Angels of death

Redo of famous gospel number
is enough to wake the dead

You've never heard that traditional gospel number, "The Old Churchyard," done with such subtle and stirring beauty as in this performance by the Petersens.

The song goes back centuries, early settlers having brought it from Britain to America, where it became entrenched in Appalachian culture. The Scots Irish settlers evidently picked it up. You'll note Katie Petersen's amazing mimicry of bagpipes with her unique five-string fiddle.

Young Julianne, as lead singer, shines once again. Cleverly, she begins in a rather muted tone and builds to the enthralling climax verse:

I rest in the hope that one bright day
Sunshine will burst through these prisons of clay
And Old Gabriel's trumpet and the voice of the Lord
They will wake up the dead in the old churchyard

Julianne has always had a major, if understated, influence on this band, which has a large global following on YouTube. But upon completing her schooling, she has shown herself an even more remarkable creative presence, gliding easily among the Beatles, Bob Dylan, traditional gospel and her own acutely poetic songs. Her loving siblings are happy to play along.

This video brings us "Petersens Lite." Only the three young sirens appear here, with trustworthy Ellen backing Julz with melodious vocal skill. Neither she nor Julz has her instrument. The decision to go with "bagpipes" only brought excellent results. Sometimes all those string band strings can overwhelm a poetic performance. Even so, this bunch has no problem getting down and whipping out great old-timey Bluegrass, tho they prefer to grass up contemporary material. In this case, tho, we can't even say they're "grassing it up." More like "bagpiping it up."

In the full band, Julianne handles the mandolin, Mother ("Get It Mama") Karen the bass fiddle, Matt the guitar, Petersens' "adoptee" Emmett Franz the dobro, Ellen the banjo and wily Katie the fiddle.

The song gained prominence during the American folk revival of the 1960s and '70s, and interestingly Julz likes to sample from that Folk era. Among noteworthy folkies who have interpreted "Old Churchyard" are Joan Baez; Almeda "Granny" Riddle from Arkansas; Sarah Gunning from Eastern Kentucky; Waterson:Carthy, a noted British Folk group; and Offa Rex, a collaboration between the Decemberists and Olivia Chaney.

In August, the band leaves their entertainment mecca hometown of Branson, Mo., in the heart of the fabled Ozarks, for Europe.

Tickets are available via the Petersens site.
https://petersenband.com/the-petersens-return-to-europe/ Here is the tour schedule:

London (Union Chapel, Islington). Tue. Aug. 13. https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-petersens/union-chapel/3000403

Gistel, Belgium (Moeder van Vrede). Thur. Aug. 15. Free festival at a family religious center; registration is required. https://www.moedervanvrede.be/Maria/inschrijven-wel-gezin-de-dagen/

Cologne. (Stadthalle). Sat. Aug. 17. https://agenturahrens.ticket.io/9urw6qs0/?cryptedId=9urw6qs0

Paris. Mon. Aug. 19. (Le Cabaret Sauvage). https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-petersens/le-cabaret-sauvage-/3039818

Cork, Ireland. (St. Luke's). Thur. Aug. 22. https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-petersens/live-at-st-luke-s/3007389

Brace yourself for the Petersens' upcoming Eurotour

London (Union Chapel, Islington). Tue. Aug. 13.
https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-petersens/union-chapel/3000403

Gistel, Belgium (Moeder van Vrede). Thur. Aug. 15. Free festival at a family religious center; registration is required.
https://www.moedervanvrede.be/Maria/inschrijven-wel-gezin-de-dagen/

Cologne (Stadthalle). Sat. Aug. 17.
https://agenturahrens.ticket.io/9urw6qs0/?cryptedId=9urw6qs0

Paris (Le Cabaret Sauvage) Mon. Aug. 19.
https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-petersens/le-cabaret-sauvage-/3039818

Cork, Ireland (St. Luke's). Thur. Aug. 22.
https://www.seetickets.com/event/the-petersens/live-at-st-luke-s/3007389

Wielding one mean dobro

Emmett Franz: a tale of an Ozarks Bluegrass legend in the making?

The Petersens made Emmett Franz and Emmett Franz made the Petersens.

That's the takeaway one might get when reviewing the meteoric success of the Bluegrass band based in the Ozarks resort town of Branson, Mo.

It's not that the Petersens weren't alluring and proficient at earning a living with their regular shows and tours. But when the band mates found that the covid scare forced them to turn to Youtube and Patreon for income, it turned out that Emmett's mastery of the dobro was a definite plus. (The group was also fortunate in having an excellent video producer, Aaron Clark, to showcase its work.)

Emmett Franz gets down with his dobro as Karen Petersen tackles bass.

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An example of what I mean is the group's first viral hit, Jolene, sung by svelte siren Ellen. I've heard plenty of Bluegrass dobroists, but never one who demonstrates the dexterity and mastery of Emmett. He is so good that the band sometimes has to dial him down a bit so that he doesn't overwhelm everybody else.

