d have managed better if you’d had it planned. Now why’d you choose such a backward time and such a strange land? If you’d come today you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.

Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. It follows the struggles between Judas Iscariot and Jesus based on the canonical gospels’ accounts of the last weeks of Jesus’ life, beginning with Jesus and his followers arriving in Jerusalem and ending with the crucifixion. Modern references abound in the musical. The song, Jesus Christ Superstar, was sung by Murray Head, who played Judas. Murray Head later had the 1984 hit song “One Night in Bangkok” which was originally from the “well-known” musical, Chess. Chess was a musical with lyrics by Tim Rice and music by Bjorn and Benny of ABBA.

The story involves a romantic triangle between two players in a world chess championship, and a woman who manages one and falls in love with the other. Although the protagonists were not intended to represent any specific individuals, the characters’ personalities are loosely based on those of Victor Korchnoi and Bobby Fischer.(from Wikipedia)

Tags: Religion, American Idol 7 // 7 Comments »

It’s the third night this week I’ve stayed up late and the Wild have lost again. So many chances to score and NOTHING. They have one more chance in this series and then its done. At least I’m not at the game and can head right to bed…

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How do I transition into being a mom of grown kids?  I don’t know how to do that.  I get a stomachache thinking about it.  I mean to say, I don’t want grown kids who live in the basement.  Yikes!  But how do I go from being their everything to being there once a week or so.  God, it hurts to imagine it, yet I think it will probably all happen naturally and with much less pain than I imagine.

My daughter graduates from high school in just a few very short weeks.  I’ve been dreading and anticipating the day for such a long time.  It’s like running a long marathon and then its over.  Finished.  Now what?  It’s not up to me anymore.  It’s up to her.  We are close and I know we will remain so.   One  thing I’ve battled lately is thoughts of what I didn’t do right.  They sneak up on me…I should have done this, I should have remained firm on that, etc.  The funny thing is that I have very few regrets.  I did what I knew was right and owned up to any mistakes.

My son is a sophomore.  The house will be strangely silent without his sister around next fall.  He’s looked forward to that time for many years.  I’m still in the midst of trying to figure out how to parent an older teen boy.  I still haven’t found the book to tell me the steps to letting him go.

This post will remain unfinished because the story is unfinished…

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My dad insists he was the guy fighting Reggie Morelli, though he had nothing to do with the disappearance of the jersey..

A little more than two months ago, Brenda Morelli received a strange phone call. Without introducing himself, the caller asked if her husband was alive and if he was in good health. Brenda told the caller he was doing fine and the mystery caller responded by telling her to expect a package in the near future at their Minot home. About a week later, that package arrived on the Morelli’s doorstep. Contained in the package was a University of North Dakota hockey jersey. Maybe not completely unusual since Brenda’s husband is former Sioux hockey standout Reggie Morelli. But it wasn’t a replica or a recent game-worn jersey. It was the No. 16 jersey that Morelli had worn 49 years before as a member of the Sioux. Where it has been for the past 49 years remains a mystery as the package had no return address or name of sender — only a Minneapolis postmark. While Morelli has no idea where it has been, he remembers clearly how he lost it. “It was in the second period of our second game against (University of) Minnesota in my junior year,” he said. “I got into a fight near their bench. He pulled my jersey off me and threw it into the crowd. ”

Read on…

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The recent news of a poll by today’s historians didn’t make as much news as I had hoped it would. Where was the analysis by pundits? The poll’s premise - that today’s historians could pass judgment on President Bush’s legacy 8 months before he leaves office - was ridiculous. The only good analysis I could find was from an openly anti-Bush historian who did a really great job of explaining his concerns about this poll:
On the recent poll:

We have gotten ourselves into such a state in this regard that most historians no longer even see any problem here—they no longer see a principled distinction to be made between our present politics and our historical judgments. Indeed, I suspect few of my colleagues see anything wrong with this kind of poll, and think I am out on some fringe somewhere with my concerns. And I fear I am. That is the real tragedy of it: this conflation of politics with historical scholarship is so commonplace that old-fashioned historians like me have become fringe characters by stint of our unwillingness to move along with the postmodern crowd.

