Christopher Hitchens has passed away. And some words for more than a few fellow Christians...

The sad news broke early this morning that Christopher Hitchens, the celebrated, provocative and brilliant journalist/essayist, has passed away at the age of 62 following a battle for the past year and a half with cancer of the esophagus.

Even when I disagreed with Hitchens - and those times were numerous - I had to have grudging respect for the man, because it can't be said that he lacked consistency. He was one of the rare writers in this day and age who strove in his craft not for sake of political or ideological favor, but instead for nothing more or less than understanding of the human condition and its derivative culture.

Here is Hitchens' final essay for Vanity Fair, appearing in next month's issue. In it he wrestles with thoughts of his own mortality and determination of spirit.

And now, there is something that I feel led to say to too many of those who, like myself, profess to follow Jesus Christ...

To be blunt: I am very disappointed with a lot of you.

Yes, Christopher Hitchens was an avowed atheist. But even so: I'm not going to judge the man. And neither should anyone else. Yeah that means YOU too!

What is it about Christianity that seems to bring out the smugness and arrogance in some people? Especially when the choice to follow Christ at all is supposed to stem from an acknowledgement that we ourselves are not worthy of being in His kingdom... nay, of being anywhere within His sight, even!

Yet God loves us so and through Christ has adopted us into His realm. That should be cause enough for joy unceasing. And yet there are far too many Christians for whom that is not enough. For them, Heaven isn't sweet unless they know with absolute certainty that there is at least one poor miserable soul roasting in Hell for eternity. Based on what I've been seeing around the Intertubes since this morning, that particular soul of the day is Christopher Hitchens.

I honestly don't know who to feel more sorry for: a man who wrote that he did not believe in God, or a person who claims belief in God while literally gloating that someone else chose to be separated from that very God for all time.

I am in no position to judge the soul of Christopher Hitchens. But I can assert that based on what I have read of him and found in his writings, that he was an individual who not only struggled with the idea of God, but perhaps had more reasons than most to endure that struggle at all. That he chose to be open and even brazen about it does not befit one who is necessarily comfortable with the notion of there being no God. Rather it seems more that Hitchens was searching for a rationale for God's existence. And indeed, in recent months he had even begun to question his atheism within his essays.

I can't believe that God can't honor that. As our Lord Himself declared...

"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

-- Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 7, Verse 7

And we should be thankful that the matter of our own salvation is not dependent upon the understanding of other men!

Because in the end, Christopher Hitchens was a frail man who did not possess fulness of wisdom and understanding. He was a person who was imperfect and had fallen short of the glory of God.

Aren't we all?

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New poster for THE HUNGER GAMES movie adaptation

I know practically nothing about The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, apart from this book being everywhere when I go into any of the local bookstores. In fact, the synopsis for the upcoming film adaptation - which I just read a short while ago - is all that I know about it at all...

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the evil Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, The Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which "Tributes" must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives, Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy. If she's ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. THE HUNGER GAMES is directed by Gary Ross, and produced by Nina Jacobson's Color Force in tandem with producer Jon Kilik. Suzanne Collins' best-selling novel, the first in a trilogy published by Scholastic that has over 16 million copies in print in the United States alone, has developed a massive global following.

What sayeth y'all who might have read this book: any good?

Here's the just-released poster for it, which has officially colored me intrigued...

Okay, I just found that there's also this trailer for it too...

Looks pretty solid. I may have to make time to read this book before the movie comes out :-)

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The Iraq War is officially over

On this day, the Iraq War has officially drawn to a close. It began in March of 2003, lasting nearly nine years (more than twice as long as the United States took to fight and win World War II across both the Pacific and European theaters).

The Iraq war cost our own country nearly one trillion dollars. It also cost the lives of more than 4,500 American military personnel and more than 100,000 Iraqis (many of whom were innocent civilians not attached to Saddam Hussein's army).

Now... can anyone finally tell me why it is that we went to war in Iraq in the first place? "Enforcing sanctions" won't cut it. We lost too many lives and wasted way too much money on this fiasco. What has come of it? An Iraq which will sooner than later tear itself apart across ethnic and religious lines (specifically Sunni, Shiite and Kurd) and a wide-open corridor from its western border for Iran to get pokey with Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

In short: we took an already unstable world region and primed the fuse for even worse potential for globe-rattling mayhem.

