A couple times a day, every day, the church plays a hymn or two on their carillon system. Some of the hymns I recognize as traditional Christian hymns, and some I don’t recognize at all.

This afternoon I heard the tune from “Morning Has Broken” made popular by Cat Stevens. I was talking with my neighbor at the time (we were complaining about the lack of rainfall we were experiencing) and he started to laugh saying that it was funny that a Presbyterian Church was playing a song by a Muslim (referring to the fact that Cat Stevens is now a declared Muslim and goes by the name, Yusef Islam). Cat’s original name is Steve Georgiou.

I had to break it to my neighbor that Cat didn’t write the song. The song was originally a hymn and was first published in 1931. It has words by English author Eleanor Farjeon and is set to a traditional Gaelic tune known as “Bunessan” (no, I didn’t know that last sentence off the top of my head – I had to look it up to confirm it).

To the best of my knowledge, Cat was not a Muslim at the time of the recording.

Below is an embedded video of the hymn (sung by Cat Stevens aka Steve Georgiou aka Yusef Islam). An interesting tidbit, Rick Wakeman (of YES fame) does the piano opening for the song but never was paid for his studio efforts and never acknowledged on the credits of the original album.

According to other sites, the General is not really a general but he is an activist.  He walked with Martin Luther King, has been honored by the city of Atlanta, and the Georgia legislature has honored the man. September 4, 2001 was designated as Larry Platt Day in Atlanta.

From the Georgia General Assembly:

05 LC 98 0343
House Resolution 286
By: Representatives Morgan of the 39th, Brooks of the 63rd, Thomas of the 55th, Abdul-Salaam of the 74th, Orrock of the 58th, and others

A RESOLUTION

Commending Larry Platt for his priceless and immeasurable contributions to society; and for other purposes.

WHEREAS, for the past 40 years, Larry Platt has given of himself in service to the people of the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia, and the nation; and

WHEREAS, Larry Platt merits the highest recognition for his many valuable contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and his dedication to the struggle for equality and human rights; and

WHEREAS, beginning in 1963, Larry Platt worked diligently with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which was established to help organize student sit-ins and to fight segregation in restaurants and other public places; and

WHEREAS, Larry Platt, a student of the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., experienced raw violence when he was beaten while attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the historic march from Selma to Montgomery on Bloody Sunday; and

WHEREAS, Larry Platt’s leadership and dedication was again clearly reflected in his faithful and loyal commitment to the United Youth Adult Conference search efforts, which organized volunteers to search for missing and murdered children in the Metropolitan Atlanta area; and

WHEREAS, September 4, 2001, was proclaimed “Larry Platt Day” in the City of Atlanta, and it is highly fitting and proper that this body recognize the significant contributions of this esteemed man.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES that the members of this body join in commending Larry Platt for his great energy and

commitment to equality and the protection of the innocent and for his outstanding service to the Atlanta community and the citizens of Georgia.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Clerk of the House of Representatives is authorized and directed to transmit an appropriate copy of this resolution to Mr. Larry Platt.

After all, when we have Congressman yelling “You lie!” during a Presidential address to the joint session of Congress, why would we expect a dumb rapper to have better manners?

Of course, hats off to the beautiful Beyonce for giving up some of her time to honor Ms. Swift.  She has shown the world that she has class (and Kanye and Representative Joe Wilson are classless).

I have an idea!

• If you are in South Carolina – don’t vote for Joe Wilson and donate generously to his opponent
• If you want to listen to music – buy something from Taylor Swift or Beyonce
• Don’t EVER buy something from Kanye West.

It is only with the power of our purse and our vote that we will teach leaders, dignitaries, and public personalities that we hold them to a standard that our mothers would have taught them.

There are a variety of gadget sites that talk about the deals available at BestBuy (see here and here). The forums are split as to buying the warranty (here and here) but Apple doesn’t have a great track record on iPods and the BestBuy warranty has replaced 3 separate iPods for my family over the years so we think it is a good deal.

