Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye- Steam 1969

I'm sure you've noticed things have been a little slow this week...seems that way across the entire blogosphere. Maybe the economic slowdown has had a trickle down effect on musing and colorful commentaries, or maybe I just needed to fill a little more space...we may never know.

But...you are in for a treat. In honor of one of my favorite blogger's 300th post, I'm linking to Lulaville (just click on her header image). If you are not a reader of the Lula...you should be! She is often feisty and always funny.

My Friday gift to you...enjoy:

Happy 300th Lula...I'm looking forward to the next 300.

The song commemorates the ending of the 'Love Month'...(small tear)...I'm really a romantic at heart.

Gotta Serve Somebody- Bob Dylan 1979

Wiley-Blackwell, a major academic publisher, is recalling copies of Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization and scrapping the print run after critics said the entries were "too Christian" and "too anti-Muslim."

A fellow blogger, AtlantaMama, turned me on to the story of a Christian Encyclopedia being recalled by the publisher for being 'too Christian.' Ahem...excuse me?

You can read the entire report on Christian Post here.

A summation for you folks too extraordinarily busy to actually read online news articles (said with an eye roll...Z), the four-volume set was published for the academic world under the title Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization by Wiley-Blackwell and edited by George Kurian. But after a small group of critics, mostly from college and university staffs, reviewed the books...

"They determined that the Introduction and many of the entries were 'too Christian, too orthodox, too anti-secular and too anti-Muslim and not politically correct enough for being used in universities," said the encyclopedia’s editor, George Thomas Kurian, sounding angry in an e-mail sent last week to nearly 400 contributors.

Things have obviously changed in higher education since my undergraduate days. I distinctly remember hearing lectures and reading textbooks about Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Khan and the atrocities each man imposed on millions. There were no 'academic concerns' about anti-German, anti-Slavic or anti-Asian biases. Education was about truth, getting to the truth, or understanding truism. Not once while studying of Buddha, Muhammad or even the Spanish Inquisitions did I become offended by the antithetical element when compared with my own convictions. Ultimately, learning about a diverse number of philosophies (even from their perspective) only strengthened my belief system...which teaches me the belief of others is irrelevant to my own salvation...thus God's incredible gift of free will. If you want to worship an elm tree...don't let me stop you. But that's another blog all together.

So a collection of Christian historical facts needs editing (read censored) to be more politically and socially friendly...to be less Christian...to be more favorable to Islam and Jews...to be more balanced. Not the facts from the perspective of Christian history...the sanitized quasi-facts. What's next, a collection of Jewish historical facts that can't include mean words about Nazis or Muslims...no wait...Iran denies the Holocaust already...so I guess Muslims get their own set of historical facts...no wait...Sunnis and Shiites don't agree on...no wait...aren't there 73 different sects of Islam? Libraries are going to need to be a lot bigger.

What gets edited next for Christians?

That 2012 prediction about the end of the world is looking better each passing day...

Still Crazy After All These Years- Paul Simon 1975

I've been sorta hateful this week...so I'm told (Don't blog angry!)...and I apologize. To make up for my odious behavior, I give you quite possibly the funniest video on Tangle (what was GodTube).

Be sure to watch to the 2 minute point...it's worth the suffering...believe me.



*Disclaimer- This was produced by The Way International who claim Christian followings yet don't believe Jesus is God. They are...(read 'cult' here)...unique, so don't feel guilty about laughing. Besides, I'm a God fearing, Holy Trinity believing, Jesus loving Christian... and you'd sure laugh if it were me in the blue suit!

Street Fighting Man- Rolling Stones 1968

I'm about to say something that's contradictory behavior for someone who takes great effort at being a living acronym (WWJD)...so mom, please stop reading now.

I would like to meet...just once...regardless of the circumstances that must transpire in order for me to be face to face with...the single person responsible for more turpitude and anguish on more people... more than any other person in human history with the exception of Hitler, and maybe Caligula...I would like to meet this person.

I would like to meet...for completely selfish, self-serving reasons...the one person that has caused near everyone, from saintly Sunday School teachers to heinous perpetrators, cursing tirades at a common aggravating appliance bonding most of our lives together.

I would like to meet...with complete understanding of all consequence to follow...the person so ostentatiously arrogant... as to completely infiltrate and destroy our routine intentions of honor and productivity (and throw in some entertainment)... for his sheer purpose of grandstanding and profiteering.