The only reason we honestly went into Iraq to begin with is because we had, at the time, a small-minded narcissist in the Oval Office. A man who only got there because of his friendships and his family connections. A control freak who was too used to getting his own way. A simpleton who had no grasp of history and yet wanted to be remembered as a "war president". An individual detached from sympathy, empathy and sincerity. A man who thought himself and was allowed to think of himself as "favored of God" and that all others as such were expendable according to the whims of his divine right to rule.

Yes, George W. Bush and all of his kind... by all means, "Take a Bow".

Future generations will look upon this conflict - and what it will eventually spawn - and accordingly rank our own era as being among the most foolish in American history.

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Time for... THE LOBO PARAMILITARY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL!

This was posted on the blog a number of years ago, minus an embeddable video. That's since been fixed and hey, it is too good not to share once again!

It's The Lobo Paramilitary Christmas Special! Adapted from the eponymous one-shot special published in the early Nineties, DC Comics' resident badass and intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo (one of Superman's more colorful enemies) is hired by the Easter Bunny to kill Santa Claus. A bit of warning: there's some pretty harsh language in this film... but it's oh so very funny!

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Newt Gingrich: The GOP's John Kerry in waiting

I once met Newt Gingrich. He's a strong writer and speaker. I think he's got a very good mind for history. I also happen to share many of the views that he holds.

Nonetheless, I've got to say it...

Newt Gingrich is poised to become for the Republican Party in 2012 what John Kerry was for the Democrat Party in 2004.

Meaning that if Gingrich is the GOP's nominee for President, that will most likely assure that Obama will be re-elected.

Part of me is wondering if that might have been the plan from the start, although by whom and for what purpose, I could only speculate.

Can anybody provide evidence strong enough to compel me that there is any significant difference between the "two major parties" running the show in the United States? And that's all this really is: a show. Albeit one that has cost us billionstrillions of dollars, a wasted economy, individual liberty and even more than a few lives.

We, the American citizenry, will never be free until we make the conscious and conscientious choice to turn away from these petty illusions of political grandeur and at long last accept the responsibilities that God has entrusted with we the people.

(Just my .02 that I felt led to share after reading this morning's news...)

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17-year old creates cancer-destroying nanoparticle (and wins lots of $$$ to boot!)

Angela Zhang (left) is probably like the vast majority of other teenagers in most respects. But how many other teens out there are also developing radical new therapies for cancer that might very well lead to a veritable cure?

That's what Zhang has been doing for the past two years, spending over a thousand hours researching and creating a microscopic means of destroying tumors. And for her efforts she has just been awarded the $100,000 Grand Prize in the Individual category of the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology!

The title of Zhang's project is "Design of Image-guided, Photo-thermal Controlled Drug Releasing Multifunctional Nanosystem for the Treatment of Cancer Stem Cells". In layman's terms, it means that she developed a nanoparticle that, when delivered to the tumor site via the drug salinomycin, destroys the cancerous stem cells. Not only that but she smartly utilized gold and iron-oxide so that the particles could also be picked up on MRI and photoacoustics. Meaning that Zhang's method can overcome cancer resistance and be monitored in real time without any extra special equipment.

Clever lass, this one is!

Geek.com has more about Angela Zhang and her very cool work. Wouldn't surprise me if this product of her ingenuity sees routine use within the next ten years (if not sooner).

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One reader's tale of incompetence at the Internal Revenue Service

Way, waaaaay back when this blog was just getting started, I posted an essay titled "People who should be shot when the revolution comes". It was a tongue-in-cheek (kinda) piece about who in our society should be the first ones to be thrown against the wall if and when the citizens of this country finally get their fill and overthrow those who have gotten too uppity for anyone's good.

That this particular post should come to mind more than seven years after writing it, might clue y'all in on the kind of rage that I feel when I read the e-mail that one of The Knight Shift's viewers sent me recently.