So when my youngest son wanted a new iPod Touch to replace his nano, it was natural for us to go to BestBuy. He was ecstatic when he opened the gift and it was plugged into the family computer within minutes.  Imagine his disappointment when his brand new Touch had pre-2.0 software on it and iTunes wanted him to upgrade for only $9.95!  This OS upgrade was announced almost a year ago.

I wouldn’t have been too upset except for four issues:

1. this same thing happened when my daughter bought her iPod Touch 9 months ago and we had to fight BestBuy for a resolution
2. if we had bought the unit from Apple, it would have had the latest software (according to the Apple customer support person when we dealt with this issue on my daughter’s iPod)
3. because of the experience with my daughter’s iPod, we had asked the BestBuy sales person upon purchase if it had the latest OS and was assured that it did (I am not sure why I trust a young man that still is suffering from teenage acne though)
4. the rude treatment that I received on the BestBuy support call

I have already written to BestBuy complaining about their support call as well as their shady service.  But they don’t get off that easy.  I am also going to complain here.

I have no quibbles about the software not being up to date for a product that is shrinkwrapped and unopened.  I fully understand that BestBuy is buying their Apple products by the truckload (or container load) and that some of these may sit on the shelf past an upgrade.  However, they should be clearly marked as having the old OS and there should be an automatic coupon printed at the time of purchase to allow the consumer to upgrade the unit. The unsuspecting consumer should not be penalized for BestBuy getting a great deal from Apple because they bought a million iPods at once.

I almost wonder if this is a plan by Apple and BestBuy to lure some unsuspecting consumers to pay for the upgrade to the new OS even though they are legally entitled to that upgrade for free.

So what was the resolution?  The same as it was for my daughter’s iPod.  I called BestBuy, complained, and told them we would be returning the unit if they didn’t make this right.  After a bit of grief that was inexcusable for customer service rep, they promised to send me a $10 BestBuy card to cover the out of pocket cost for the upgrade.

BESTBUY SHOULD AUTOMATICALLY GIVE OUT COUPONS TO COVER THE COST OF UPGRADING TO THE CURRENT VERSION OF OPERATING SYSTEM!

Lesson learned for any readers out there: check the OS on your iPod Touch that was recently purchased from BestBuy. If you need to upgrade to a current OS then call BestBuy for a gift card to cover the cost.  Don’t pay for the upgrade yourself!

ipod touch, best buy, current release, warranty, bad service, Apple

It is also difficult to grade individual events because they are so intertwined (Libya, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Al Qaida, Palestine, Syria are all different variations of the same problem).  That said – here are my thoughts on the 19 things that GW did (or didn’t do):

9/11 – Bush got an A for this. Massive aid to NYC (that the Dem Senators asked for but he said yes immediately), spoke to nation well and told them not to overreact.  Was calm and reassuring in a time of near panic.  Reorganized airport security quite quickly.  Reorganized CIA/FBI, et. al. to get them to work together (probably give him a B/C on that since he could have done more).  Told Americans to do EXACTLY what was needed – go shop and get on with your lives.  By the way, Mr. Clinton gets an F for this since it was under his watch that these guys were recruited, the plan was established, the people were brought in, individuals were trained to operate planes.  The intelligence network was messed up and Clinton took steps to make it WORSE.  Check out how bad things were that GW inherited before condemning him on this issue. .  Many of our current problems with terrorism are because Clinton did such a lousy job!  According to that article, Clinton passed on going after Osama Bin Laden (OBL) 16 times and yet some cite that Bush hasn’t been able to find OBL as him doing a bad job.  We were handed OBL by the Sudanese and we turned them down and were happy they sent him to Afghanistan!

Anthrax – W gets an A for the reaction to the various attacks.  The fact that they didn’t catch the guy and execute him before he died was more of an issue of our legal system and burden of proof (something we don’t apply to foreign terrorists thankfully).

Afghanistan invasion – A – decisive and complete.  Called on the leaders to hand over OBL and when they didn’t he overran the country in a matter of days.  Tremendous statement to the world on our ability to extend our power.

