“A kiss is still a kiss” – Wait, do chicken kisses count? 4

Ah, Louis Armstrong singing “As Time Goes By”. There was a great voice for the ages. But the most famous rendition of the song As Time Goes By came from an obscure little movie filmed at the beginning of the Second World War called Casablanca with a couple of big name stars filmed seventy years ago. Anyone unfamiliar with this legendary movie lyric must either be from a third world country without late night television or Mars.

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Ask most people who sang the song and they will probably fall back on Louis. There were actually many versions of Herman Hupfeld’s 1931 song including one by Rudee Vallee’s version which was re-released to coincide with the success of Casablanca.

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The gentleman who actually sang this tune for the morose Humphrey Bogart and moist-eyed Ingrid Bergman at Rick’s Cafe Americain amid the bleak WWII backdrop was 56-year-old Arthur “Dooley” Wilson, an African-American actor and singer who earned a comfortable niche for himself in film history with this simple, dramatic, piano-playing scene.

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Dooley was only paid about 350 dollars a week for his role. But he achieved almost universal acclaim for all of the ages for crafting that role. Interestingly enough, he did not play piano and his scenes had to be dubbed. Also, as most people know from trivia games, Bogart never actually said “Play it again Sam”

When Ilsa first enters the Café Americain, she spots Sam and asks him to “Play it once, Sam, for old times’ sake.” After he feigns ignorance, she responds, “Play it, Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By’.” Later that night, alone with Sam, Rick says, “You played it for her, you can play it for me,” and “If she can stand it, I can! Play it!”

You must remember this
A kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by
And when two lovers woo
They still say, “I love you”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by

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Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate

That no one can deny
it’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Wait, what???

Woman needs man and man must have his mate? This coming from Hollywood elites?

Well, it was a different time after all. The premise of that movie was the glorification of liberty and freedom in the face of would be tyrants. Tyrants were people who wanted to squelch freedom of speech and thoughts. The actors also spouted off things about traditional values and such. Can you imagine such a film being filmed today? Even the ending was corny… Rick doing the right thing by returning the love of his life to her husband.

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I wonder what Casablanca would look like if it were filmed today in our culturally challenged society?

Rick would probably end up with Victor Laslo in a tent on a camping trip. Ilsa would end up in the arms of some female French refuge cutting her hair off in a protest against the male dominated society. Everyone would blame the Jews and George Bush for something. I can even see Harry Reid as the Gestapo captain though with a tight fitting black jacket with the collars up. I can almost hear him in that whiny little voice saying “Round up the usual suspects!”

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Mid way through the film, there could be a cameo appearance by Dan Cathy. His only line as he watched Roseanne Barr waddle in would be:

“Of all the chicken joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”

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Here’s looking at you kid. Unless of course that means looking at you and your insanely ugly life partner locking lips in front of a chicken sandwich store. As a young submarine mechanic, I found myself having to crawl into and clean excrement tanks from time to time. Given the choice, I’ll take the tank.

Mister Mac

Flash Update: Apparently MS Barr is running for President with Cindy Sheehan for the Peace and Freedom Party. Isn’t this a great country?


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/08/03/roseanne-barr-takes-new-run-at-white-house-joins-up-with-sheehan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fpolitics+%28Internal+-+Politics+-+Text%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

The Politics of Chicken 3

We left the house earlier this afternoon in an attempt to beat the dinner rush. So did a lot of other apparently very hungry people. Truthfully, I did not know where the restaurant was located other than some very vague description on the company website. We drove around for twenty minutes once we got in the general area and finally figured out that the location was in a mall we kept passing.

There were tons of cars outside. When we got into the mall, the line stretched all the way around the corner. It never slowed down and as we were leaving at the end of our meal, it was almost twice as long as when we first arrived. The people in the line were nice, polite and engaging. Many were anxious to talk about what brought them there. The common theme: Freedom. Freedom from elected officials condemning other people’s right to freely express their beliefs and convictions. Freedom from being bullied by an incredibly small minority with an incredibly big voice in the main stream media.

Some interesting observations:

  • It seemed pretty spontaneous and unorganized, yet everybody came for the same reasons. Why else would you stand for an hour or more in line for a sandwich?
  • There was no main stream media press present. I wonder how many will come to the planned protest on Friday to record the “Kiss In” meant to be disruptive to people’s livelihoods.
  • Everybody was polite and patient. Some were heard to say that even if they ran out of chicken, they would buy napkins to show their support.
  • At our location, there were signs and security guards that refused people permission to take pictures. If you got caught, you would first be asked to stop and second be escorted out. After a few hours, more security guards showed up to help.
  • The food was good and even on a day when I think we surprised the heck out of them, they did a great job keeping up. No short cuts, no smaller portions, just good plain honest food.

I already liked Chick-fil-A for the great comfort food they offer at a nice price. When I travel, I always keep an eye out for them. I will make it a point to use their website now when I do. Nice people with a great product. It doesn’t get much more American than that.

