The Saver

LET GOD'S WORD ACTIVATE YOUR FAITH

“Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word about Christ.” (Romans 10:17 NIV)

 

Most of us aren’t confident or courageous. Most of us are flat out scared to death. We’re afraid to take risks, afraid of failure, and afraid of dying. We’re not walking confidently because we’re not people of faith.

Do you want to be a person of faith? Faith is God’s Word activated. The Bible says in Romans 10:17, “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word about Christ” (NIV).

If you’ve ever read a verse in the Bible and all of a sudden thought, “I can do this! I can do this!” you’ve just had your faith activated by the Word of God.

 

It’s the difference between the Bible and self-help books. Self-help books often give you helpful insight. They can tell you the right thing to do, but they just don’t give you the power to do it. Self-help books tell you that you should stop worrying or you should give up all your bad habits. Helpful, yes, but you don’t have the power to keep the advice. Those books aren’t alive. 

But God’s Word not only tells you what to do; it gives you the power to do it. And it increases your faith as you do it.

When I read the thousands of promises in the Bible where God says he’ll act on our behalf if we obey him in some manner, it gives me confidence. I know that if I do what God asks of me, he has promised a certain result. 

I was depressed for most of 1981. I had just moved to Southern California to start Saddleback the year before. I was exhausted emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. I felt like I had a cloud over my head that I just couldn’t escape from.

I’ll never forget some of the verses that really activated my faith, Exodus 23:29-30: “But I will not drive them out in a single year, because the land would become desolate and the wild animals too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you have increased enough to take possession of the land.”

God had promised the Israelites the Promised Land. They were going to go across the Jordan River into Israel and take on some tribes that were already living there. They didn’t think they could do it. They thought the goal was too big.

In Exodus 23:29-30, God is saying to the Israelites, “You know these enemies? They’re bigger than you. But I’m not going to give you the whole land in the first year. You’re going to take it over a little bit at a time — one battle at a time. You’re growing stronger. When you’re strong enough to handle it all, you’ll get it all.”

When I read those verses, it was like a promise coming directly to me. I realized I didn’t have to accomplish it all in the first year. I’m going to spend the rest of my life serving Jesus Christ, and I’ll do it on his timetable and at his pace.

That understanding gave me confidence to take on enormous goals. The Word activated my faith. God’s Word can activate your faith, too.

THOUGHTS ON FAITH AND TRUST

From God's point of view, faith and trust is believing Him and His Word.  To Him ... there is nothing more important for us to believe. 

Thus trusting God and God’s Word and then obeying it is the wisest thing in life you could ever do.  It has ETERNAL payback.

Trusting God invites God to supernaturally intervene in our situation.  Being apathetic about trusting God is a strong indication that we are not confident God cares about us, or that we don’t need, or want, His help. 

(Conning you to believe God doesn’t care about you is one of Satan’s most effective strategies in shutting down your faith and trust in God.  Don’t let the devil do that to you.  It has devastating consequences).

If we never had challenges in life, we would come to the conclusion there is little need to trust God.  God allows trying challenges to come into our life to keep us reminded of just how much we need Him.  It is our sinful, human nature to not want to need Him.  Once we pass into eternity, we’ll FULLY realize just how much we need God.  What’s the wisdom of waiting that long to find out?

Sustaining faith is not feelings, but a decision … just as sustaining love is a decision.  (If you’ve been married for any length of time, you know what I’m talking about.  If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, endeavoring to love God more than you love anything else which is the first and greatest commandment, you know what I’m talking about.  Feelings are one of Satan’s greatest tools to hinder our spiritual growth.  If you build your prayer life on feelings, rather than a decision, I can assure you will struggle praying to God most all the days of your life with any true excitement).

The wisest thing a person can do is continually seek God for more wisdom in how to trust Him more fruitfully.  God has the power to do anything He decrees on our behalf – that’s never the issue.  The question is:  How much do we motivate God to WANT to intervene on our behalf? 

You’ll never discover the greatest joy and peace and zeal for living until you have made it your life’s aim to excel in trusting God.    

Trusting God honors God.  Distrusting God dishonors Him.  If you want to shut down God's blessings on your life, stay careless about trusting God.

Those who choose to trust the Lord in their challenging situations make themselves more eligible for the gift of faith that the Holy Spirit gives to whom He will, as is spoken of in 1 Corinthians 12:9.

Impatience is the biggest “Goliath” most people will ever have to battle with.  It’s the tallest “mountain” most will have to remove into the sea.  Impatience can short-circuit trust and subsequent breakthrough from God like little else can.

Many of the trials in our life are allowed by God to help us learn to trust God more than what we really believed was necessary, or that our carnal, sinful nature delights in doing.  Trials test our motives and resolve for serving God like nothing else will.  In eternity with God, we'll forever thank God for the trials He allowed in this life.  Why wait until eternity?

The book of wisdom – Proverbs – exhorts the reader over and over in the first few chapters to do what?  Seek wisdom and knowledge.  Primarily wisdom - knowledge secondarily.  Knowledge without wisdom applied to that knowledge offers little payback. You’ll never get wisdom from God that will keep you excited in your relationship with Him until you learn that God can not only be trusted … but the key to God’s heart in His granting favor to you along life’s way is your intense desire to trust Him, and never stop trusting Him.  This is the heart of what God in Hebrews 11:6 is communicating:  And without faith (trust) it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.

