Popular music is in a constant state of evolution. Evolution means change without the attribution of quality. Depending on your perspective you either think that the quality of music is in a declining state or a state of improvement. I grew up during the time when Rock and Roll was replacing the melodic sounds of big bands and artistic standards. R&R with Elvis, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson et al, ran a parallel course with Folk music and its standard bearers the Kingston Trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Limeliters and The Journeymen until the Liverpool invasion occurred and the Beatles took over in 1963. The decade of the 60’s was driven by Beatles style music. Similar changes have since occurred including soft rock, hard rock, acid rock, heavy metal and now rap, hip-hop and pop accompanied by other stuff that I neither know the names of, understand or like. There’s a common thread that seems to have run through this somewhat dissonant but none the less connected evolutionary process. Into the period of the 60’s lyrics were, for the most part, quite easy to understand. This gave way to a period when lyrics were either not understandable or even worth listening to….or both.

There is a parallel but somewhat different process of change (I dare not use the word evolution in defining this change) that has occurred in Christian music over this same period. For years the traditional hymns of the late 1800’s and early 1900’s dominated conventional and evangelical church services. Praise and worship music began making welcomed inroads into services in the 70’s and continued for decades with the prolific creation of melodic and worshipful praise music through the 90’s. Christian music seems to be at a crossroads at the same time that the organized church (church not Church…capital “C” which is the body of believers) is struggling for relevance in our culture. I wonder if this is no coincidence. Studies are calling into question the effectiveness of the evangelical church’s attempt to reach people through diverse programs over the most recent decades. Peeling back the onion on this issue requires more space than is available here.

I believe that music often used in many churches today is questionable in its contribution to reaching people and further providing an atmosphere that precipitates a meaningful worship experience. Granted, people have eclectic tastes in music and I may be considered an “old foggie” for this viewpoint. The praise and worship music of today has largely gravitated to “7-11” music….seven words eleven times. The words, although somewhat theologically accurate and certainly understandable, largely lose their significance when continuously repeated to the loud beat of a full set of drums, 5 guitars and a base as big as a Buick. In my church when the occasional traditional hymn sneaks into the song portion of the service, participation expands, singing intensity rivals the decibel level of the instruments and smiles replace the “deer in the headlight” looks on the faces of the congregation. There is something about the message, beat and lyrical composition of the theologically sound traditional hymns that modern repetitious songs cannot match. I strongly believe that a re-infusion of these songs, so filled with the richness of the Christian faith, into the core of the worship experience would provide a tremendous boost to the participation and worshipful attitude of today’s services. Count this believer as one who believes in this change.

… would be a fair comparison to uganda, circa right now.  they do things the hard way here and it takes longer than all eternity to get them done because it’s hot and that makes you move slow.  have you ever been to a tropical country?  i don’t mean have you spent time in a hammock in the carribbean, i mean have you tried to get something accomplished in a culture that lives out every minute in sticky, humid, un-airconditioned mosquito-ness?  believe you me it will slow you down.  add to that a lack of modern conveniences, ingenuity, or willingness to try something new and you’ve got uganda, 2008.  

take for instance my maid, harriet.  harriet has worked for americans for about 15 years and is very good at cleaning things to my standards but it’s how she goes about it that makes me chuckle.  i brought over a regular old mop that you can dunk into the dirty water and then squeeze out the excess without touching the yucky mop sponge.  it’s useful.  harriet knows i have this for her use but she insists it’s easier to take an old dishrag, bend over at the waist, butt waving in the air, and hand wipe the entire floor.  on a side note- ugandan women revere large backsides and frequently pad their underwear to make them even bigger.  in fact, there’s no shortage of “doctors” who advertise butt enhancement surgeries on billboards around town.  so when harriet is hand mopping my floor you see a whole lot of harriet you’d rather not see but she’s probably proud as a peacock to wave it at me cuz it’s large.  

or take for example the guys who are landscaping our yard.  what would take about 2 weeks in the states has been dragging out for 12 weeks now.  some of that is due to a contract discrepancy but much of it is because they do everything by hand.  they pick up rocks one by one and carry them to a pile 30 yards away.  they cut the grass with what i think is a scythe.  we have a lawnmower, mind you.  they turn up the soil with tiny little trowels- bent over at the waist, of course, with their butts addressing heaven.  and all of this is done barefoot.  they have shoes, i see them walk to our house every morning shod in perfectly functional work boots but they like to take them off and swing that scythe with bare toes in imminent peril.  the guys who cut down a diseased tree in my yard did so barefoot, toting their axes and saws and walking over splintery wood chips like the guys who walk over hot coals in india or wherever they do that.

much of this is secondary to economic hardship.  they don’t have enough money to eat lunch every day much less buy a lawnmower for their landscaping business but they also are very resistant to change.  i have a lawnmower sitting in my garage watching all the other hand tools get picked for the team day after day while it sits the bench all shiny and clean, watching from the sideline.  it’s never been done that way so why start now?  i don’t know why you’d pick hard labor over modern convenience in such an exhausting climate but that’s what happens.  

i look at my maid crossways when she mops my floor for 3 hours and she looks at me crossways when i suggest an appliance to help with any aspect of cooking.  i think i better keep a defibrillator handy if i ever get a chance to teach her about dishwashers.  and what will she think about a breast pump?  oh dear.