Back in the dark days of the first Depression, politicians that wanted people’s votes used to promise a chicken in every pot. I suppose the idea was that people were so hungry for a decent meal, they would vote for someone who gave them something to eat. Obama and his folks have been promising the equivalent gesture for three and a half years without telling you that it was your neighbor’s chicken you were being promised.

My vote this year involves chicken too.

I will vote for anyone who ensures that people who make a decent chicken sandwich have the freedom to openly compete for my business with honest food at a reasonable price without fear of some government hack threatening their ability to do so. In some ways, it seems sort of queer that in a time where jobs are scarce and the economy is barely holding on by a thread anyone would threaten a business owner for having a personal belief. We live near the country where large chicken farms provide food for some and work for others. On very hot summer days when we ride through the country near those farms, the smell reminds me of politicians that do that as I roll my window up as fast as I am able.

As we left the mall, I yelled out “God Bless America”. Lots of folks clapped.

Mister Mac

Note to the White House: There were a lot of people waiting to exercise their rights without government interference… I would suggest ya’ll sharpen up your resumes. Not a single person there had a good thing to say about the current administration.

But it was on the internet… they couldn’t put it on there if it wasn’t true could they? 1

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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" – Edmund Burke

Great quote!

Unfortunately Edmund Burke never actually said that…

  • The above is most likely a summary of the following quote in Burke’s "Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents": "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
    • Also attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville.

The internet has opened up a whole new world for all of us with access to it. We can reconnect with old friends, prepare for a meeting with fresh information, and bring back memories of a better time. Once upon a time, you would have to go to the library to gain access to so much information and even then you had to hope that your library would have the most current version of whatever source you required.

With progress however, comes opportunities for missteps and misunderstandings.

The ease with which people can add to the growing body of information and news is astounding. The fact that you are reading this means that just such an event took place. The ease that misinformation can be added to the public lexicon is also completely astounding. Let’s say you were to Google the words “Infamous quotes that were never actually said” you would instantly be directed to over 12,000,000 sites that cover one or all of those words.

As humans, we have something called selective hearing.

My wife accuses me of having a finely attuned sense of selective hearing. Often times, I will be in one room and she in another and we will suddenly find ourselves at odds over something that was not actually said. The same phenomenon can be said about the written word that results from not hearing a conversation correctly. People will often add value to a thing without checking to see if it is actually true. In the internet world, that happens almost daily.

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Truth is getting harder to find these days.

Maybe all this connectedness is just making all of us a bit crazy. Maybe the people who have so much to overcome for the rest of us to think they are normal just have more passion. After all, something that has been considered by many societies for thousands of years as kind of creepy and abnormal won’t suddenly become normal overnight. It will take the combined power of the media, the entire electronic internet community, social media and politicians seeking votes to completely convince us that something that is abnormal should be normal.

A good way to get your point home is attacking people with long held beliefs. If it so happens that those beliefs are attached to a deeply held conviction that an unseen God is in charge, the better the argument. Using words like bigot and small minded are not just inflammatory, they drive home the lack of “compassion” inside people who hold themselves up as compassionate. It doesn’t matter if its true or not, it falls into line with the age old question: When did you stop beating your wife?”

If you happen to be a member or supporting member of one of the groups that desires to change the way people think about a previously unaccepted abnormal “lifestyle” what better way than to attack someone in the public eye. Gather up all the people who marginally agree with you and launch the biggest barrage of false claims you can muster. It doesn’t matter if they are true or not, just keep slapping the crap out of them every chance you get. Eventually, in this schoolgirl way of getting your way, you will bully people into submission.

The cool girls are already out in force so there is no turning back now.

Until the next big target comes into view, the sisters will rage and rampage and gut the next person who tries to point out that the single quote they are operating on was NEVER ACTUALLY SAID.

The liberal church goers, the firebrand equality hordes and the folks who want to believe abnormal is normal are out with their knives drawn. People who I previously considered friends have been infected with the disease and now shun people like me as uninformed and undereducated. Hmm.

I am a simple man by nature that was a mechanic for most of my early working life.

As a mechanic, I recognized that certain things fit together for a purpose. As a submariner, I also recognized that you could make some things fit together if you wanted to but that didn’t mean they fit well or served any useful purpose. The best fit that served a purpose was always that which the Master planned. In his design, he made provisions for there to be many different devices for many different purposes. But to be held together in the best way, they should be by done so by design. The parts are there for a purpose and using them for any other purpose was just plain stupid. Frankly, on a submarine, doing so could make the boat sink.

I have spent the past few days contemplating having a chicken sandwich.

I like a good chicken sandwich and if it comes with some waffle fries and a cold Sweet Tea, it takes me back to a better place and time. My diet and my doctor wish me to limit those items now but the peasant in me says that the next time I see the familiar old sign with the “Eat more Chicken” cow on it, I am going to pull in and order a meal.

