TAR 17 predictions

Sorry I'm late, But I made myself a list back in September (16th), before the Amazing Race 17 started, making an uneducated guess at the winner and final 3, based on info about the teams. I've only seen one leg (the first) since I made this list, and it didn't change anything. So here goes :

Third : Jill & Thomas
Second : Connor & Jonathan
First : CLAIRE & BROOKE.

That means I'm going for the first all-female team winner in Amazing Race history. (I think the Producers hoped they would win, for that reason, but didn't rig it.)

Team I hope sticks around : Gary & Mallory. They won't go far. But Mal seems to be tailor-made for fun comments.

Being Occupied

I'm starting to do things again, after trying to establish myself on numerous social media, and taking care of my mother, who passed away June 5 2010. I told her I'd be in the thick of things in no time. (I also told her I'd find myself a woman to love. In 1974. Look at where that's gotten me.)

I still feel a bit numb. But only a bit.

Links to Radio Playlists

Some of you have asked why I haven't been posting my radio show playlists lately. I really haven't had much time for typing them in. But some of them are on the WUSB Stony Brook NY 90.1 FM website under my program's listing. Please check them out, and tell me what you think!

So far this year, the top song has been "Endlessly" by Green River Ordinance. What -- me, playing ballads?? No apology for this one.

If any of you are from commercial stations and wonder what you should do for Christmas, send me an email.

Amazing Race 15 : predictions

Okay, now the cast is out. 12 teams, one of which doesn't make it past LA (except to go into the Elimination Station -- which is usually, when you think about it, a strange sort of free vacation in a resort area). After reading the bios, seeing the interviews, and flipping coins, here's who I see in the finals :

Ericka & Brian Kleinschmidt (She's 2004 Miss America, the requisite beauty queen)
Sam & Dan McMillen (the requisite exemplar gays, this time they're brothers)
Herbert Lang & Nate Lofton (Harlem Globetrotters, trotting the globe for TAR)

Meghan Ricky & Cheyne Whitney have a shot at the third finalist slot.

I think they'll finish in that order. I am, of course, kinda partial to Ericka...:)

I wish they'd have a season where no one from California was chosen. It would take three or four such seasons to make up for their overcasting CA. Next best would be to take every 'requisite' category (the ones that show up season after season) and bar all of them for a season. All by itself, that would make the casting more interesting.

Hyundai: Deal or Duel?

I just saw a Hyundai commercial on TV. In it, a car was being followed around by a gas tanker truck, for their new promotion of a full year's gas at $1.49 a gallon -- co-promoted with PriceLock. I don't think Hyundai will like what my first feelings were : Fear!

When I saw the truck, it took me back to a 1970s TV movie, Duel. In it, Dennis Weaver was being chased through the desert by an evil gasoline tanker. It was in the thick of the '70s gas crisis, so we were all getting a little of that feeling in real life. And, it was Steven Spielberg, at the top of his game. All in all, a TV terror classic, complete with Weaver's facial expressions each time the truck renewed its attack -- by themselves, worth it.

I wonder if the ad men for this ad are old enough to remember that one.... and how many others got that same creepy feeling. (A far cry from Volvo's "Safe and Sound" ads, to be sure!)

TAR 15 -- from an Unexpected source

It seems that a relative of one of the women I know from Stony Brook U is in Tokyo Japan. The woman said that two pairs of Amazing Racers had run past the relative. Didn't say where or what they were doing, so it's not quite a true spoiler. And there were pix, but not shared. Also, she's a Big Brother fan who despises TAR. (:P)

That got me thinking: with the wireless technology and the prevalence of Twitter worldwide, can anyone hide anything anymore? In the case of Amazing Race, the TAR Detectives get such incredible detail on everything, long before anything airs. I don't read spoilers until it airs, but I'm sure Chateau has the airport covered and the camera angles figured, Apskip's got the flight numbers and arrival times, and Neobie's got the leg mapped out. It's incredible. But fortunately, they're fans. They love the show and they're sane (as far as any fanship is 'sane'...) Think what would happen in the hands of people who are, er, less supportive and less sane, like, say, someone who's stalking a star, or trying to undermine a rival, not to mention terrorists or spys or Big Brother fans. Go to a mountain in Tibet, some monk's Twittering from the next mountain over. Or a tundra location in Yakutia in Siberia -- the bears have their own YouTube accounts. The amount of evidence can be astounding, and that makes chasing it down for a live event so much fun.