(You can earnestly endeavor to seek Him all the days of your life, yet remain frustrated most of the whole time … if you attempt to do so without constantly trusting Him.  Trusting God is not optional, if you want Him to reward you with a joy and peace [with additional blessings] that is not attainable any other way).

Always remind yourself … Trusting God is not something He forces you to do.  It’s something you GET to do.  A wise person takes advantage of trusting the One who can make ANYTHING happen He chooses to make happen.  A fool can’t be bothered – he or she doesn’t care.  Our world is full of people who don’t care … but once in eternity after their judgment, they will painfully regret they didn’t.

Thank you, Jesus (Yeshua), for caring for such a lost and blinded creation that we have become.  The wise will push all else aside to discover who You truly are, and all that You accomplished for them by dying in their place … when You didn’t have to … so they can become all You intend them to become - forever without end in glory.

THE CHOICE OF FORGIVENESS

Most of the ground that Satan gains in the lives of Christians is due to unforgiveness. We are warned to forgive others so that Satan cannot take advantage of us (2 Corinthians 2:10, 11). God requires us to forgive others from our hearts or He will turn us over to the tormentors (Matthew 18:34, 35). Why is forgiveness so critical to our freedom? Because of the cross. God didn't give us what we deserve ; He gave us what we needed according to His mercy. We are to be merciful just as our heavenly Father is merciful (Luke 6:36). We are to forgive as we have been forgiven (Ephesians 4:31, 32).

Forgiveness is not forgetting. People who try to forget find that they cannot. God says He will "remember no more" our sins (Hebrews 10:17), but God, being omniscient, cannot forget. "Remember no more" means that God will never use the past against us (Psalm 103:12). Forgetting may be a result of forgiveness, but it is never the means of forgiveness. When we bring up the past and use it against others, we haven't forgiven them.

Forgiveness is a choice, a crisis of the will. We choose to face and acknowledge the hurt and the hate in order to forgive from the heart. Since God requires us to forgive, it is something we can do. (He would never require us to do something we cannot do.) But forgiveness is difficult for us because it pulls against our concept of justice. We want revenge for offenses suffered. But we are told never to take our own revenge (Romans 12:19). "Why should I let them off the hook?" we protest. You let them off your hook, but they are never off God's hook. He will deal with them fairly--something we cannot do.

If you don't let offenders off your hook, you are hooked to them and the past, and that just means continued pain for you. Stop the pain; let it go. You don't forgive someone merely for their sake; you do it for your sake so you can be free. Your need to forgive isn't an issue between you and the offender; it's between you and God.

SATAN’S POWER IS IN THE LIE

People who know they are having spiritual problems usually have severe perceptual problems too. Satan seems to be more present, real and powerful to them. These types of people usually hear opposing arguments in their head. They are constantly confronted with lies, told to get out of the counseling setting, or threatened with harm or embarrassment.

One dear lady I was ministering to suddenly bolted for the door. "Tell me what you're hearing," I said.

"You're going to hurt me," she answered fearfully.

"That's a lie," I assured her. Slowly she returned to her chair.

Some people experience internal interference when demonic powers are confronted by the truth. They may become dizzy or glassy-eyed. If you proceed without regard for their reaction, they may lapse into catatonia.

The goal in helping people find freedom in Christ is to avoid all demonic activity which would short-circuit their ability to participate in the process. With this in mind, I usually begin the time of ministry with prayer, acknowledging God's presence, claiming His authority, and binding the enemy to silence.

In what have become known as the "Jesus pencil" and "candy cane" cases, the Supreme Court refused Monday to consider appeals from the families of elementary school students over distribution of religious-themed gifts on campus.

At issue was whether school officials can be sued for violating the First Amendment rights of what the students claimed was their "private, non-curricular speech based solely upon its religious viewpoint."

A federal appeals court had ruled in favor of school officials in Plano, Texas,on the liability question, and the justices without comment let that decision stand.

The full 16-judge panel from the New Orleans-based court last September concluded while the constitutional rights of the students were violated, school administrators could not be sued under the "qualified immunity" legal standard. The litigation continues on other aspects of two separate incidents nine years ago, both involving schools at the Plano Independent School District in the Dallas suburb.

"Educators should not suffer personal monetary liability for making a mistake in this area of the law," said the appeals judges.

In one instance, the principal of Thomas Elementary School blocked then-third-grader Jonathan Morgan from handing out "goody bags" at a winter party. The bags included a decorative pen in the shape of a candy cane with a Christian message that read in part: "Every time you see a candy cane, remember the message of the candy maker: Jesus is the Christ!"

Parents had met with Principal Lynn Swanson, who offered a compromise: the laminated "Legend of the Candy Cane" pens would not be allowed at the classroom party, but could be distributed separately at a table in the school library. School district officials later clarified, saying students in general were not allowed to pass out "any written material, tapes, or other media" to classmates, whatever the message.

The boy's mother and father nevertheless brought the pens to the party, and the principal then announced to the school by loudspeaker that all "outside materials" were banned from classroom distribution. The family claims Jonathan was the only student subsequently banned from distributing his "goody bags."

A month later at Rasor Elementary School, the parents of then-second-grader Stephanie Versher complained the girl was forbidden from handing out tickets to a passion play, which was being performed at a local church, depicting the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The student expressed her "sincere" religious conviction she "should share her beliefs with her friends."