"One of the first times I heard Emmett perform was in a small house concert with maybe 15 people in attendance," gushed Ellen in 2020, when I Want It That Way was released. "He sang I Want It That Way and we were blown away with his awesome arrangement and style. We can't sing this man's praises enough and are so thankful he's part of the band (and basically family)."

Of course a dobro is a resonator guitar, which sounds similar to the electrified steel guitar but needs no extra amplification. And yours truly is not the only observer who has deemed Emmett as in the same general category as a really good rock lead guitarist.

From the Branson Tri Lakes News:

For their debut concert of 2023, The Nest featured [Arizona indy rock band] BOXEN with opener Emmett Franz on March 13.

“We were essentially sold out. We had a few people that didn't show up to take their seats, which always happens. For the size of the venue, we thought it was great,” Tom said. “I think Emmett Franz just blew everybody away. I don’t think hardly anybody knew who Emmett Franz was, other than his fans that he brought which were plentiful. The pre-show was very well received.”

Andrea [Brett] added, it had been BOXEN’s idea to invite Franz to be a part of their concert, which she agreed worked out great.

Another interesting point is that the Arkansas native's excellence at hillbilly-style vocals would serve him well in the straight rock genre, where mellowness of voice is not required. And he has plenty of experience at rock, as the Petersens do quite a bit of grassed-up Rock.

The band no doubt is breathing a sigh of relief that its prize player doesn't remove to Nashville in order to earn a handsome living as a studio musician. But as Emmett is one of sweet dynamite Katie's closest friends, that option may well be off the table.

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Emmett Franz playlist 

Wrong Side of Tomorrow
https://youtu.be/BfxF3hQu2ok

The Scientist
https://youtu.be/WwqFUY4HcS8?list=PLRTSFgot_wgqdJekfGn8cNjDMESvBgFSP

Moments
https://youtu.be/PBLSzetYYWs

Thunder Ridge
https://youtu.be/8hFts9PYRX4?list=PLi4OplF1xLPcZSY6HdbucQFCIu7zIm1Ut

Walls of Time
https://youtu.be/8JsrLsdK_M8?list=UULFy9CXl0iFafrcBA953Iqd0Q

It Rains Everywhere I go
https://youtu.be/nws1LVRpEpg?list=UULFy9CXl0iFafrcBA953Iqd0Q

Summer Wind
https://youtu.be/JMtt1oKN6t0?list=UULFy9CXl0iFafrcBA953Iqd0Q

Viva la Vida
https://youtu.be/n-TzinaPdBQ?list=UULFy9CXl0iFafrcBA953Iqd0Q

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
https://youtu.be/1OJp9yVaZiE

I feel the Blues Moving In
https://youtu.be/Ry_Nh3slMgI

Think About the Two of Us
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AV_ObfltSA

Red-headed Stranger
https://youtu.be/eT5NlmgDJqs

If I Needed You
https://youtu.be/f8GwRknGigw

All My Tears
https://youtu.be/wsQw2UPHdS0

I Want It That Way
https://youtu.be/w009AfeBZSA

Come to Jesus
https://youtu.be/7AdNov_uWnY

A bright Ozark morning

Original song neatly blends traditional themes

Group has had to expand its upcoming Eurotour
amid longing for music whole family can enjoy

Blending traditional modes into a new whole, the Petersens have come up with something very special that, in our estimation, is likely to be covered quite a lot.

Sisters Julianne and Katie Petersen worked together with Nashville country musician Johnny Meyer to write the lyrics for and compose Morningside, which weaves together traditional Gospel, Bluegrass and Country themes.

Julianne, as is her wont, brings us a subtle and interesting lead vocal. Julz is a well-rounded poet and musical artist, with an excellent feel for the new and the old. She goes from Coldplay to Bob Dylan to her own Silly Girls (see below) without batting an eyelash.

Morningside features instrumental breaks, including Katie's fabulous fiddle, Ellen's strong banjo, Matt's expert flat-picking, Julianne's acute mandolin and Emmet's always skillful dobro.

No wonder this Ozarks band, based in that family entertainment mecca, Branson, Mo., has a highly devoted global following.

Here is a verse, which gives you the flavor of the song:

If the wind of sorrow takes me
On the wings of love I'll fly
Till I come to rest so sweetly
Over on the morningside
Over on the morningside

(If you wonder why Ellen is running uphill during the video outro, the answer is that she hears her nine-month-old girl Macy demanding her presence.)

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Brace yourself for the Petersens upcoming Eurotour

London (Union Chapel, Islington). Tue. Aug. 13.
Gistel, Belgium (Moeder van Vrede). Thur. Aug. 15. Free festival at a family religious center; registration is required.
Cologne. (Stadthalle). Sat. Aug. 17.
Paris. Mon. Aug. 19. (Le Cabaret Sauvage).
Cork, Ireland. (St. Luke's). Thur. Aug. 22.