I don’t much care if any Christian bashing haters come or go to the restaurant.

I hate lines anyway and it always seems so crowded in those places. I do hope that this new crime of “being a Christian” doesn’t gain too much traction. Last time that happened, we had a lot of people hanging from trees up and down the roadside. Surely the people who hate us so wouldn’t resort to that again, would they? Those people who claim to be Christians who support the attacks will have some serious explaining to do about their views when the day comes. The God I worship is a lot more narrow minded than any person I have ever met when it comes to His laws.

Here is one last quote from an unknown source:

What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t witness with your mouth. ~ Jewish Proverb

It must be true. I found it on the internet.

Mister Mac

Can you read the writing on the wall? 1

How many times have you heard that statement in the past? Do you know where it comes from? Do you know what it really means?

Like so many stories down through the ages, it has taken on different authorship. The most probable original author comes from the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament. The Israelites had been in captivity for many generations and by the Fifth Chapter of Daniel, the rulers who had kept them in captivity had defied the God of Abraham one time too many.

The Babylonian leaders had understood something was different about these “People of the One God” from earlier generations. But they had never embraced that God and instead fell into the habit of mocking Him and defying His very being. After King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came another king even more profane. The backdrop of the story was that the Persians were slowly encircling his forces and he was running out of time and options. From Daniel 5:

“King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them.

While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the gold goblets that had been taken from the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines drank from them. As they drank the wine, they praised the gods of gold and silver, of bronze, iron, wood and stone.”

This was utterly profane in the eyes of even their enemies. These goblets were stolen from the Temple of Solomon and had been used to worship the God of Abraham for generations in ceremonies. For the leader of the most powerful country on earth to sink to such open defiance of another’s God was too much for his his enemies to suffer.

For me, it would be like someone who was the leader of a nation that had once claimed to be “One Nation Under God” celebrating the desecration of that nation’s firmly held beliefs

Sodomy would no longer be an abomination. Marriage as defined by God would no longer be sacred. Children that had been formed and known by God in their Mother’s Wombs would no longer be recognized as a sacred life and even the matter of death because of their sex would be protected by the new Belshazzar. Money would be spent from the treasuries of children not yet born in order to maintain his selfish position.

While some children suffered with not enough to eat, the Queen and her concubines hold grand parties and travel to all the corners of the earth. While some lose their houses, she spends their money on wild entertainment, exclusive rooms and resorts and endless meals of lobster and the finest foods. Their wine glasses would never be empty while others had to rob and steal to pay for their daily bread. She would dress in the finest raiments and her adoring followers would fawn over her both day and night while others shivered in makeshift shelters down by the rivers. Advice would flow from her lips like water only to become bitter and full of bile in their hypocrisy.

None of this is done in secrecy. Her slavish, adoring, and fawning followers celebrate her lavish defiance of those who pay for her greed and avarice. While preaching piety and suffering, she and her court suffer themselves nothing.

Countries that had been friends in the past would be insulted and denigrated by this stiff necked new “ruler”. His closest allies, including the Children of Israel would be counted amongst his enemies as he curried favor with those who joined him in denying the One True God. But Belshazzar would find that there was an eternal price for betraying that One True God.

A mysterious hand writes the following words on the wall where the revelers, drunk on their own self importance are able to watch:

מנא ,מנא, תקל, ופרסין

 

Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin

Of course, seeing the power of one greater than oneself in action and in the company of all the rulers cronies must have been earthshattering. None of Belshazzar’s magicians of agnostic followers could make and sense. So Daniel was sent for. In his ignorance, Belshazzar thought he could bribe Daniel for the interpretation.

Rejecting offers of reward, Daniel warns the king of the danger of his arrogant blasphemy before reading the text. The meaning that Daniel deciphers from these words is based on passive verbs corresponding to the measure names, “numbered, weighed, divided.”

And this is the writing that was inscribed: mina, mina, shekel, half-mina. This is the interpretation of the matter: mina, God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end; shekel, you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting; half-mina, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.- Daniel 5:25-28

That very night, Belshazzar receives his eternal reward and the kingdom is no more.

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Are we in yet another generation where we will see the hand writing on the wall?

Has the modern day Belshazzar who has openly defied God and the “One Nation Under God” done so  long enough for the One True God to have had enough?

“You have been weighed, you have been measured and you have been found wanting”

To the nation: Will you allow the Hand writing on the wall bring you low as well?

Mister Mac

Unrelated to the article but I was just curious… has anyone apologized to the People of Syria yet of our unquestionable support of the regime killing their children???

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Goin’ to the Chapel and We’re Gonna Get Married Reply

Goin’ to the Chapel and We’re Gonna Get Married.

 

Some interesting updates…. it seems theleansubmariner was ahead of it’s time …. AGAIN!!!!!

 

Aloha shipmates and friends.