Days later, Stephanie was then stopped from distributing brownies at a party with two pencils attached, one of which was inscribed, "Jesus loves me this I know from the Bible." The other pencil had the word "Moon" on it. Her mother then angrily confronted school officials, including Principal Jackie Bomchill.

Sherrie Versher later testified she left the school offices emotionally upset, and "she thought out loud to herself, 'Satan is in the building,'" according to the court transcript. It was unclear to whom she was referring. A disagreement developed over whether the school had given permission for the student to give the "Jesus" pencils after classes that day, outside the school building on the sidewalk.

A legal question developed whether that distribution was on school property or nearby, and whether authorities would then have power to stop the pencils from being given away.

The appeals court noted the difficulty government officials have ensuring schools and other public facilities remain free of religious proselytizing.

"When educators encounter student religious speech in schools, they must balance broad constitutional imperatives from three areas of First Amendment jurisprudence: the Supreme Court's school-speech precedents, the general prohibition on viewpoint discrimination, and the murky waters of the Establishment Clause." said the judges. "They must maintain the delicate constitutional balance between students' free-speech rights and the Establishment Clause imperative to avoid endorsing religion."

The court concluded the principals were entitled to qualified immunity "because clearly established law did not put the constitutionality of their actions beyond debate."

School officials had said they are entrusted by parents with the education of children, and retain complete control over all aspects of a student's time and communications -- including parties and hallway discussions.

The Constitution's First Amendment bars any government from passing laws "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The high court in the past has typically dealt with such church-state disputes by allowing Ten Commandment displays in public buildings; the mention of "God" on currency and in the Pledge of Allegiance; manger and menorah displays in public parks; and school and legislature prayer.

A Texas-based legal group had represented the Versher and Morgan families in their appeals.

"We are disappointed the Supreme Court denied review of this case," said Hiram Sasser, director of litigation of Liberty Institute. "We were hoping to finally put this issue to rest: that government school officials should be held accountable when they violate the law and students' First Amendment rights. No student should be subjected to religious discrimination by the government."

While the students' "speech" in these cases involved a religious message, the high court has also established important precedent on the larger free speech issue. In the famous "Tinker" case from 1969, the Supreme Court ruled two Iowa high school students could continue wearing anti-Vietnam War armbands. The high court said students do not "shed their constitutional rights when they enter the schoolhouse door." But school administrators do retain the authority to restrict any activity that would cause a "substantial disruption" of the school's educational mission.

Music

Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way



 Love Anthem For World Peace STR



Dhanush's Sachin Anthem - Official Full HD Version Song



Kolaveri Di featuring Nevaan Nigam

Every week since the end of May the band Sublime With Rome has had at least one song, sometimes two, on Billboard’s Rock Songs chart or its Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart, often both. The most successful have been “Panic” and “Take It or Leave It,” both true to the band’s mission to reincarnate the band Sublime, whose singer, Brad Nowell, died in 1996, and whose ska-lite Sublime With Rome both covers and, in its originals, shamelessly apes. 

It is pure historical re-enactment, interrupted only to write new material in the style of the band it’s standing in for, like the hired hand who steps in for the mystery-novel author who keels over before finishing a trilogy. It’s designed to satisfy fans who still crave the feeling, if not quite the author himself. It quenches pre-existing thirst. 

Anomaly? No. The same can be said of almost the whole of major-label rock these days, a musical universe in crisis like no other, full of old bands spinning their wheels, praying for one more summer out under big-tour sheds, and their young reinforcements, not much more than a field of dullards who are the artistic equivalent of grocery store generic brands. 

2011 may well be remembered as the most numbing year for mainstream rock music in history. (For the purposes of this article, that’s more or less rock released on American major labels, regardless of origin, and played on mainstream rock radio stations.) The genre didn’t produce a single great album, and the best of the middling walked blindly in footprints laid out years, even decades, earlier. Plenty of juggernauts — U2 and Bruce Springsteen, among others — took the year off, but the genre’s failings are creative, not commercial. At this point rock is becoming a graveyard of aesthetic innovation and creativity, a lie perpetrated by major labels, radio conglomerates and touring concerns, all of whom need — or feel they need — the continued sustenance of this style of music. The fringes remain interesting, and regenerate constantly, but the center has been left to rot. 

Declaring a genre dead is the worst, least imaginative sort of proclamation, so let’s call it zombified: it moves, it takes up space, it looks powerful from afar — with oodles of bands working hard, and some even making money — and garish up close. It lacks nutrients. How else to explain the critical consensus around a band like Foster the People, whose album, “Torches” (StarTime/Columbia), was one of the most lauded rock albums of the year by an emerging band, even though it did little to add to the soul-infused lite-rock of the 1980s. And what of the Black Keys, who have committed themselves to undistinguished garage-soul and have cruelly outlasted their onetime peers the White Stripes? Their latest, “El Camino” (Nonesuch), is one long airless, swingless jam, a flat boogie primer for foreigners and marketers. Or take a less acclaimed but still popular band: the colossally dopey Hot Chelle Rae, which on “Whatever” (RCA) recalls the early breakthroughs of pop-punk bands like Sum 41 and Blink-182, though with sprinkles of power-pop and hip-hop. 