Simply put: it is foolish to think that historians can offer an historical judgment on the Bush presidency (even a tentative one) while that presidency is still in motion. We cannot short-circuit the processes of historical research and scholarship and produce anything remotely related to valid historical judgments.

He also wrote back in 2006, after a similar poll:

Historians have both a right and a duty to try to influence public policy in ways they think desirable. As public intellectuals, they can and should speak out about Bush Administration policies. But they cannot pretend that, qua historian, they are giving us a professional assessment of the presidency of George W. Bush, while that presidency is still in motion. It is a form of intellectual dishonesty to pretend that the discipline of historical analysis currently certifies—as a matter of learned scholarship—that Bush can be judged, even tentatively, as among our worst presidents. A historians can say—as a political liberal—that she disagrees with Bush policy in a number of areas, and she expects these policies to turn out badly. But she cannot play the coy game of pretending that this is the objective assessment of the history profession—no matter how many historians are polled in similar gestures of the same arrogance.

Source:  The Follies of Instant History: Another Meaningless Poll of Historians  and Should Historians Try to Rank President Bush’s Presidency, both by Larry DeWitt on George Mason University’s History News Network

Tags: politics, history // 1 Comment »

• In graduate school, I attempted a yearlong independent study of Chinese history. I learned that independent study is not for me - I apparently need the structure of a table, chair and professor- but I really enjoyed the readings. For the first time in my life as a student, I learned that China isn’t the poor country I thought it was. For most of human history, it has been a learned, albeit tumultous powerhouse. That was the beginning of my interest in China.

• A few years back, my parents traveled to China on a tour. My parents, very low-key and friendly, were shocked at the rude reception by the Chinese in major cities. Even their tour guide was rude to the group…to a bunch of Lutheran retirees from Minnesota (not exactly rude or boisterous by nature or culture). My dad postulated that China had opened their arms to tourists for one reason: to get their dollars.

• Fast forward to now. My son is taking Modern U.S. History from a teacher who isn’t exactly a right-wing, flag-waving Patriot, from what I have gathered. I do think that his teacher is teaching the course well and is trying to present a “balanced” view of our great land. He also has told my son and his classmates that he believes that the next great battle, of sorts, WILL be in China. My son informs me that the U.S. has troops positioned around China (I don’t know where to confirm or refute that claim). I do believe, though, that a powerful China is in my children’s children’s future.

Dr. Ed Veith posted a short comment on his Cranach blog on a London Daily Mail piece called, Why China is the REAL master of the universe. Anthony Browne writes,

Just as the 19th century was the British century, and the 20th century was the American century, the 21st century is the Asian century.

But the handover of global power from the UK to the U.S. was trivial compared to what is happening now.

The U.S. was Britain’s offspring, based on the same values and the same language.

t, too, was an Anglo-Saxon country, and passing the baton across the Atlantic ensured the continuation of the Anglo-Saxon world order, based on democracy, free trade and a belief in human rights, upheld through international institutions that both powers supported.

But the world order we have grown used to - and comfortable with - over the last century is coming to an end.

Napoleon III compared China to a sleeping giant and warned: “When China awakes, she will shake the world.”

After a long hibernation, China, and her 1.3 billion people - twice the population of the U.S. and EU combined - is awaking almost overnight.

And not just China. The world’s second most populous country, India, is industrialising at a historically unprecedented pace.

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Who says Lutherans don’t have a sense of humor? I’ve just seen my very first Lutheran political cartoon. View it here. Kelly uses her gift of drawing ability to illustrate what many are talking about - the spinning of the reasons behind the cancellation of the popular Lutheran radio show, Issues, Etc.
And who says Lutherans don’t get worked up about anything (well, that’s said about the Norwegians). Andrew Sacramone, of First Things, observes:

It takes a lot to get Lutherans to shift into activist mode. We pretty much believe if you’re agitated about something, you’re probably a Baptist. And any kind of ventilation (like breathing) is frowned upon for fear of a charismatic renewal. So believe me, Issues, Etc. is going to come back in some form, somewhere. It’s just not a good idea to get Lutherans angry. Last time this happened, historians ended up calling it the Thirty Years War. (read on…)

Dr. Gene E. Veith provides a short and thorough update on the situation this morning.

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