I would like to meet...



I'd punch him square in the mouth.

Yes...I'd be making some new friends at local lock-up and then even more upon reaching my new abode at the Big House...but I'd be the hero of millions. My 15 minutes of fame turned 15 to 20 years with good behavior would be well worth the satisfaction of knowing... I, Tony C Today, was the Rosa Parks of ultimate-geek pummeling.

Maybe I'd get a new operating system named after me...one that doesn't crash every time a non-Microsoft product is plugged into the computer.

Attila the Hun didn't rule this ruthlessly over his empire.

Dream Weaver- Gary Wright 1976

I'm really trying to follow words of wisdom from George Bush I and be a 'kinder, gentler' blogger, but it just doesn't seem to be in me. Anyone who could write a blog about their dear beloved grandmother and still manage sarcasm and a contemptuous tone...it's just inconceivable and shameful...and shamed I am. My defense is lame, but one I'm sure anyone not living in an isolated cave somewhere can probably relate. It's the blasted mainstream media making me jaded and mean!

Remember, I've resolved to receive my daily news from a source other than Yahoo's main page, which also happens to be my browser home page. Why...you ask? Well, it seems scientist have dubbed us 'creatures of habit,' and no amount of pharmaceutical therapy or self-help workbooks will ever change what we are...so deal with it! You are what you are...or it is what it is...or you can't teach an old dog...for Pete's sake... or whatever in the cliche handbook fits best here!

See what I mean. Just the simplest task of elementary sentence formation sets me off these days. What have I become...what have I become. It all started with talk radio some years back. You see, I was in perfect bliss cruising year after year on this rock around the sun watching the evening news with Dan Rather or reading the USA Today for my national and world news. Occasionally, I would pompously venture out to more grandiose sources like MacNeil/Lerner and the Wall Street Journal, but I found the shortage of commercialization unsettling and the information overly concentrated. After all, CBS was always there to say...




But I digress...

Finally the awakening occurred..a metamorphoses of informational processing. The genesis was talk radio. The Rush rush of the 1990's was parlayed with easier access to the information superhighway or world wide web created by fellow Tennessean Al Gore. Soon, I was discovering that maybe Dan Rather wasn't so forthright with his information and underneath the veil of assumed integrity surrounding the main stream media was a hidden agenda...to lie to the American people about virtually everything.

Thank you Rush, Sean, and you sick, twisted freak Glenn. Thank you Red State Update, Drudge Report and anncoulter.com. My eyes are now opened. My bomb shelter is nearly finished. My family is better prepared for the certain national armageddon on the horizon with a bla... I mean Democrat/liberal president in the White House. I'm no longer an injudicious follower of the bogus mainstream media. Free at last, free at last...no wait...that might sound too liberal. My chains have...no...that's too churchy. Ann Coulter is my hero and the greatest author of our time! Yeah, that sounds about right. She's such a nice lady and completely understated.

Many of you with the sharpest deductive reasoning skills might have noted the irony of my blog being called Tony C Today. In honor of the USA Today...which could just as easily be called News Lite in Color...I named my blog and try to fall in the shadow...no, follow in the footsteps...that sounds stupid...oh $@&% and >#%*?...great! There goes my stinkin' blood pressure! Why is English so flipping difficult! Spanish isn't that...gasp...please forgive me for even thinking that.

Oh well, I need to go work in my Be A Less Cynical You in 30 Days workbook anyway. Have a nice day everyone. I feel so much calmer remembering I'm conservative.

For What It's Worth- Buffalo Springfield 1967

"You're carrying high, so your baby will be born on a Tuesday and have freckles..."

Mamaw Tony C to pregnant Mrs. Tony C in 2007

I love my grandmother. She will be 95 glorious years old this June...'Lord willin.' Being from the South, she is affectionately referred to as Mamaw. Now that's a funny name to people not from here, but no more peculiar than 'Meme' or 'Nene' is to most Southerners. She's part of the greatest generation in modern history. Lived through wars, a global depression and a standard of living people today would declare third world.

Many of the things I've learned in my life can be directly attributed to my grandmother, however, she has also been the source of much misinformation. Allow me to explain...

From an early age, I listened to her counsel and took it in without contentions.

'Don't eat those watermelon seeds, you'll grow one in your stomach.'