These bands at least are doing their best to resist the tides around them, borrowing from different influences than their far more numerous neighbors. Those bands — Nickelback on “Here And Now” (Roadrunner), Chevelle on “Hats Off to the Bull” (Epic), Disturbed on the B-sides collection “The Lost Children” (Reprise) — all released big albums this year that work the post-grunge rock spectrum, to varying degrees of success but with equal amounts of innovation, which is to say little. The burly guitars are the same, as are the melancholy choruses, the assertive but not affirming drumming and the sense that this has all been done before, and better (in some cases by Nickelback itself, several years ago). Daughtry almost fell into this same trap, as it has in the past, but avoided it by taking its morbid power rock and moving toward Bon Jovi hopefulness on its new album, the largely enjoyable “Break the Spell” (19/RCA). 

Even for those whose version of arena rock didn’t lean so heavily on groaning, this was a terrible year full of creative flops, and often commercial flops, by long-reliable acts that failed to arouse even their typical level of interest: Evanescence’s “Evanescence” (Wind-Up), Blink-182’s “Neighborhoods” (DGC/Interscope), Coldplay’s “Mylo Xyloto” (Capitol). That’s to say nothing of the airless comeback albums by bands well past their sell-by date: the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “I’m With You” (Warner Brothers), Limp Bizkit’s “Gold Cobra” (Interscope), R.E.M.’s “Collapse Into Now” (Warner Brothers), Sum 41’s “Screaming Bloody Murder” (Island). There was also the outrageously fraught “Lulu” (Warner Brothers), by Lou Reed and Metallica, which defied most categorization yet somehow still falls neatly into this one. 

Scale in and of itself need not be a deterrent to creativity; look at hip-hop, where plenty of sonic innovations take place on the biggest stages, proffered by the biggest stars. Even major-label country, no firestorm of originality, has been riskier in the last decade than major-label rock, which is hiding out in a few comfortable modes, hoping no one will ask much more of it. 

But it wasn’t so long ago that major-label rock had bursts of vitality; at least two infusions of energy in the last two decades kept it slightly unpredictable. There was Nirvana’s breakthrough in 1991, which brought grunge to the mainstream and also unapologetically splattered the advances of 1980s alternative rock — college rock back then — all over a huge canvas. And a decade ago came the arrival of bands like the Strokes, the White Stripes and several others whose creative vision revolved around a definite article, who ascended quickly from the indie-rock underground to something grander without sacrificing the fundamental quirks that helped them connect in the first place. 

The veteran band with the best 2011 was Foo Fighters, which continued its quest to average-out all the great rock albums from the mid 1970s to the early 1990s on “Wasting Light” (Roswell/RCA). The band won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Rock Video, besting four younger but probably not better bands (the Black Keys, Mumford & Sons, Foster the People and Cage the Elephant); in his acceptance speech, the frontman, Dave Grohl, once of Nirvana, took a stand that almost certainly fell on deaf ears: “I just want to say, never lose faith in real rock ’n’ roll music, you know what I mean? Never lose faith in that.” 

About an hour after Mr. Grohl’s speech, the lone rock band of the night performed: Young the Giant, which made a tepid showing as if to rebuke Mr. Grohl for his empty hope. Which was a shame, because that band’s self-titled debut (on Roadrunner) is one of the year’s most careful major-label releases, a modest reframing of the breakthrough indie rock of the 1990s that, while pushing no boundaries, still felt promising, a foundation for something riskier. The same could be said of Needtobreathe, which has done a good job of being the next Kings of Leon, except with a more potent motor; its album “The Reckoning” (Atlantic) felt dangerous in places, as apt to seek out idiosyncratic harmonies as sticky melodies. 

These bands are a couple of rare bright spots working in the major-label system. Add to that pile Paramore, which didn’t release an album this year. It stands out not only for its ability to match manic energy and powerhouse melodies, but also that it’s fronted by a woman, Hayley Williams, one of the most convincing singers in mainstream rock. It doesn’t help that some bands are beginning to bypass major labels altogether. The Gaslight Anthem, for example, has the potential to make huge, sweeping, pastoral post-Springsteen anthems, but thus far it has committed to doing so on an independent label. 

Can you blame it? Too often major labels continue to commit resources to bands whose albums linger on the Rock Albums chart for months, free of ambition. 30 Seconds to Mars recently set a Guinness World Record for most shows performed in a single album cycle (over 300), which, viewed cynically, means it was easier for them to play old songs than write new ones. The album in question, “This Is War” (Virgin), was released in 2009 and only certified gold a few weeks ago. It’s a post-industrial, post-prog yelp-fest, a faint tracing of an early Nine Inch Nails album, and were it not for the fact that its lead singer is Jared Leto, it might have fizzled some time ago. 

But here’s to another 300 shows by 30 Seconds to Mars, if only as a reminder of the band’s fundamental flimsiness, and of the flimsy system that props it up. It’s a living funeral, and it’s got to come tumbling down sometime.

The approach I propose for an answer to the question raised in the title is informed less by what is commonly termed "American Studies" than by what I would describe as "Cultural Studies with a focus on the United States." This differentiation is not merely a splitting of hairs. What is labeled "American Studies" is by and large the product of a specific development in the 1940s and 1950s, of World War II and the Cold War that soon followed, when the chief makers of U.S. policy deemed it imperative that the United States be established as the positive force in global politics, the polar opponent of the totalitarian forces of fascism and communism. The United States, and what it stood for, were to be set up as a counterweight not just in political-ideological terms. To establish a proper positive model, cultural work was also needed. This, at least, was what many people thought in Washington, and for that purpose, two government agencies, USIS and USIA, promoted especially a new field of study which was named by sleight of hand and somewhat too grandly "American Studies"—as if, indeed, the United States encompassed all of the Americas.