You can now listen to Just Talking It Up 18 in the player on the left sidebar of the blog, or on iTunes!

Just Talking It Up, just saddles up this week! For the Saddleback Forum that is. . . Pastor Rick Warren’s hosting the candidates is the hot topic of the day this time around. Listen in as Janet and Crash leave no stone unturned in giving their assessment of how each candidate fared in this rather close-up exam of their differing world-views.

If you watched the Saddleback forum, then you must have an opinion about it. Send that opinion to us at: feedback@justalkingitup.com!

No….contrary to your initial thoughts I have neither lost my ever loving mind nor have I changed my position on the presidential election. I have, however, come to the place where I feel eternal gratitude to Mr. Barack Obama for something that many have been hoping and even praying would come to pass for years. How many times have you shuddered upon listening to Al Sharpton, he of the Tawana Brawley fraud fame, and Jesse Jackson, the perpetrator of the hoax named the Rainbow Coalition, wax eloquent on their desire and ability to bring justice to someone who had been wronged. Well, Mr. Obama has rendered this garrulous duo virtually irrelevant by his meteoric rise to national prominence as the banner carrier for their race. Regardless of how the presidential election comes out, Obama has replaced Jesse and Al as the leader of their pack….and that’s a good thing.

Think of what this does for the black community. For years these two, along with many others, have seemingly used the black community for their own self serving purposes and in so doing allowed many of their own race to resort to the lowest common denominator in their determination of what is possible for their own lives. Bill Cosby has been a lone voice crying in the wilderness for a few years, attempting to bring a sense of individual responsibility and hope to this community. For his heartfelt and logical message, he has been the object of ridicule and the recipient of a resounding verbal assault.

Obama is not, I strongly believe, qualified in any sense of the word to assume the mantel of the Presidency of the US at this time. Our country is faced with tremendous issues of global conflict and Obama comes perilously close to a willingness to disarm our nation, thus compromising our sovreignty, safety and security. The primary responsibility of the President is to provide for the common defense and, Obama’s view, antithetical to Roosevelt’s, is to walk stridently and not carry a stick at all. We are on the verge of a recession or worse and Obama wants to raise income tax rates even though 100 years of history confirms that raising tax rates results in a lower tax revenue flow into the governmental coffers. We face an energy crisis that threatens to cripple not only the US but the world and his antidote is to put more air in our tires and clean our spark plugs. He is dead set on reconstructing the Supreme Court, replacing judicial constructionists with those similar to the current liberal jurists, Ginsberg, Souter, Stevens and Breyer who not only lean but in most cases run hard to the left at every opportunity. Is that enough to keep you from voting for BHO?

The fact that his flawed judgment, woefully inadequate experience, questionable worldview and weakness on defense make him a terrifying choice for president does not obliterate the fact that he provides a significant improvement over Jackson and Sharpton as a role model for his race. Thanks Barack…..now go back to being a Senator from Illinois.

. . . In our new POLL that is.  At the left sidebar on the opening page here at JTIU. We’re anxious to know what YOU thought about the Saddleback forum.  And if you really want to raise a ruckus about the whole thing, send us your opinion at feedback@justtalkingitup.com !

Don’t you think it’s strange how all this fuss and furor goes into ‘vetting’ potential veeps, when the candidate himself couldn’t get a security clearance? I don’t think the post office would hire Obama to deliver mail, and I’m positive he wouldn’t pass an FBI employment application. And yet, here we are in this current climate of bending the rules for the office of president. Why? Because his party is ‘pretty sure’ he’s ‘got potential’ to be a good president . . . Hooey! National security is too demanding to bet on phrases like ‘pretty sure’ and ‘got potential’. If they are that lenient on his  abilities, who cares who  he selects as a running-mate? Why doesn’t he just choose O.J. Simpson? After all, O.J. was found ‘not guilty’ by the legal system (idiot jurists are still jurists none the less). There are lot’s of people that say ‘the past is in the past’ and past events don’t matter in the office of high level government.  Who cares HOW he voted in the Senate, or how long he was there, he was still a Senator. And oh yeah, he has pretty teeth and is a gifted speaker, so surely  he’ll make a good president . . . right?

And I love this new political term ‘vetting’. I’ve been using the term for many years, and I understand the essence of it’s meaning apparently more than the political guru’s. It’s customary in addition to getting history and habits, vital signs & weight that a good vet would check for parasites. Am I right, Mabel? Of course, ‘vetting’ a human must be vastly different from vetting a cow, horse or dog. Before I’ve invested in any of our animals, our vet has for all intents and purposes thrust a microscope up the potential’s wazoo!  I guess worms are to be ignored in a potential president, cause Obama appears to be full of them.

