Here are the latest greetings from Scott Turner of Rocky Sullivan’s in Red Hook!!

Greetings Pub Quiz Midnight Revelers…

One of the wonderful and maddening things in this world are the parallel happenings that re-define irony.  Sometimes, we giggle.  Others, we turn away in horror.  Occasionally, it’s both.

Diane, the dogs and I were returning from Pittsburgh on Sunday evening.  One signpost that we’re closing in on New York City is when 1010 WINS
starts coming in on the radio.  There’s not a lot of radio between
Pittsburgh and New York — well, there is, but there’s, you know, not.  This includes driving through Pennsylvania’s capital region, Harrisburg.

Between Brooklyn and the Steel City sits my favorite radio station that I’ve never actually listend to: WMLK, the short-wave station transmitting from the Assemblies of Yahweh. Right off Interstate 78 in Bethel, PA.  No AM or FM for WMLK.  You can only get it on short-wave frequency — 9265
                kHz.  According to WMLK’s website, the station targets Europe and the Middle East.

Testing one…two…three.  WMLK founder Elder Meyer in the early days…or the early End of Days, perhaps.

I
have no idea whether I’d like what WMLK bounces off the clouds.  Prolly
not, but since I don’t have a short-wave transmitter, who knows?
According to WMLK’s website, "The steel posts that were used for the antenna construction
  fulfilled a prophecy found in Jeremiah 31:21. "Set yourself up
  waymarks, make yourself guideposts [sign‑posts]; set your heart toward
  the highway, even the way by which you went: turn again, O virgin of Israel,
  turn again to these your cities."  This would give some indication of the Assembly of Yahweh’s stance on things.

Transmitting
the word of some version of some god not enough for you?  WMLK sells
its spare parts, too!  If you need various components from a RCA BTA 50G and a RCA BTA 50F ("priced to sell. You can make your needs known via e-mail") or the empty cabinets from the BTA 50F ("we were intending on using these cabinets for a 100KW Short-wave
                  unit.
                We
                  have since purchased a BBC 250 KW unit and installed this instead"), your prayers have been answered — undoubtedly by folks who like answering prayers.

Look at the bright side — you can’t get O’Reilly, Hannity or Limbaugh on WMLK.

We were hoping to find news on the Israeli decimation of Gaza.  News, analysis, discussion.  Nothing.  We did find religious proselytizing, Ravens and Eagles and Jets games, mainstream country stations and oldies which, imposingly, now include songs from when I was in high-school.

1010 WINS finally broke through the I-78 corridor static with an advertisement urging us to donate our car to the L’Chaim Society.  "L’Chaim means life!" the narrator cheerfully intoned.

That was followed by the latest from Gaza — a second day of Israeli military bombardment, hundreds of Palestinians dead, two confirmed Israeli deaths from Hamas missles.

"L’chaim means life!"

History tells us many things.  One is that bullies have a hard time maintaining the moral high ground.

This has been a
year to remember.  Sadly, it’s so memorable because of all the terrible
things we’d like to forget — the economy, the continued foreign-policy
wastelands of Iraq and Afghanistan, people close to us we’ve lost (hope
you’ve escaped your demons, John Costelloe), the human inability to
solve disagreements without weaponry, the seduction of easy solutions
for tough problems, the vacuum of leadership, the dearth of people
getting involved, and cutting-edge technology cutting us off from one
another with increasing frequency.

That so many of you come out to the Rocky Sullivan’s Pub Quiz
week after week pushes that last item to the curb.  A little bit, at
least.  It’s a chance to rub shoulders with other folks, be part
something fun, thoughtful, challenging and inebriating.  For one night
a week, we can lock arms with the world and at the same time reject the
notion of a culture where everyone’s no closer than arms-length.  The
arms being our computers, PDAs, cell-phones, TMs, IMs, WWWs, PlayStations, Wiis, movies-on-demand, Netflixes and anything else that replaces hand-shakes and hugs with ones and zeroes.

There
are still a lot of options for being with each other in the flesh.
It’s an honorific that you choose Rocky’s and the Quiz come Thursday
night.  Thanks also to everyone who’s spread the word about Rocky
Sullivan’s Pub Quiz — the grapevine, the bloggers, the word-of-mouth,
the forwarding of these e-mails.

…and yes, this is another irony — thanking you for being human by sending a group e-mail.

Life ain’t perfect.  But it sure is lively.