So as not to be mistaken as a left-over cold warrior—a threat that has gained renewed validity by George W. Bush's appointments—I propose to do "Cultural Studies with a focus on the United States." This is not merely a stale joke. Traditional American Studies have much to do with the promotion of U.S. ideology—usually wrapped in the study of American culture, or rather such elements of American culture as the chief U.S. ideologists regarded as worthy of promotion. Popular culture therefore received only limited attention—hardly any, to be true—from traditional American Studies. Cultural studies, conversely, is not only open to the study of popular culture but actually seeks to do away with traditionalist distinctions between high culture and low, conceptualizations which embrace art as worthy of study while denigrating popular culture. Cultural Studies takes up precisely those issues which traditional approaches have neglected intentionally.

Rock music falls squarely into the lot of cultural expressions American Studies has traditionally neglected. And certainly, of all forms of cultural expression that emerged in the Western World after World War II, rock music is the one that has had the greatest mass appeal. Thus, rock music all but imposes itself as a crucial field for Cultural Studies.

The way rock music functions is emblematic of popular culture, for it works not so much by itself but through the interaction of artist and audience. A rock singer or band without an audience is nothing; it is only in the interaction with the audience—whether in concerts, on records, or through other media—that rock music gains significance. The key role of this interaction accounts for the strengths and weaknesses of rock music as a form of cultural expression. One weakness becomes all too apparent in the readiness with which rock music has always been exploited commercially; but it will not do, as some traditional Marxist critics have done, to reduce the discussion of rock music to a lament over the consumerist position it allegedly reserves for the audience. Such a view neglects a particular strength of rock music—one that is perhaps not quite so obvious. I mean the strength rock music derives from the interaction between the singer and the audience. One of the premises of this presentation is that the best rock musicians and their audiences have benefited mutually from the interaction that developed between them—that the artistic potential of a musician or band flourished because the interaction with the audience functioned as a creative stimulus and yielded new songs which in turn led to new responses by the audience. What I mean is best demonstrated by the emergence of Bob Dylan in the sixties, the maturation of the Beatles between 63 and 71, the rise of Bruce Springsteen in the 70s and 80s, the work of Neil Young, and the career of the Grateful Dead.

Having said so much about rock music, I had better come up with a definition of what I mean. What is rock music? This simple question proves to be surprisingly difficult to answer, for one characteristic of rock music is that it eludes a precise definition. "Punk, funk / It's all rock 'n' roll to me," sang Billy Joel (never a particular favorite of mine). Mick Jagger's attempt, "I know, it's only rock 'n' roll / but I like it," is no better. Rock music—or rock'n'roll, as it was once called—is a hybrid, a mix of various musical styles and genres. It blends with other musical styles so easily that it rarely appears as "rock only" and seems prone to mixing; its hybridity is manifest in the readiness with which rock gets hyphenated with other musical forms like jazz rock, blues rock, folk rock, hard rock, soft rock, country rock, southern rock, ethno rock, techno rock, acid rock, psychedelic rock, punk rock, funk rock … This readiness to blend with other forms is not something that rock music acquired as it developed; eclecticism has been a characteristic feature since rock music began. Those beginnings go back to at least the early 1950s, when rhythm and blues, a hybrid black music that developed in the 1930s and 40s, was taken up by white musicians such as Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.

The beginnings of Elvis Presley are especially instructive. He gained public acclaim—some say notoriety—by presenting rhythm-and-blues standards to white audiences at a time when the record industry and radio broadcasting were completely segregated in the United States. Born in Tupelo MS (the most rigidly segregated of all states), Elvis moved to Memphis with his family when he was 13, and he worked as a truckdriver before he began his career by adapting rhythm-and-blues hits. Usually, he infused them with a varying dose of Southern white country-music schmaltz—occasionally, that dose was heavy—to make them more palatable to white audiences. Putting it harshly, I say that Elvis pasteurized, standardized, and homogenized the black songs so they would not be too offensive for white tastes. Elvis' nickname, "the Pelvis," indicates that, to all appearances, his peculiar way of moving, the gyration of his hips, caught the attention of everybody, arousing white middle-class teenage girls while putting off their prudish parents; but what he did was harmless; compared to the original songs, his versions were almost as asexual as Doris Day in Hollywood movies of the time. Significantly, the term rock'n'roll had been in use in rhythm and blues as a euphemism for sex at least since the 1930s.

Nonetheless, Elvis provides a convenient vantage point for a consideration of rock music, for he brought together most of the assorted ingredients of rock music. Rock music is an amalgamation of those elements, but there is no fixed basis, no set of required ingredients—just as there is no fixed set of instruments or orchestration that is needed to play a rock song. Drums, a bass, guitars are almost always there, but they are not required; the same goes for vocals or lyrics, as a rock song can do very well without words or a singer.

In the first place, Elvis is exemplary because he is American, and rock music is a means of cultural expression that is peculiarly American in its origins. This is not to deny that British musicians have made significant contributions—such a denial would be preposterous, given the work of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Clash, etc., or of musicians like Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, David Bowie, and Sting. When I claim that rock music is peculiarly "American," I mean it in the sense of Richard Brautigan's definition of America being "often only a place in the mind" (in Trout Fishing in America). Rock music's Americanness of that particular kind is confirmed by people as diverse as the Leningrad Cowboys or Kurt Ostbahn (his quips about "Favorit'n & Blues").