I can't put it any more plain than this: the income tax is a means of economic and personal slavery. Think about how much time and energy gets wasted by millions of honest people in this country every year. Seriously folks: ever think about about what could be done productively, if all those billions of aggregate man-hours that we spend preparing tax returns were done away with?

Then there is how decent people do their best to adhere to a mountain of burdensome legislation that not even the finest tax attorneys in the land can agree on what it's supposed to mean. It's just not possible. I guarantee that if the government wanted, that it could find grounds for criminal indictment against every single taxpayer in America... only because it's impossible to meet each and every single condition of a tax code that is ridiculously volumnious!

And then there are the heartless bastitches of the Internal Revenue Service. Heck, let's name some names here: like Robert W. Nordlander, the IRS "special agent" who prosecuted a cold and cruel vendetta against ultra-marathoner Charlie Engle. Click on that link and just see if that story doesn't get your blood boiling.

I bet what I'm about to share will resonate with too many good people as well. It's what one individual submitted and asked me to pass along to this site's readers...

Waiting for me when I arrived home this evening was an "important" message from the I.R.S., saying it was "important" that I return their call by close of business today (which surprisingly to me was 8 p.m.). I was also asked to reference a "case number" when I returned the call.

After confirming the number appeared to be legitimate from the IRS web site I returned the call, despite my concerns (who wants to get harassed by the IRS?) and suspicions (that this was a scam.)

I decided in advance that I WAS NOT going to give out any personal information, so I bypassed the prompt asking me to enter my Social Security Number. After a 10-minute wait, a "Mrs. C***, ID# [deleted]" answered the phone. She asks for my SSN, and I inform her I'm not giving out any personal information. "Well, we're not going to get very far," she replied. I told her the message I received instructed me to give a case number and that I would give that, which I did.

Little good giving the case number did though, as "Mrs. C***" said she couldn't give me any information unless I gave her my name and "verified" that she was talking to the right person. I told her why not give me the name of the person your trying to reach, and I'll verify if I'm that person or not. No good.

I then mention that I find it peculiar that the IRS would try to contact me by phone rather than mail about a tax issue. (Let me say here that I've been contacted about errors on my federal tax returns before, and each of those few occasions, I was contacted by mail.)

Her explanation was that the IRS does try to make initial contact with individuals by mail based on the address that's on file with their tax return. Only afterwards, do they try to contact an individual by phone.

So I mention that the address they have for me is good because I haven't moved since I filed my taxes. And since since I haven't received a letter prior to this phone call, I must not be the person they're trying to reach. She says, "No! What did I say?"

I responded, "You said that the IRS tries to first contact individuals by mail based on the address filed with their tax return if there are issues. Then you try to contact them by phone." She says that's correct.

So, I ask again, since I HAVE NOT received anything in the mail from the IRS, may I deduce I'm not the individual this case number involves?

"Mrs C***" tells me no, that she can't give me any information unless I give her my personal info, accuses me of arguing with her, says she has other calls she needs to take and that I need to go my local tax office for information.

I could see this wasn't getting anywhere (and wasn't going to) so I ended the call. This drives me crazy and makes me mad on so many levels I gave them the case number they referenced on the message. That's all they asked me to give, and that's all I was going to give. I've "rendered unto Caesar" and filed my taxes on time every year.

Perhaps what made me the most angry was "Mrs. C***'s" comment that she "had other calls to take." Last time I checked, the federal taxes I pay (and we all pay) pay "Mrs. C***'s" salary. The least she could do was do the job I help pay her to do and be a little more helpful.

This is the kind of bureaucratic crap that was symptomatic of the Soviet Union. And the late Roman Empire.

I defy anyone to tell me that the above example is something that should be tolerated by a free people who enjoy the liberty that God has given us and that so many fought... and died... so that we might continue to have.

And I was woefully shortsighted when I came up with that list in 2004. Perhaps we should make room for soulless cretins like Mrs. C*** and Robert Nordlander. I can hear it now...

"But we were only following orders! We were ONLY FOLLOWING ORDERS!!"

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Has the Dan Cooper skyjacking case finally been solved?!

Two weeks after the fortieth anniversary of his dastardly deed, it looks like the mystery of Dan Cooper might have been cracked at last.

