Michael Bates: July 2023 Archives
Oral Memoirs of Cindy Walker, transcript
In honor of this weekend's Cindy Walker Days in Mexia, Texas, here is the interview she did in 1989 with Baylor Profs. Jean Boyd and David Stricklin. (David is the son of original Texas Playboys pianist Al Stricklin.) The interview is part of the vast collection of the Baylor University Institute for Oral History.
Cindy Walker: First Lady of Texas Song - by michaelcorcoran
"This weekend [July 21-23, 2023] is all about Mexia embracing Cindy Walker, who tailor-made Western swing classics for Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, and got her material onto the charts via Roy Orbison ("Dream Baby"), Jim Reeves ("Distant Drums"), Webb Pierce ("I Don't Care"), Ray Charles ("You Don't Know Me") and George Jones ("The Warm Red Wine.") Walker's uncredited co-writer was her mother Oree (the daughter of iconic sacred song composer F.L. Eiland), whose masterful piano playing fleshed-out Cindy's humming.
"Commencing Friday, which would've been Walker's 106th birthday (she lived to 87), the Cindy Walker Days festival boasts two full days of top-flight musical talent, with proceeds going towards the renovation of the Walkers' longtime home into a museum. Read more about the event and lineup here."
Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option, p. 103:
"...Our imaginations have been colonized by a mentality that holds older, inherited forms of worship to be impediments to authenticity. On the contrary, we need to be instructed in how to pray and worship to train our minds to think in an authentically Christian way. As Paul exhorted the Romans, we must be transformed by the renewing of our minds, by adopting thought patterns and behaviors that are not actually natural to us. This is not bondage but liberty.
"When Christians ignore the story of how our fathers and mothers in the faith prayed, lived, and worshiped, we deny the life-giving power of our own roots and cut ourselves off from the wisdom of those whose minds were renewed. As a result, at best, the work of God in our lives is slower and shallower than it might otherwise be. At worst, we lose our children.
"A big part of the falling away today is that our children don't know the history of Christianity or grasp why it matters. One Eastern Orthodox friend, raised an Evangelical, said she had no idea what the early church taught, or even who the fathers of the church were, until she became Orthodox -- a tradition that emphasizes their writings and teachings. For this friend, the Christian faith amounted to the Bible as interpreted by the most popular Evangelical pastors of the day.
"It's not that Evangelicalism rejects the foundational theological writings of early Christianity, she explained, but that it never mentions them. Nor did the church of her youth dig deeply into the Reformation tradition from which it sprang. n her church and religious school, she was fed nothing but the thin gruel of contemporary Christianity, with its shallow theology and upbeat sloganeering."
A problem of human nature. - Claremont Review of Books
Leonard Sax writes:
"Rahav Gabay and her colleagues at Tel Aviv University have identified a personality trait they call 'interpersonal victimhood.' Gabay finds that you need not have suffered any trauma yourself to manifest interpersonal victimhood. You identify with the trauma of others and claim it as your own, thereby acquiring all the moral credit ordinarily ascribed to victims. One key component of interpersonal victimhood, according to Gabay, is moral elitism, the belief that you yourself are virtuous, especially compared to those you disagree with or dislike. Gabay and colleagues find that moral elitism is highly correlated with a lack of empathy, 'the sense of entitlement to behave aggressively and selfishly.' Moral elitism enables individuals 'to feel morally superior even though they exhibit aggression.'..."
"In 1934, Adolf Hitler was popular on the campuses of Germany's top universities. Leading intellectuals such as Martin Heidegger were members of the Nazi Party. German history, from 1932 to 1937, can teach us some lessons of tremendous importance if we are prepared to learn them. But the lesson to learn is not I am such a good person, so much better than those evil Nazis. The lesson should be: Moral elitism feels good, but it is a temptation that I must resist. I must recognize and acknowledge my opponent's humanity."