Afghanistan occupation – D – some would say he gets an F here but that isn’t fair.  A lot of good things have happened along with a lot of bad.  In general women have more rights and religious persecution isn’t quite so bad.  The President that we selected is still in power (and alive) but the insurgents are stronger now (I have seen rumors that this is because Russia doing to us what we did to them in the 80s) and political calm is not in place.  There is no reason to believe that the current President could step down and there would be a smooth and orderly transition to a new President.  W can’t get better than a D here because it hasn’t gone better but giving him less is not a fair assessment of what has gone well.

Al Qaida – C – he got most of the leaders save for 2.  The problem is that in order to prevent the regrowing of terrorist organizations it takes more than capturing people but re-educating people and giving them a reason not to hate.  He pretty much has these guys neutralized as a world player in about 6 months until the Iraqi resistance aligned with them. Which leads to the next one.

Preventing terrorism – C – no attacks at home which he gets an A for but the reason there are no attacks at home is that the terrorists are much more likely to have little skirmishes in Iraq and Israel so he really just transfered the problem over there and he probably has created more reasons to be a terrorist in his term than even Clinton did.  So he effectively protected America but the world at large is worse off by his actions.  Also, he gave terrorist sponsors a real wake up call in his actions with Afghanistan – don’t mess with the US.

More on this topic later!

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Bush+worst+President, POTUS, President+ranking

I have listened to Ms. Crow’s latest CD several times. It is titled “Detours”. It is an apt title since it is a detour from her usual high quality work! I feel like the Democratic Party, Al Gore, and Laurie David have been injected into my brain via my ears! To think that I spent $15 for a CD of political propaganda.

I have no problem with the occasional activism song. I actually applaud this even when I don’t particularly agree with the message. For instance, Matchbox Twenty’s recent video “How Far We’ve Come” (see the bottom of this post to watch the video) is absolutely a political statement and it is excellent (I am not sure that the ending of showing Mr. Gore, Ms. Clinton, and Mr. Obama is a statement to the positive after watching the fall of the Berlin Wall but maybe that is their point).

Thankfully, Ms. Crow has put the lyrics to her songs in the CD package. I appreciate that gesture and she has regularly done this for her listeners. However, the words that she is portraying are over the top. Does she really know for a fact that the President was lying to get into a war? When I want to listen to someone exaggerate the truth, I will watch Al Gore’s movie since the British courts have already called that a political document.

Sheryl (and other artists) should limit her political statements to one or two well done messages and then spend the rest of the CD entertaining me. That is what I am paying her to do.

SHERYL – I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOUR POLITICS! I WANT YOU TO ENTERTAIN ME, NOT LECTURE ME ON YOUR OPINIONS!

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

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The why is simple. WMA is the format that many companies (e.g. Yahoo) use in their stores to sell music. WMA is developed by Microsoft and it is a competitor. Is it a better sounding format? For the most part, no it is not – the formats are essentially tied in audio capability for the average listener and the average audio speakers.

So it is a competitive issue. Apple makes the best device on the market with something like 90% market share. They don’t like Microsoft, so they don’t play nice to Microsoft. It definitely is not a revenue issue for selling songs on iTunes since at 99 cents per song, Apple isn’t making a lot of money on the songs. They do make a bunch of money for every iPod that is sold though.

They can still have iTunes be the pre-eminent way of managing your audio and video collection by supporting WMA. I even bet there is code within Cupertino somewhere that has iTunes playing WMA.

Hey Apple: Allow WMA on your iPods!! This doesn’t make any business sense! And while you are at it, allow other companies to license AAC to play on their devices – once again this will promote your iTunes product and store.

I am done with this topic for now but I reserve the right to rant more on it someday.

I spend a lot of time listening to audio. I drive a great deal in my car so I regularly hook up my iPod to my car stereo to listen to music, audible books, and podcasts. I have owned a lot of different portable music devices over the years and the iPod is by far the best designed. At its basic level, it supports AAC, MP3 and WAV format. It doesn’t, however, support WMA. Why?

Why can’t all portable audio devices play all formats? Why can’t my iPod play WMA? Why can’t my daughter’s Creative Zen play AAC?

This makes no sense.

More on this topic later…