And if true, it means that Cooper did survive his crazy stunt after all!

In the image above, you see one Lynn Doyle Cooper on the left and on the right, one of the sketches of Dan Cooper (or "D.B. Cooper" as he was erroneously referred to be by early press reports) made from descriptions given by passengers and crew of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305: the flight that Cooper hijacked on Thanksgiving 1971.

Marla Cooper, niece of Lynn Doyle Cooper, has come forward to tell the FBI that her uncle arrived at her home on the day after the skyjacking. He was severely injured and claimed that he had been in a car crash.

But what's more, the FBI is apparently close to matching a fingerprint from Lynn Cooper with one found on a cheap clip-on tie that Dan Cooper wore (and left behind) on the plane before the scoundrel bailed out with a parachute and $200,000 into the frigid night of the Pacific Northwest somewhere over the state of Washington.

Lynn Cooper died in 1999. Meaning that if he was Dan Cooper, he got away and was likely laughing about it for almost three decades!

Mash down here for more of this story.

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The one who voted against war with Japan

Yesterday was the seventieth anniversary of the Empire of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor: the event that catapulted the United States into World War II. On the following day President Franklin Roosevelt delivered the famous "Infamy Speech" before a Joint Session of Congress. Less than an hour after Roosevelt's address, Congress passed an official declaration of war against Japan.

And it was almost unanimous. The final tally was 388 for war, and 1 against...

Jeannette Rankin, member of the House of Representatives from the state of Montana, was the sole vote against the declaration of war. Rankin was also the first woman elected to Congress. During her previous term in Congress she had also voted against the United States entering what became known as World War I. And in case you're wondering, she was a Republican.

As you can probably imagine, Rankin's stance was roundly unpopular: not just with her constituents back home but all across America. She didn't even bother to run for re-election. She passed away in 1973 at the age of 92.

But as for why Miss Rankin did not vote for the war declaration, I can't but find her rationale to be intriguing...

"As a woman, I can't go to war and I refuse to send anyone else."

I must admit: as much as a military response was mandated by the horrific nature of the Pearl Harbor attack, I have to appreciate Jeannette Rankin's rationale. Had women been allowed to serve on the front lines or more to the point, had Rankin been a male... I can't imagine that she would have cast a vote against war. But neither of those happened to have been the case.

I believe that Congress did the right thing by voting for the declaration of war. But I also have to believe that Miss Rankin was acting according to the best of her principles by not voting for that same declaration. That may have conflicted with the demands of those she was elected and sworn to represent... but there I am reminded that ours is a democratically-elected republic and not a pure democracy. It's not perfect, but it's the best that man in his limited wisdom has been able to come up with so far as governing himself goes.

Jeannette Rankin's vote against declaring war with Japan is a most curious example of that.

And all of this was seventy years ago today, December the 8th 1941.

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George Burns presents CHRISTMAS CAROL II: THE SEQUEL!

AMC has been doing multiple broadcasts of A Christmas Carol, the 1984 television movie adaptation with George C. Scott as Ebenezer Scrooge, for the past few nights. It's easily my favorite version of Charles Dickens' timeless potboiler (no really, he only wrote it to sell and pay some bills) although Patrick Stewart's one-man performance runs a very close second.

But have you ever wondered what happened after Scrooge changed his ways at the end of that story?

Well wonder no more! Back in 1985 there was a short-lived show called George Burns Comedy Week. It was a comedy anthology series hosted by Burns: sorta The Twilight Zone but all about the laughs. And just before that Christmas, Burns and company produced a follow-up to A Christmas Carol.

So without further ado, here is Roddy McDowall, Ed Begley Jr., Carolyn Seymour, Paul Benedict, and the one and only James Whitmore himself as Scrooge in... "Christmas Carol II: The Sequel"!

Part 1

Part 2

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Harry Morgan has passed away

The sad news is coming out this afternoon that Harry Morgan, the already prolific actor before finding eternal fame on two of television's most classic series - as Bill Gannon on Dragnet and then Col. Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H - has passed away at the age of 96.