'Don't cross your eyes! They'll get stuck like that.'

'You get back inside with that wet hair! You'll catch your death!'

How could anyone argue with such sound advise. Better yet...how could anyone argue with her... about anything. My grandmother, even to this day, has the innate aptitude for hearing what she wants, when she wants...and only when it agrees with her opinion on the matter.

I love my grandmother. I have many fond memories of growing up in the house right next to her. As a matter of fact, here's one:

While working in the little garden behind our house one teen-aged summer day, my focus was interrupted by the sound of my grandmother shouting scripture...or pieces and blurbs of scripture, in a rather angered fashion. Naturally, I was perplexed and investigated. What I witnessed was a scene torn directly from the comic strip BC, as my grandmother repeatedly whacked a helpless, misguided black snake with a baseball bat we had left in her yard from a Sunday's game.

'Get thee'...whack...'behind me'...whack... 'Satan! I will'...whack...'bruise'...whack...'thy head'...whack

Rushing down to her, I somehow managed to get the bat away and avoid the receiving end of her wrathful swing. What I saw next was a sight that will never leave me...ever. That poor black snake of about 4 feet had been beaten so maliciously that the upper third of its body, including the head, look like a custom designed dinner plate you would find at the home of someone like Ozzie Osbourne or Marilyn Manson.

'You okay?'

'Take that snake and hang it on the fence over yonder...'

'Why would I do that?'

'Just do it! It will keep the other snakes away!'

'Mamaw...where'd you hear that?'

'It's in the Bible! Now do it!'

I bent over to pick up the poor flattened snake...'Don't touch that snake!'

'But you just told me...'

'That snake can still bite you until after sunrise tomorrow...'

'Mamaw, that snake ain't ever biting anything...'

'Don't tell me...it's in the Bible.'

Now, we all know there isn't a passage in the Bible about makeshift snake wards or afterlife snake biting, and through the years, I've mentally filed those along with her other Bible misquotes like 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' and 'To thine ownself be true' (which I believe actually comes from an episode of Gilligan's Island). I would never call my beloved grandmother out on any of these...it would serve no useful purpose.

I believe (or hope) God overlooks such trivially random matters too. In fact, we really don't give Him enough of the credit He deserves...and He deserves it all. Penicillin isn't mentioned in the Bible, yet God gave Alexander Fleming the talent to develop the wonder drug. Now, I'm by no means advocating or even suggesting that matters of a vial, vulgar origin should be attributed to God Almighty, but proverbs or axioms that promote stronger moral value do have purpose. We just have to be cautious and never cross an authoritative line that conflicts with God's actual word.

Okay, snake related issues don't really fall in the 'stronger moral values' or 'changing mankind for the better' categories...but I do love my grandmother.

Don't Stop Believing- Journey 1981

US Airways Flight 1549
January 15, 2009

It's been almost a month since Captain Sully Sullenberger jumped onto our computer and television screens and became one of the most recognized faces on the planet. Capt. Sully and the other four crew members aboard Flight 1549 are national heroes...and rightfully so.

I remember the buzz around the office that Thursday as news broke of a plane going down in New York. Naturally, I flashed back to that Tuesday morning in September 2001...dear God...I prayed to myself...please not again.

What did transpire was an absolute miracle. A miracle that eventuated over the course of a man's 19,000 hour flying career. A miracle that put Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III in the right place, at the right time, and saved 155 lives...and quite possibly the spirit of an entire nation.

Our country would have been very heavily burdened of news from a different outcome that day. I believe it would have been even more excruciating given the dark cloud hanging low over us all, but especially New Yorkers...at the world's financial center. The loss of any life, let alone 155 or more had the plane fallen into the city's streets, could have profoundly ruptured the heart of American will. A resolve that has brought us through so many hardships, battles and disasters to remain the light of worldly hope encouraging all people, all places that yes, you can persevere...if you just put your heart into it.

But that's not how the story ended. Instead, our spirit was reaffirmed that day by a simple, modest man with tremendous skill and unshakable professionalism. Five people put duty ahead of self in the freezing waters splitting New York City that Thursday and saved 150 other people from an almost certain tragic death...and quite possibly saved the soul of a nation too.

God bless the crew of Flight 1549, the passengers who didn't panic, the rescue teams almost immediately on the scene, and...