Significant about Elvis' music as a prefiguration of rock music is that it crosses the color line, the barrier of race. With Elvis, African American rhythms and sound patterns make their way into "white" music, and emphatically so—thus bridging a gap that in the United States in the 1950s, and especially in the South, was thought unbridgeable. This element of "black" music is to be discovered in much of rock, though again, not necessarily in all of it. (I cannot make it out in James Taylor's ballads, for instance.)

Another issue noteworthy with Elvis is class: rock music is lower-class, working-class, and it poses a potential threat to middle-class sensibilities. This element of class difference, the potential threat to middle-class sensibilities, is there even in white rockers who cannot be accused of left leanings like Ted Nugent (a notorious heavy-metalist who had a large following in the 1970s and 1980s, and who openly and noisily supported Ronald Reagan's bid for the presidency).

Closely linked to matters of race and class is another important element, what the critic Robert Pattison has termed "vulgarity". Pattison claims, "Rock is the quintessence of vulgarity. It's crude, loud, and tasteless. Rock is vulgarity militant …" That insistence on vulgarity is precisely the reason why rock music has been anathema for traditionalist academics, who hold high an aestheticist notion of Art and Culture. As "vulgar" means "common," "ordinary," rock is incompatible with elitist concepts of Art, for in principle it is the exact opposite of Culture with a capital "C." Clearly, concepts of art based on traditional aestheticist criteria are unable to accomodate rock music; provisionally, it can be said that rock music is compatible with concepts linking art and the ecstatic.

Another distinctive element of rock music is its insistence on generational difference. The conservative critic Norman Podhoretz said as much when back in 1958 he castigated "the poisonous glorification of the adolescent in American popular culture." A rock musician, as a classic song by the Who has it, is always "talkin' 'bout my generation." From the beginning, rock music thrived on the opposition between young and old, kids and their parents. This is obvious in the music of the fifties and the sixties, which resounds with the demands of an increasingly self-assured and rebellious youth. By the late 70s, however, the situation had become complex. While punkers openly scorned the complacency of established middle-aged rock musicians, others like Police realized that they found themselves on the other side of the generational conflict that prodded so much of rock music. When "Don't Stand So Close to Me" came out, its opening line, "Young teacher, the object of schoolgirls' fantasies," hit home with me as I had just taken on my first teaching assignment as an instructor of English Composition to 25 American college kids at SUNY/Buffalo. As rock music has come of age, the issue has also become one of how musicians have dealt with that generational difference. I, for one, have a hard time with Tina Turner posing as her own granddaughter—but somehow, if barely, she manages to get away with it. I fear the day, however, when in about ten or fifteen years the Rolling Tombstones, formerly the Rolling Stones, will go on their final final world tour.

Another crucial element of rock music, the issue of sexuality, has already been alluded to in connection with Elvis. The name of the new music already referred to what was a taboo in the fifties, for then, anything that might even vaguely allude to a covert sexual meaning was deemed indecent. The new music was a vehicle of revolt against those constrictions, and musicians consciously offended against the taboos. Elvis' way of moving his hips was largely a provocation, and indecency reached a new peak when in '58 Peggy Lee—who had previously starred with Benny Goodman—sang lasciviously, "You give me fever"—and she did not mean the flu or malaria. When in 1965 Mick Jagger declared, "I can get no satisfaction," it ought to have been clear to anyone that a sexual revolution was well under way, even if middle-class America did not want to hear about it and clung tenaciously to its Puritan mores. It is safe to say, from today's point of view, that rock was the music that accompanied the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

All the distinctive elements of rock music mentioned so far suggest that politics is also a crucial element of rock music. This, at least, is what Lawrence Grossberg contended in a talk he gave in Vienna last spring; since his writing remains more tentative on the matter, and since Grossberg is arguably the authority when it comes to theorizing about rock music, one had better be careful in voicing dissent from the master's opinion that at least up to about the mid 1980s, rock music was intensely political. Much of it was, there is no doubt about that; but with some of it—just think of James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James"—the statement is only true when we take the term to be all-inclusive—which in a way it is—though then it also becomes meaningless. If "political" is narrowed down to denote "topicality" and "commitment to a cause," then Grossberg's generalization overshoots the field. The fluctuations in the career of Bob Dylan alone are evidence enough. Perhaps more to the point is my favorite band of the 1970s, Little Feat. They addressed the matter in a tune that became a mainstay of their concerts. The lyrics of the song go like this: "My telephone is ringing / they tell me it is Chairman Mao … / but I don't wanna talk to him now / 'cause I got the a-political blues." There is commitment to a cause, I would argue, but there is also a deep-seated ambivalence about this commitment, and this ambivalence, to my mind, captures the political dimension of rock music more accurately than Grossberg's emphatic assertion.

No less controversial, though more insistently present, is the commercial element ascribed to rock music. It is a truism that rock music has always been subjected to the aspirations of the music industry. Performers have always been caught between their own longing for commercial success and the putative exploitation of record companies and greedy promotors. Elvis Presley, for instance, was very much the product of the ambitions of Colonel Tom Parker, his manager, who had a significant hand in turning Elvis into a superstar and a transnational icon. Hardly any rock musician managed to escape unharmed the clutches of exploiters; indeed, a detailed study of the relations between musicians and their managers would provide invaluable insight in the effects the variegated and often disastrous workings of commercial interests had in the development of rock music.