This guy shined in everything that he was in, during a career that stretched all the way back to 1942. The following year he appeared in The Ox-Bow Incident, quite a controversial film for its time. Morgan followed that up with roles in The Glenn Miller Story and Inherit the Wind. In 1962's How the West Was Won he played General Ulysses Grant. And those were just a few of movies that Morgan appeared in (along with quite a few comedies).

It was a Bill Gannon, alongside Jack Webb in Dragnet, that would have most cemented Morgan's place in entertainment history. But then he did Col. Potter in M*A*S*H: a role for which he earned an Emmy. And yeah I grew up watching M*A*S*H and I liked Hawkeye and Klinger and the rest... but for some reason Potter was even more the heart and soul of that show. A model Army officer and field surgeon, but with crack wit and profound wisdom. Not to mention some of the best lines of the entire show: "Horse feathers!" etc. And I also remember him in that series of "Incident" television movies that he made with Walter Matthau.

Rest in peace, Mr. Morgan. And thanks for the many years of good drama and great laughs.

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Seventieth Anniversary of the Day of Infamy

Perhaps the most iconic photograph from the attack on Pearl Harbor: the battleship U.S.S. Arizona suffers a hit to her magazine by a Japanese torpedo.

1,177 sailors and officers perished aboard the Arizona. To this day, most of them are still there.

Today, seventy years later, there are approximately six thousand who survived the Pearl Harbor attack who are still among us.

Remembering them on this 70th anniversary, as well as those who died that day and those who have passed on since.

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MUSIC FROM THE TRANSFORMERS TRILOGY (Look! Real physical CD!)

First things first: I have yet to hear any news about a CD release of the score from Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which was once again masterfully composed and orchestrated by Steve Jablonsky. A bunch of readers have been asking me about this for the past several months (and quite often more than once!). No word either on the rumored box set that would have Jablonsky's complete score from all three Transformers movies, which I would gladly plunk down serious coin for and based on the enthusiasm I've been observing, so would many others out there.

Until we have something more substantial to go on (and I tend to believe that it will be coming sooner than later) here's something ya might wanna check out: Music from the Transformers Trilogy!

Performed by London Music Works, this CD includes 16 tracks from the three movies: six tracks each for Transformers and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, and four tracks from Transformers: Dark of the Moon. Some great stuff here (though I'm a bit disappointed that "Decepticons" from the first movie didn't make the cut). I don't own this yet but based on the samples on the Amazon.com page this is an amazing composition and definitely well worth investing in! I was especially impressed with the recording of "Arrival to Earth" (a track so beautiful that it has been used at weddings!). It's currently going for $14.08 at Amazon and I'm certainly ordering a copy right now :-)

And if you're feelin' lucky punk, ScoreKeeper at Ain't It Cool News is giving away five copies of this sweet album! Deadline for the contest is this coming Sunday, so click on the link and give it a try :-)

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Zoe and Wally are in the first ever I Can Has Cheezburger? daily calendar!

Awright you're probably wondering: Chris who the heck are Zoe and Wally?!

They're my girlfriend's two cats. And two years ago she submitted this wacky photo of the two of them laying on her futon to the popular humor site I Can Has Cheezburger?...

Zoe is the black and white and orange one sitting at the far end, and Wally is the orange dude screaming (or whatever the heck he's doing). And they are now the January 10th featured photo from the I Can Has Cheezburger? 2012 Calendar!

Now available at fine retailers, bookstores and online outlets everywhere!

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Leaking roof could lead to revealing of the Ark of the Covenant

There's no way that I'm going to make a post about this and not include a pic from my all-time very most favorite motion picture...

But if you thought that the Ark of the Covenant made its way to a warehouse in Area 51 (or a warehouse in Arlington, Virginia as one of my history professors said years before Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), it's been the longstanding belief of many that the real Ark is here...

The Chapel of the Ark on the grounds of the St. Mary of Zion Church in Aksum, Ethiopia.

The story goes that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba produced a son together: Menelik. Years after the Queen's visit that was recorded in scripture, Menelik came to visit his father and it was at that time that Solomon let Menelik take the Ark of the Covenant to what is now Ethiopia. There the Ark was kept by Menelik's descendants and when Christianity arrived over a thousand years later, the Ark came into the custody of what today is the Orthodox Church of Ethiopia.

