Catching up

A couple of additions to earlier posts:

I commented in an earlier post that most songs need to have a rhyming refrain. The Led Zeppelin song "Rock and Roll," which I happened to hear on the radio the other day, is a perfect example of a song whose refrain does not need to rhyme. The virtuosity and excitement of the line "been a long lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time" carries it; to rhyme it would almost be painting the lily. (Since it's only one line, it's not clear how it could rhyme anyway, but that's another matter.) Few refrains can match it, however.

I have written previously (not on this blog) about churches with strange, non-identifying names, such as "The Rain Church" and "The Harvest Church" (both in Warner Robins, Georgia). I have since seen two more in Virginia, "The Rock Church" and "The Lighthouse Worship Center." The Rock Church has a cross on it, so I presume it is Christian of some variety (does "church" imply Christian?). I have no idea what the Lighthouse Worship Center is, however. It looks to me like they are deliberately trying to avoid being tied down to a particular faith by calling it a "worship center"; perhaps they're aiming for the deist crowd of people who think there is a God, but aren't quite sure whether He has written any holy books or given any directions on the best way to follow Him.

Finally, in a follow-up to my post on the end of the dollar store, I found a store in Greenbrier Mall (Chesapeake, VA) that answers my question of how they might deal with inflation: it is called "$5 & Below" and has much the same content as dollar stores.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Country Music

I noticed a long time ago that there isn't much difference between the sound of country music and rock music nowadays. If I'm surfing my radio and I come to a station playing jazz, classical, or rap, I recognize it right away; but if I come to a country or rock station, I often can't tell which it is until the song is half over. Country songs often have screaming guitars that would fit equally well in a hard rock song, and only a minority have a recognizably country instrument such as a fiddle or a banjo. All the same, no one could listen to a country music station for more than a few minutes without realizing that it is definitely not a rock station. What are the differences? There are some stylistic differences. Country songs are more likely to have a boogey beat or certain western-sounding bass lines. They also tend to be more formulaic: if you can't predict how a country song ends, you probably don't listen to much country music. But those things aren'
Read more

Science and Philosophy, Part I: Hume and Popper

I've been listening to a lecture series on philosophy recently, and, even though I haven't gotten past the Greeks yet, it has reminded me of a number of issues that trouble me about science. I want to take the opportunity to express my concerns here. Along the way, I will probably oversimplify philosophy a great deal -- not on purpose, but rather because I have only a simplistic understanding of it. I welcome responses to clear up my misconceptions. One of my issues with science is the famous idea of Karl Popper that it can never establish positive claims, only falsify wrong ones. The history of this goes back to David Hume, the 18th century Scottish sceptic. He shook up the philosophical world by claiming that science could never prove anything through induction -- that is, drawing conclusions about physical laws based on observations. The classic illustration is the sun's rising. Even though the sun has risen every day for our whole lives, and for countless human l
Read more

Three stages in liberal denial of media bias

I was 15 years old in 1984, and an avid follower of politics and the news. When Reagan was making his decision whether to run for re-election, I was opposed to it. It wasn't that I didn't like Reagan; I loved him. But I was convinced that he wouldn't stand a chance in the election, and I didn't want to see him lose. Of course, he went on to win one of the most lopsided elections in history. Why was I so wrong? Because I had been watching network news (the only kind, back then) and the coverage was overwhelmingly negative. Since that time, I have watched with disbelief as liberals have criticized Fox News as unbalanced, culminating in the amazing spectacle of the president himself declaring that Fox is not a legitimate source of journalism. Meanwhile, these same liberals refuse to acknowledge that ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, etc. (ad nauseum) have any bias of their own. What makes this all the more incredible is that a number of studies have been produced demonstr
Read more