...God bless our country. Let us never forget You and the miracles You provide in our daily lives.

Praise You in This Storm- Casting Crowns 2005

How can something so small cause so much trouble?

My blog is most personal today. It's a praise blog. A shout of appreciate to our loving God above. I have so much to be thankful for overall, and my daily prayers most always start with that acknowledgment. I'm blessed with a wonderful family, loving friends, an awesome church, a great job and most importantly the peace that only a life in Christ can bring. A close personal relationship that gives me the opportunity to talk to the God above all. But today...well this date is very special to me, and today I'm especially thankful to my Lord.

It was 5 years ago today I heard the words that I wish no one ever had to hear, despite the awesome feeling of joy and relief they bring when you do hear them. Words that bring feelings so turbulent, it often takes days, even weeks, to sink into your consciousness. It was February 7, 2004 when I heard the words coming from my doctor...you're cancer free.

My battle with hairy-cell leukemia was intense and short lived. I was lucky, and I'm grateful to God that my family didn't have to endure a long, drawn out battle watching me slowly go to my Creator. I was prepared if it did happen and knew spiritually and emotionally I could weather well, but how would everyone around me do? I had made my peace with all the thinks going on in my life at that time. I didn't know what the future held for me here in this life, but I had the security of knowing no matter what, even in the worst case scenario, God would be with me every step of the way.

People treat you different when they know you are sick. That's why I chose not to tell anyone about my cancer until I knew what I was up against, and by that time, the battle was (for the most part) over. I had other lingering problems, but none that were fatal in consequence like my battle against cancer. There's a psychological struggle that goes on well after the cancer is gone, but nothing like the isolation and helplessness that happens while you wage the fight to get better. No, I didn't suddenly feel like running a marathon on that February day five years ago, but the relief of knowing that I didn't have to tell my future wife, my daughter and the rest of my family that I might be dying soon...all I can say is praise God. Thank you Lord.

I went through some pretty tough times of a different nature in the following two years, but I know in my heart that God let me live for a reason. His reason. My prayer is that He will someday show me know why. I also know that He was with me through it all. He loves me, He cares for me, He watches over me...just like you.

I will never truly be cancer free, but that's okay. I hope God let's me grow old with my beautiful, loving wife. I hope He let's me watch my girls graduate college and someday marry (in that order). I hope God let's me hold my grandchildren. But today, I just praise God and thank Him for the past five years.

May He bless you as He has me...in only ways that He can.

What a Fool Believes- Doobie Brothers 1979

Yours truly has a big anniversary coming up Saturday. It's an anniversary I hope none of you have to celebrate, but one that I'm most thankful to God for. February 7th is my 5 year anniversary of being cancer free. Praise God!

I'm planning a celebratory blog on Saturday, so today I'm going in a different direction. You see, because of my anniversary date, I got the pleasure this week of going for a visit with my physician. Not my oncologist, mind you, just my good old run-of-the-mill doctor who usually tells me I'm too fat and need to give up sodas. My last visit, however, was not so routine.

After the obligatory weighing and charting to provide later ammunition for the face-to-face, the nurse cuffs me up for a blood pressure reading and starts with the series of probing questions vital for any accurate medical examination.

Nurse: 'Have you had any unexplained or unexpected falls since your last visit?'

Tony C: 'Hmmm, none that I didn't plan ahead of time or clearly seen coming...what with toys always on the floor at my house with a 1 year old running around.'

Nurse (unamused): 'So that's a no?'

Tony C: 'Safe to say.'

He jabs the thermometer in my mouth rather roughly, and the blood pressure cuff begins to inflate around my left arm. I've yet to make eye contact with the nurse because for some reason he refuses to look me in the face. Hey...I didn't weigh that much!

Pssssst. The cuff deflates. 'Oh my. Let me do that again,' he says and reinflates the cuff. I couldn't see the monitor, but I watched him write down the time and 192/125. What! No way!

'Try to relax, go to your happy place, and I'll take this again.'

Relax! Happy place! I'm on the doorstep of a stroke and Gaylord Focker here is wanting me to relax. The cuff reinflates. Happy place...happy place...breathe deep...happy place...just where in the heck IS my happy place!

Psssssst. The cuff deflates again....194/126. Oh God...this is it Elizabeth...I'm coming to join you and Fred!