For the Christians of Ethiopia, the whereabouts of the Ark has been no real secret. It used to be brought out on certain religious occasions (always covered with a thick shroud) and kept in the St. Mary of Zion Church. Then in the 1960s the chapel that you see in the above photo was built and the Ark moved into it. Only one man is allowed to see the Ark of the Covenant itself: a "guardian of the treasure" who is appointed for life to keep the Ark safe from harm. Before the guardian dies, he chooses a young man to be the next to watch over the Ark. So it has gone for generations. The guardian never leaves the chapel, and no one else is allowed inside.

But now, the entire world might be about to see the Ark of the Covenant... all because of a leaking roof.

Rain water is now trickling into the Chapel of the Ark. A new temporary chapel is being built nearby to store the Ark while repairs are being made. And moving the Ark requires four men to pull it off. That's if the instructions found in the Bible are followed, anyway (which they should be, because both Bible and Hollywood warn about nasty things happening to those who would locate the Ark in anything but the prescribed manner).

There are two photographs of the Ark of the Covenant that I'm aware of. One of them was taken in the Fifties or Sixties and shows the Ark outside during a religious festival, completely covered. The other one shows a group of monks carrying a shrouded Ark with their backs turned toward it out of respect. There's something there, all right. And whatever it is, it might very well soon be all over CNN and YouTube.

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Star Wars cello battle!

I am actually genuinely surprised that my good friend Brian (aka Darth Larry) had nothing to do with this, since he's a bigger Star Wars geek than even I am and also an accomplished cello player!

Here's the video that has musicians and saga fans alike everywhere talking today...

Thanks to Geoff Gentry for being the first among many to pass this along :-)

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How The Salvation Army created modern music

So it's December 1st and I'm finally allowing myself to enjoy the music of the holiday season! Not that I'm a grinch or anything. It's just... I've never liked how the Christmas stuff now seems to start coming out the day after Halloween (and lately even before then). It only "feels" like Seasons Greetings when it's after Thanksgiving, and maybe several days after that just for good measure. I mean, doesn't the year go by fast enough without it needing any "help"?

Well anyhoo, it being the time properly leading up to Christmas at last, I'll kick things off with a post I've been considering for some time now. It's a neat lil' bit of historical lore that I've always enjoyed and I like to think that others will appreciate it as well.

So here we go with the strange but true tale of how The Salvation Army from its very beginning was the catalyst for the style, the substance, and the soul of just about everything there is about modern contemporary Christian music... and much of other modern music too.

The Salvation Army is well renowned for a lot of things regarding its charity work and emergency aid in times of need. Right now as always this time of year, you can find good folks ringing the bell at those cute lil' Salvation Army red kettles all over the place (I'm gonna ask all of The Knight Shift's faithful readers to please consider chucking some coin in this season whenever you encounter one... and the people working the bells are always fun to talk to as well!).

But along with Christmas bells, thrift stores and charitable efforts throughout the community, The Salvation Army is also world-renowned for its brass bands. Once upon a time it seemed that every small town in America had a Salvation Army band playing around Christmas. These days you're more likely to find them in the United Kingdom, but a few places on this side of the pond still have a brass band affiliated with the organization. Even so, most Americans of the current era will probably only know a Salvation Army band from one's fleeting appearance in the 1983 film A Christmas Story (which was set in 1940).

But it turns out that The Salvation Army brass bands have some very neat history behind them. Indeed, it could be said that through its musical ministry, The Salvation Army has wound up pioneering a lot of modern melody!

It all began in 1878. The Salvation Army had been founded more than ten years earlier by Methodist minister William Booth as an effort to reach out in Christian service to the worst slums of Victorian-era London. And by the late 1870s the labors of Booth and his wife Catherine were beginning to bear great fruit: hundreds of English people - many of them alcoholics, drug abusers, prostitutes and countless others who had been deemed "undesirable" by the upper crust of English society - had been won over to Christ through the message of "soup, soap and salvation".