One final characteristic needs yet to be pointed out—the remarkable adaptability rock music has displayed in the past five decades. By adaptability I mean that rock music has often managed to incorporate widely divergent, even mutually exclusive, positions without forsaking its airs of "authenticity." Elvis posed as a rebellious youth for about two years, before, in 1958, he was inducted in the U.S. Armed Forces; and there, serving most of his time in Germany, he was regarded as a model soldier. No less conflicted was Bruce Springsteen's 1984 release "Born In the U.S.A." His biggest hit ever, the song was hailed both as an affirmation and a rejection of Ronald Reagan's version of the American dream. Another case, not quite so obvious but of an astonishing endurance, is Don McLean's "American Pie," which is read variously and conflictingly as an elegy on the death of Buddy Holly, a mourning over the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and a lament on the death of rock'n'roll as it once was, pure and clean and simple, before it fell victim to political bravos like Bob Dylan or the Byrds (who can hardly be deemed political bravos by any account). That last reading is not so far-fetched as it may seem, if you listen to some of the inadvertent cynicism contained in the original lyrics—and then, of course, there is Madonna's recent cover version, whose slickness to me just highlights the original cynicism—whether it was intentional or not.

Rock music indeed seems to open space for the projection of all kinds of dreams and desires, and at the same time it seems to provide for space to refute or deny those dreams and desires.

Games

Maximus

About Maximus

The objective of the game is to hit the middle of the targets before the time runs out. This is a trial and error game, try different angles and spears to try and hit the targets. The further the target, the lighter the spear needed... Good Luck!

Instructions

· Play This Game = Use Mouse

The first and biggest circus in Rome, the Circus Maximus was located between the Aventine and Palatine hills. Its shape made it particularly suitable for chariot races, although spectators could also watch other stadium events there or from the surrounding hillsides. Each year in ancient Rome, from the early legendary period, the Circus Maximus became the venue for an important and popular celebration.

Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Jupiter Best and Greatest) whose temple was dedicated, according to tradition, which is always shaky for the early period, on September 13, 509 (Source: Scullard). The games were organized by the curule aediles and were divided into ludi circenses -- as in circus (e.g., chariot races and gladiatorial combats) and ludi scaenici -- as in scenic (theatrical performances). The ludi started with a procession to the Circus Maximus. In the procession were young men, some on horseback, charioteers, the almost naked, competing athletes, spear-carrying dancers to flute and lyre players, satyr and Silenoi impersonators, musicians, and incense burners, followed by images of the gods and once-mortal divine heroes, and sacrificial animals. The games included horse-drawn chariot races, foot races, boxing, wrestling, and more.

Circus Maximus

Ludi

Tarquin: The Ludi Romani and the Circus Maximus

King Tarquinius Priscus (Tarquin) was the first Etruscan king of Rome. When he took power, he engaged in various political ploys to gain popular favor. Among other actions, he waged a successful war against a neighboring Latin town. In honor of the Roman victory, Tarquin held the first of the "Ludi Romani," the Roman Games, consisting of boxing and horse racing. The spot that he selected for the "Ludi Romani" became the Circus Maximus.

The topography of the city of Rome is known for its seven hills (Palatine, Aventine, Capitoline or Capitolium, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline and Caelian). Tarquin laid out the first racetrack circuit in the valley between the Palatine and Aventine Hills. Spectators could view the action by sitting on the hillsides. Later Romans developed another type of stadium (colosseum) to suit other games they enjoyed. The ovoid shape and seating of the circus was more suited to chariot races than to wild beast and gladiator fights, although the Circus Maximus held both.

Stages in the Building of the Circus Maximus

Factions

The drivers of the chariots (aurigae or agitatores) that raced in the circus wore team (faction) colors. Originally, the factions were the White and Red, but Green and Blue were added during the Empire. Domitian introduced short-lived Purple and Gold factions. By the fourth century A.D., the White faction had joined the Green, and the Red had joined the Blue. The factions attracted fanatically loyal supporters.

Circus Laps

On the flat end of the circus were 12 openings (carceres) through which the chariots passed. Conical pillars (metae) marked the starting line (alba linea). At the opposite end were matching metae. Starting on the right of the spina, the charioteers raced down the course rounded the pillars and returned to the start 7 times (the missus).

Circus Hazards

Because there were wild beasts in the circus arena, spectators were offered some protection through an iron railing. When Pompey held an elephant fight in the arena, the railing broke. Caesar added a moat (euripus) 10 feet wide and 10 feet deep between arena and the seats. Nero filled it back in. Fires in the wooden seats was another danger. The charioteers and those behind them were in particular danger when they rounded the metae.

Julius Caesar

Pompey

Circuses Other Than the Circus Maximus

The Circus Maximus was the first and largest circus, but it was not the only one. Other circuses included the Circus Flaminius (where the Ludi Plebeii were held) and the Circus of Maxentius.

Ancient/Classical History Discussion

"Their games became a regular event in 216 B.C. in the Circus Flaminius, partly to honor their fallen champion, Flaminius, partly to honor the gods of the plebes, and surely to honor all gods due to the dire circumstances of their struggle with Hannibal. The Ludi Plebeii were the first of a whole string of new games beginning in the late Second Century B.C. to gather favor from whatever gods that would listen to Rome's needs."

FORT STEWART, Ga. (July 24, 2012) -- Army Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III reunited with former team members today at Fort Stewart, and helped make a Third Infantry Division vehicle dedication ceremony a historic event.