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

You can now listen to Just Talking It Up 17 in the player on the left sidebar of the blog, or on iTunes!

Once again we see that politics makes strange bedfellows. . . take John Edwards for instance. . . on second thought, let’s not. Janet gives Crash a hard time for calling out only the Dems on the recent morality failures. Crash and Janet wrestle a little bit over the Rick Warren Saddleback political forum. And what ever happened to Hillary and Bill? Are they fading into obscurity or mapping out their next move?

Some hard questions come to the table in this one, folks. Crash reminds us that sometimes the answers are just as hard as the questions.

Listen in and send feedback to: feedback@justalkingitup.com!

i’m a veterinarian or at least i was in the states.  now i’m the person the american community calls on sunday mornings in a panic when the family dog has a flea emergency.  or vomits once.  or “acts funny”.  i’m also the person who hands out free advice at each and every social even i attend.  this mostly doesn’t bother me but can occasionally get annoying.  i sometimes grumble to myself that would’ve cost you $100 if we were in the states, missy after those free consults and i have a running mental tally of all those missed profits.  i don’t mean to do it but i spent thousands on my own vet survival kit before leaving and people seem to assume i have free supplies to spare or that they’re easy to get over here.  they’re not.  but lucky for all the embassy moochers i have found my own personal drug dealer here in town.  i can’t get drugs from a regulated place like south africa but mr. patel, my indian drug importer can.  

if i could buy a few basics i could preserve my own stash and still help people out so i recently took a list to mr. patel to see just what all he could do for me.  after i was about 4 drugs into the list i brought him he put his hand up, closed his eyes dramatically and said “madame, you name it, i import it” and i believe him.  i should slip crack cocaine into the list to see how far he’d go for a buck but that’s stupid because that doesn’t need special importing.  it’s probably being sold in broad daylight at the corner chipatti stand.  they’re not big on law enforcement here.

i wish i had found mr. patel sooner because this week my neighbor’s dog ginger was over for a visit and she somehow got a big, deep cut on her leg.  i could see tendons, friends.  i called my neighbor to make sure he didn’t care that i suture her up on my dusty african floor and he gave parental consent.  i gave ginger a heavy painkiller from my own vet stash and with francis as my assistant and my neighbor as the guy to hold down the un-tranquilized and sharp toothed patient, we all crossed our fingers and i got to work.  i cleaned her gash as best i could with distilled water and a dishrag… the best i could come up with.  i used my own surgical stapler and we stapled that thing up with lots of expensive, precious, non-reusable staples.  i was sweaty and uncomfortable the whole time- it’s hard to overcome raging heartburn to bend over your fat belly so you can reach a dog on the floor.  i don’t have a suitable table for surgery nor do i have a surgical light so we did the deed on the front porch where the light is best.  

ginger is running around today so i guess my dear staples went to good use.  my next patient will be knocked out for such shenanigans because mr. patel has an order coming for me.  he never once asked to see any documents proving i was a doctor.

Well, I guess all good things must come to an end. And while we have learned more about ourselves  than them in being owners, it’s time for someone else to reap the benefits of ‘raising cattle’. It was a fun project all in all. Even in times like this_we_enjoyed being  ‘cattle baron’s’. But still, I’ve convinced my dear cowboy husband that I’d rather be ‘cattle barren’. So, the boss said “let’em go”. Let’em go means haul them to the auction where they are bringing just about a dollar a pound right now. Don’t worry. Remember they’re all girls. We don’t eat cows. We eat steers (boys). So off to the breeding farm for these ladies. They’ll be happy little campers dropping a calf every other year or so.

When I say movin on, I mean it. Remember we’ve got a new project on the horizon. It’ll be here next weekend. Signed sealed and delivered by our trusty US government. That wild mustang needs the pasture that the cows have been on, and we can’t do both, so something had to give. Besides, we’ve been thinking about a Llama for our seven year old so we really need to free up that pasture space . . . but if that thing even looks like it MIGHT spit at me, we’re having Llama burgers . . . I have no sympathy for an animal that chews tobacco.

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .

Oh boy. If what I just heard from Bill Kristol at “The_Weekly_Standard” is true, McCain might just ought to get his resume in order for something a little different. Maybe shop around for an ice cream truck or something. . . . Colin Powell . . . to endorse Obama? No . . . no . . . no . . . I wanted him to run for president as a REPUBLICAN! After all, he IS a republican! Has the world gone mad?

Now, the real nightmare will begin if that’s just rumor, and the real story is that Powell gets tapped as Obama’s veep. Stranger things have happened & it’s not impossible. As a matter of fact I once wondered out loud if Hillary was going to the dance with John McCain . . .

Crash, tell me it’s a bad dream . . . somebody please wake me up . . .

Amidst all this chaos . . . God loves me . . .