But eventually there was a problem. Namely, the owners of the saloons, pubs and beer halls around London who gradually came to lose a lot of money because formerly regular patrons began flocking to The Salvation Army instead. The new converts gave up liquor as they turned over a new leaf... and that didn't play too hot among the procurers of alcoholic beverage in the East End (where Jack the Ripper would run amok a decade later). That many zealous Salvation Army "soldiers" were returning to their previous haunts to preach against booze - and being fairly successful at that - didn't make Booth's cause too popular in many quarters, either.

Well, before long William Booth and his followers began getting heckled, jeered and cajoled by various drunks and louts. Sometimes it came to worse: Army members being assaulted and attacked and barraged with rocks and bottles. And it fast became apparent that William Booth and his Salvation Army... well, needed protection from the hostilities.

Enter into our tale one Charles William Fry, a builder from Salisbury. He and his family had joined The Salvation Army. And as concern grew over Booth's safety, Fry and his three teenaged sons offered themselves to be bodyguards.

It also just so happened that Fry and his three sons all played brass instruments.

Charles William Fry, his wife and their three sons

Now it was supposed to be that when Fry and his boys went out to keep Booth and other Salvation Army workers from harm, they would be providing musical accompaniment for the singing. But it didn't quite work out that way. Pretty soon other Salvation Army members were bringing their own musical instruments along. And they were using them... whether they had a lick o' music talent or not! Bells, banjos, drums, whatever could be found or crudely made, the Army wound up employing. "It sounds as if a brass band's gone out of its mind," said one observer.

But something else soon began happening, as well. You see, these poor and down-trodden who had thrown in with Booth's Salvation Army, well... "nice", "clean" Christian hymnals weren't something that they were accustomed to. Okay, they didn't know about them at all. These were people far more used to songs that you could drink some hooch to, then sing some more after getting all gassed.

And that's when it started. The Salvation Army members began taking popular songs about partying and getting drunk... and inventing their own lyrics for the same music!

(I guess it could also be said that The Salvation Army was already doing song parody about a hundred years before "Weird Al" Yankovic hit the scene, but anyhoo...)

Hit tunes like "Here's to Good Old Whiskey" became "Storm the Forts of Darkness". "Way Down Upon the Swanee River" inspired "Joy, Freedom, Peace and Ceaseless Blessing". Many other "secular" songs came to be adopted as Christian hymnals with unorthodox melody. And this went on for a few years. William Booth himself didn't know what to make of it. In fact, he came to harbor severe doubts about the music that his own group's members were coming up with.

Then came a night in January of 1882 when Booth was visiting Worcester. The Commanding Officer of the town's Army contingent, George Fielder, came to the stage and began singing "Bless His Name, He Set Me Free". It was something that Booth had never heard before, and he thought it sounded beautiful. Soon afterward he asked Fielder what tune it had been set to.

"General, that's a dreadful tune. Don't you know what it is? That's 'Champagne Charlie Is My Name'."

It was all that Booth needed to be convinced that whatever it was that The Salvation Army was doing musically, there was nothing wrong with it. "That's settled it," William Booth declared. "Why should the devil have all the best tunes?"

Over the next decade The Salvation Army published numerous official adaptations for the bands that were soon being organized throughout Britain, as well as several original compositions: most in the rousing style that the Army's band had discovered such enthusiasm for. The volumes of Salvation Army music proved to be wildly popular among Christian performers and secular artists alike. Some of the songs are still used by Army bands today. And it is a trend that The Salvation Army has continued on into the new millennium: adapting the message of Christ to current tempo even as modern music has followed the example of Charles William Fry and that first Salvation Army brass band.

The Salvation Army had demonstrated that music could be as malleable and adaptable as it needed to be in order to grasp the attention of an audience. It was a pragmatic approach that had not really been done before, and in retrospect has helped to shape and form not only modern Christian music, but music as a whole.

So this holiday season, the next time you crank up your iPod and listen to Lady Gaga or They Might Be Giants or whatever and you happen to see a red Salvation Army kettle, be of good cheer and think about dropping some change in. You're not just giving to a good cause, you're honoring your musical roots!

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