'We have a problem. Wait right here.' My first instinct was to go ahead and start undressing for some reason. But I resisted and tried to focus on the problem at hand. Hey, I beat cancer...I'm not letting a regular diet that includes Twinkies take me out. In comes my doctor...

'Mr. C, have you taken your blood pressure medicine today?'

'Yes ma'am.'

'Are you unusually stressed about anything today?'

Now my mind was racing through a number of irritations that chap me raw from my recent rants about the New Age nonsense, to another trillion dollar plan...trillion dollars! That's like 32,000 years in seconds, and Oprah, that idiot Blagojevich and Hamas! Oh don't even get me started on that bunch of...

'No ma'am.'

'Well, I have no choice but send you to the Emergency Room. We've got to get your blood pressure down immediately.'

Well that's just great. The ER...the most inept place on the planet for a quasi-medical emergency. I immediately assessed my appendix had a 50/50 chance of staying with me. For some odd reason, that seems to be the end result of most all ER visits...something's got to be taken out to make you better.

For your sake, I'll fast forward over an hour that includes an argument about me riding in a wheelchair, not having my cellphone and all the administrative pish posh... and get to me, in a dark room trying to relax and thinking about a recent blog I read that referenced a favorite Seinfeld episode featuring Frank Costanza and 'Serenity Now!' So...I'm laughing to myself.

Another hour, several calls with a very irritated Mrs. Tony C Today (who was none too happy I didn't have my cellphone) and a bag of medicated intravenous fluids, I'm on my way out the door with literally a poke full of medications and instructions. 142/96. Still not good...but apparently releasable by current medical liability standards.

When I finally get home and empty the contents of the brown paper bag onto our kitchen counter, there are no fewer than 6 bottles. My wife, who was absolutely beside herself and torn between worry and aggravation, lines each bottle up and we proceed to read the labels.

Take twice a day for BP...Take once in morning for BP...Do not crush, something, something Potassium...Take twice a day for fluid...Take twice a day for nerves...

Dear Lord...I'm officially old. I know I've heard my 94 year old grandmother refer to her 'tassium, fluid and nerve pills a hundred times if I've heard it once. Now, I was looking at all three...for me...and I'm 50 years younger to almost the day.

'I'm not taking a nerve pill! Just what the heck is that?'

'You'll take what they gave you to take! Who are you to go and decide what you will and what you won't...'

'THAT right THERE is why I have high blood pressure! Telling me what I...I'm a grown man...'

'Now you wait right there Krispy Kreme boy. You're not blaming this on me. That's not fair. I try to take care of you, but you...you do what you want...forgetting the consequences, me, your daughters!'

Man, I really hate it when she's right...but I love her like no other.

So here I am. Cancer survivor of 5 years. Survived car wrecks, parachute jumps, deep water SCUBA, being stabbed, shot at and a number of other tomfooleries that should have laid me waste many times over. Humbled by my obsession for golden sponge cake, creme-filled pastries.

As of today, my blood pressure is much better, and I've decided to eat much healthier...but... between you and me...I'm still not taking that stinking nerve pill...whatever that is.

Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkle 1970

The New Energy Bible
1st Edition cost $20











I really didn't want to start the Love Month with a scathing rant about New Agers and their straight from Fantasyland psychobabble message that 'it's a small world, after all' only if you want it that way because YOU control the universe...but what the heck....here we go.

In the event someone, somewhere reading this post thinks- 'this crap is just too wacky to actually be real,' I've created a link that goes straight to The New Energy Bible web page. Read for yourself and discover people are paying $20 plus shipping and handling for a bible/book that contains 238 pages on which the first and only the first page contains the words 'You Are God Also.' The remaining 237 pages are blank...that's right...blank pages.

Why? One may ask...what's the point? You, my friend, by asking this question are very astute, in tuned... or is it aligned...maybe aware...enlightened...that's it...enlightened! You are an enlightened being ready for the mothership. The pages are blank 'because no man, woman, or church can ever tell you how to live.'




New Age in a nutshell...complete with the nuts.

Here's a much better offer. Send me your address via email, and I'll send you a real Book of Wisdom absolutely free...no strings attached. It's the Book that will change your life here and now...and also make an eternal difference.



One disclaimer...the Book has already been written, canonized and followed for thousands of years by billions of people...so there aren't any blank pages for you to amend in your own thoughts and rules...sorry.