But it's also just a bit scary. Technology has redefined privacy in a way that makes it impossible to hold as a near-absolute right above all else. It has become what it really was all along - a right to be held in the context of all other rights, and defended as such. And it is dealt with in the breach more than in fact, in typical human fashion. How to handle it from there, I don't know.

A liturgical section for commissioning lay ministers

A Brief Order for Commissioning Lay Ministers of Health and Wellness

Rubrics (descriptions and explanations) are in red.
P: presiding minister, L: lay ministers being commissioned, C : Congregation.

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[This service is best used within a standard worship service, following the Offertory. It's actually a specialized version of an order for commissioning other ministries, such as those ministring in education, evangelism, social ministries, youth ministry, or worship. Consider commissioning any of those who have demonstrated the ability, gift, commitment and responsibility to make a job or task or avocation into a real ministry for Christ's sake.]

P: Today we act as the Body of Christ to recognize and support those who do ministries of health and healing among us in Christ's name. Baptized into Christ's priesthood, we are each called to offer ourselves in service, sometimes in specialized ministry as [[ name(s) ]] are doing right now.

[The person/people about to be commissioned come forward. Then, someone officially representing the church council or vestry arises and comes forward, to give a brief description of each person's specific health ministry. Then the council representative is seated, and the lay ministers gather around the presiding minister, on their knees.]

P: Will you commit yourselves to serve people in the humble manner of Jesus, and be responsible to the Body of Christ for the manner in which you serve?

L : Yes, with God's help.

[The presiding minister then goes to each lay minister, and lays both hands on his/her head. Other ordained personnel are invited by the presiding minister to come up and join in the laying of hands.]

P: Come, Holy Spirit, and give blessing and power to the ministry of your faithful servant [[ name ]], that the broken may become whole, and that Your name be given glory.

P, L: Amen.

[When this is completed, the lay ministers arise and turn to the congregation, linking hands. The presiding minister may choose to link hands with them, especially if there is only one being commissioned.]

P, L : We stand together in service to our Lord and our neighbor.

P : Lord, bless all of those who serve to bring wellness and wholeness to others. Bless and guide physicians, nurses, technicians, emergency personnel, physical trainers, dieticians, hospital visitation ministers, chaplains, and prayer intercessors. Grant them wisdom and skill, sympathy and patience, resilience and faithfulness. In Your mercy, heal those who need healing and give comfort to all who need comfort. Through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,

[Other specific ministries, such as faith healers and Stephen ministers, can be included in the above prayer, as fits the congregation's traditions and actual ministries.]

All : Amen.

[At this point, the lay ministers return to their seats and all return to the rest of the service.]

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Return to Spirithome.com worship, main page.

Or, if it's where you came from, the Healing page.

A Sotomayor surprise

The surprise isn't that Obama chose her. She was on about 80% of the pundits' short lists.

The surprise isn't that the right wing of the Republican Party took off into using the r-word (racism) in their comments. These are the people who turned the GOP into the Party of No. (Yo! You lost the election, idiots! In a democracy, you work with the choice that the people very clearly made - those who won the Presidency, the Other party.)

No. The surprise is to see so many refreshing and insightful people coming to her support. I don't mean Pelosi (who doesn't even try to grasp what a thoughtful opponent might say) or Schumer (her main booster during the entire selection process to date)

I mean the folks who reporters have been sticking their mikes in front of. People. Lots of them, for a change. Probably because she's from the Bronx. They seem to understand. They 'get it'. They see a woman who's done some bold things as an appellate judge. Someone who's got a top-drawer legal mind. And most importantly, someone who's had to apply it in real life. (You know - the thing most court justices haven't seen in, say, half a century.)

I get a lot of personal pleasure seeing even cantankerous sports writer Mike Lupica getting his big-mouth licks in, in the part of the NY Daily News that isn't the sports section. (You know, the shrinking part.) This thing matters to so many.

Go get 'em, Sonia!