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Silly Girls

NYT takes a stab at jab risk

Covid vaccines are safe and effective,
except maybe not always

The New York Times unveils a bit of truth about covid vaccines — thousands harmed — but cloaks the disclosure in simple probabilities taken from official data. No worries, the paper assures, the jabs are safe and effective.

Children's Health Defense report on NYT articles

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/new-york-times-investigation-people-injured-covid-vaccines-being-ignored/

In economics, utility is a measure of how satisfied a person is with a particular state of the world. It can also refer to the value or worth of a service or good, or the total satisfaction or benefit gained from consuming it. 

The concept of value, positive or negative, must be taken into account in risk assessment. For example, suppose you stand to gain $100K if you have “only” one chance in a hundred of losing a leg? Would you do it? After all, your risk is a smallish 1 percent.

It would seem reasonable that the greater the potential for harm, the lower you want the risk to be.

But we don't get much in the way of cost-benefit analysis from the press, government or big pharma. So when they talk about low risk have they factored in such a calculation? Rarely, and those who do so face a conspiracy of silence or public bashing.

A point that is often overlooked is that if you are a healthy young person, you face very low risk of severe covid effects. So what is the point of getting the jab even with supposed low risks of dangerous reactions? You never needed to take that jab risk at all.

If there is a small risk to your child of jab-induced heart damage, brain injury or autism, but there is near zero risk that a case of covid would do much to her or him, what is the better decision? Jab or no jab?

Suppose you are told that the chance of a life-threatening vaccine injury for your child is about one in 10,000.

Yet you would not like it if your child was one of the more than 1,000 American children who would have, by these figures, been tragically injured by the substance (which, in a side effect, injects foreign DNA into human cells).

[That is, of 73 million Americans 17 years old or younger, about 14.1 percent were vaccinated, according to not terribly reliable figures. That yields 10,293,000 kids who got the jab. Divide that by 10,000 and you have more than 1,000 children very likely to have been grievously afflicted from vaccination.]

But the chance of your child contracting life-threatening covid is so low that it is difficult to find hard percentages on the internet, even when bypassing Google's information control gateway. So was the shot worth the "low" risk?

Shown below is an answer by Perplexity AI to demonstrate how sparse are the data available to the public.

Certainly the Japanese people are not impressed that the probability of a meltdown disaster at Fukushima was very low. That is because, with hindsight, they can see that the scale of the potential consequences should have been taken into account when building a nuclear reactor in a quake-prone region.​

A peek at Paul

As a public service, NEWS of the WORLD reprints The FUNNY STUFF FUNNIES, an educational comic book giving basic facts on drugs and alcohol. Each post reproduces a page from the booklet, which is aimed at young persons and which avoids sermonizing and excessive wordiness.

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XXV

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Old NY Times and war correspondent clips

As a newspaperman, I once wrote under the name Roger Conant. I began using the name Paul Conant, the name on my driver license, in the early 1990s.

Many more recent clippings must exist somewhere, but those below are a few I was able to find on the internet. This is nuts and bolts stuff. The barn-burners are nowhere to be found.

But that lack doesn’t really matter, as my purpose in presenting these clips is not to boast (really, who cares?), but simply to assure you media people on this list that I really am one of you.

I’ve also tossed in a couple of war reporting features that were located by my son Christopher. My war reporting appeared in the Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper, the New York Daily News, at the time the nation’s largest circulation daily, the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for service members, and elsewhere.

The author of The Funny Stuff Funnies takes sole responsibility for the content of this e-booklet. This booklet has not been sponsored, either directly or indirectly, by any government or non-government organization or fellowship, such as AA or NA.

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Find table of content for Funny Stuff Funnies at this link. Read Funny Stuff Funnies again.
Start over HERE.

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The Lunapic image editor contributed greatly to this booklet's pictorial enhancement. Other image editors used were Palette and Petalica.

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Do your friends and your friends' kids a favor, and post one or more Funny Stuff links on social media.

Concerning source material

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As a public service, NEWS of the WORLD reprints The FUNNY STUFF FUNNIES, an educational comic book giving basic facts on drugs and alcohol. Each post reproduces a page from the booklet, which is aimed at young persons and which avoids sermonizing and excessive wordiness.

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XXIV

SS1

The author, Paul Conant, is a former New York newspaperman.

All facts in this booklet are taken from accredited private and government sources. Any factual errors beought to the author's attention will be gladly corrected.

For a bit of info on Conant's background, please see A Peek at Paul.

The author of The Funny Stuff Funnies takes sole responsibility for the content of this e-booklet. This booklet has not been sponsored, either directly or indirectly, by any government or non-government organization or fellowship, such as AA or NA.

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Go to NEXT PAGE

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Find table of content for Funny Stuff Funnies at this link.

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The Lunapic image editor contributed greatly to this booklet's pictorial enhancement. Other image editors used were Palette and Petalica.

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Do your friends and your friends' kids a favor, and post one or more Funny Stuff links on social media.