The Third Infantry Division Commander, Maj. Gen. Robert "Abe" Abrams, said the ceremony honoring the last M4 Command and Control Vehicle, nicknamed "Maximus," and its actions in the Iraq invasion of 2003, was especially noteworthy as the original crew was on-hand, including Austin, who helped spearhead the division's effort, in "Maximus," as the Third Infantry Division Assistant Division Commander (Maneuver).

Reuniting with his original crew, Abrams and Third Infantry Division Command Sgt. Major Edd Watson, asked the former crew members to help dedicate "Maximus" C2V in front of the Lt. Col. Keith L. Ware Building on Fort Stewart. The crew in attendance included Austin; Col. Ross Coffman, Col. Robert Foster, Mike Culpepper, Heath Bates, Sgt. 1st Class Earl Francis, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert Streeper, Sgt. Maj. Jerry Kimble, and Sgt. 1st Class Robert Brown. The only other crew member, who wasn't available for the day's ceremony was retired Staff Sgt. Ramon Borjas.

Austin selected the M4 for its mission as a command and control as the vehicle offered durability, speed, and capability of integrating with the Army's Battle Command System. "Maximus" joined two other M4 vehicles "Zeus" and "El Cid" as the Division spearheaded Marne Division's movement from Kuwait to Baghdad, in their effort to oust Saddam Hussein from power, and help liberate the people Iraq.

Abrams said that "Maximus," and the other M4s, helped carry the battle in Iraq with constant communications as the division applied speed and violence to ensure decisive operations.

During the operation, then-Third Infantry Division Commanding General Maj. Gen. Buford Blount was in "Zeus," and elements of the 3rd ID intelligence, Air Defense, and Chemical Staff Sections, rode in "El Cid."

Austin said it was an honor to attend the dedication ceremony and to have served in with the Third Infantry Division. He said he appreciated the Third Infantry Division remembering the M4 and the Soldiers who participated in Operation Iraqi Freedom, with the dedication.

"This represents the great efforts of all those Soldiers who were a part of that (Operation Iraqi Freedom -- 2003 push into Iraq) and the remarkable things they did," Austin said. "I am proud to be a part of that."

The dedication marker for "Maximus" notes the M4 was named after the roman word for "greatest" or "largest." The title "Maximus" was exemplified by Tiberius Claudius Maximus, a Roman Soldier who served in the Dacian Wars, who was a famous cavalryman and expert in mounted combat. "Zeus" was named after the Greek's "all-father" and god of sky and thunder; while "El Cid," was named after the Spanish lord-master of military arts, Rodrigo Die Vivar, called "El Cid." who lived 1043-1099.

The M4's were impressive military machines at 25.5 feet in length, 10.5 feet tall, weighing about 57,000 pounds. Operated by a crew of three to eight Soldiers, the vehicle boasted a 70-kilometer-per-hour speed and could travel about 275 miles on one tank of fuel. At the heart of the M4 was a VT903 Cummins Diesel engine, which provided more than 600 horsepower.

"Zeus" and "El Cid" became part of the Army's recycling program, but "Maximus," will live on in a place of honor in front of the Third Infantry Division Command and Control Facility on Fort Stewart.

Contributing authors were FSGA Staff, Walter W. Meeks III, and Pat Young.

Having looked at a fairly large cross section of what ASUS has had to offer over the past few years from its ROG (Republic of Gamers) product stack, I have to say that the company keeps finding a way to bring a little something new to the feature set. The Maximus V Gene is a small form factor motherboard designed for use with Intel's latest Third Generation Core series Ivy Bridge processors. ASUS brings a wealth of improvements to the table. There are improvements to the power circuitry via its all new Extreme Engine Digi+ II all-digital power solution for the CPU, IGP, and DRAM. You get an improved 8-channel sound solution in the Supreme FX III onboard sound, which offers massive improvements in onboard sound technology. You get an onboard mPCIe card to add in a mSATA SSD to take advantage of Intel's Smart Response, Rapid Start, and SSD Caching, not to mention add mini PCIe devices. You get support for CrossFireX, SLI, and Hybrid graphics though the use of Lucidlogix Virtu software, which is supposed to offer an increase in performance of up to 60%! Rounding it out are native USB 3.0 and PCIe 3.0, all at a price point of right around $210. Add in the three-year warranty and you have a full-featured board for not a lot of money. Let's see what it has to offer in terms of performance to go with the good looks of a ROG board.

Closer Look:

There is no mistaking a board that is part of the ROG product stack from ASUS. The specific theme consists of a maroon, red, and silver background, with the ROG logo prominently displayed. The product name is in bold print to easily distinguish which motherboard is in the package. Along the bottom of the front panel are specific supported features, including CrossFireX, SLI, and Hybrid graphics support via Lucidlogix Virtu software. The Maximus V Gene is PCIe 3.0 ready when used with one of Intel's Third Generation Core series processors. Inside the front flip-up panel, ASUS goes into detail on the benefits of some of the board's expansive features. The Supreme FX III audio solution, Intel NIC with improved GameFirst packet management software, Lucidlogix Virtu MVP hybrid graphics, ROG Connect, Extreme Engine Digi+ II power design, and the mPCIe combo card are all added value propositions that enhance the user experience. The back side of the package points out some of the features, as well as lists the motherboard specifications. Many of us purchase online without visiting a brick and mortar store, but for those of us with a Micro Center or Fry's around, the box certainly has visual appeal.