#122 The night the cat died

The first Christmas at our daughter’s new home, the exterior outlined with lights, was lovely. Our son-in-law moved the kitchen table into the empty dining room and with the extensions, it seated nine easily. She prepared turkey and ham, several vegetables, lots of non-alcoholic wines and beer. With our son and our daughter's in-laws we had a full table.

About 5:00 p.m. our son got a call from the emergency room veterinarian where he had taken his cat in the morning. He had noticed that she'd been losing weight and had stopped eating. He asked me about it on the 24th and I said to call his vet immediately, which he did but couldn't get an appointment for her until the 26th. Christmas morning he could hear a rattle when she breathed and she couldn't jump up on anything. So he rushed her to a clinic on the northeast side.

When he didn't come back to the table after the call, I went into the family room and found him quietly sobbing with the vet on the phone. She had told him there was a 50-50 chance his cat couldn't live through the night--kidney failure. They had rehydrated her, but without functioning kidneys even that could kill her. He told her he'd call back. We talked a bit and although he first said he couldn't bear to be there, I told him I didn't think the pet he loved so much should die without him. So we made our apologies to our hosts and the other guests and we drove him to the clinic--he was so distraught I knew it wasn't safe for him to drive.

With no traffic, it was still a 30 minute drive to the emergency clinic. I will never forget the sight of this big man--190 lbs, over 6' tall--on his knees cradling the kitty he says saw him through everything the last 10 years--"all the shit"--as he so aptly put it. The IV had perked her up and she looked pretty good, but I could see she didn't try to crawl out of the blanket or off the table and didn't seem to respond to his voice.

He cried and swore and told her he was sorry. I dealt with this often in my job--people had a sick or dying or dead pet--horse, cat, dog, guinea pig--and they’d call for reassurance they have or are doing the right thing. But I'd never seen or heard anything like this. Or it was worse because my “baby” was suffering too. The vet was kind, told him he could wait, but he said to go ahead. When we got back to our daughter’s home, he had calmed down enough to drive himself home.

When we got home about 9 p.m. I called him and spent an hour on the phone with him. He was still crying, full of all the "what ifs," saying he'd killed his pet, wanted to talk to the vet, was afraid he'd done the wrong thing. He was very grateful we'd gone with him and touched that we'd petted her before the injection. When I talked to him the next morning, he was much better and was caring for his girlfriend‘s kitten, and said he was surprised that it was a comfort to him.

I told him that the Bible says nothing about animals going to heaven, but if in order to be perfect for him, his kitty will be there waiting for him, because we do know from scripture, that there is no sorrow in heaven. He’s had several cats and dogs since that Christmas Day of 1997, but none will ever take her place.

#121 Dump him

She was the morning, cheery part-time, counter assistant when I first met her at the coffee shop. An English major. We joked she was going to write the “great American novel.” She was excited about graduating from college, and even took some time off in June to travel to New York to check into grad school.

I’ve stopped asking her about her plans. She now has an official store name tag. She has a title. And responsibilities. Doesn’t smile as much. She, or her parents, probably spent $70,000 on her education and she is figuring schedules, taking complaints about spilled coffee, ordering supplies, training new college students to take orders and doing quality checks.

Some mornings I see her making furtive phone calls before 6:30 on her cell phone. The smile and bouncy step are gone. I suspect she has settled. She hasn’t settled for marriage instead of career or grad school--the way my generation might have done in the 60s. She’s not even a fiancée. No, I suspect it is “significant-otherhood.” Or maybe just shacking up, with no commitment beyond next week-end.

Dump him, honey. Move on. He doesn’t deserve your talent and sense of humor. Chase your dream. There’s plenty of time later for guys who will waste their lives and yours sleeping in.

#120 Classification theory

"Sorting things out; classification and its consequences” by Geoffrey C. Bowker and Susan Leigh Star (read a few chapters here) begins:

“To classify is human. Not all classifications take formal shape or are standardized in commercial and bureaucratic products. We all spend large parts of our days doing classification work, often tacitly, and make up and use a range of ad hoc classifications in order to do so. We sort dirty dishes from clean, white laundry from colorfast, important email to be answered from e-junk. We match the size and type of our car tires to the amount of pressure they should accept.

Our desktops are a mute testimony to a kind of muddled folk classification: papers which must read by yesterday, but which have been there since last year; old professional journals which really should be read and even in fact may someday be, and which have been there since last year; assorted grant applications, tax forms, various work-related surveys and forms waiting to be filled out for everything from parking spaces to immunizations. These surfaces may be piled with sentimental cards which are already read but which can’t yet be thrown out alongside reminder notes to send similar cards to parents, sweethearts, or to friends for their birthdays, all piled on top of last year’s calendar (which who knows, may be useful at tax time).

Any part of the home, school or workplace reveals some such system of classification: medications classed as not for children occupy a higher shelf than safer ones; books for reference are shelved close to where we do the Sunday crossword puzzle; door keys are color-coded and stored according to frequency of use.”

This is certainly a relief--I thought it was just me, a former cataloger, who sorts, classifies and arranges by size, price, theory, type, temperature, eye color, whim of the day, size of the electrical cord, frequency of use, but with a desk that looks like last year‘s tornado passed through. Now I know we all do it even without training at the University of Illinois School of Library and Information Science. I did make some paragraph breaks in the above quote--because this is pixels on a screen and not a printed book page lovingly held in your hands.

I have a system at the supermarket. Shop the walls first--that’s the fresh produce, dairy and the bakery. If you buy most of your food from the walls you automatically avoid a lot of processed food which increases your food bill as it saves time and adds calories. Getting my choices out of the cart is another problem, because I reclassify on the moving conveyor belt and have to move quickly as I add the balance in my head.

First all the taxables--often that can be a fourth of the total amount--soap, paper products, cat food, soft drinks, and what is known in the industry as “health and beauty.” Dairy stands together, liquid separated from solid, but sometimes by shape and weight. Fresh meats are together, and frozen items are strategically huddled together. Sale items, the two-fer and three-fer usually are attractively grouped so I can make sure the clerk catches the reduced price. Tagged sale items are put where I can keep an eye on them has the price appears on the screen.

These days my system doesn’t work all that well, but I still cling to it to bring a sense of orderliness to my day. First of all, fresh produce is now sort of in the “narthex” of the store--apples, pears and bananas greeting me as I take a cart. On the way out, the computers that figure my bill have another agenda--they scramble my carefully devised system--they can’t even subtotal what I purchased for charity so I have to take the clerk’s word for it that I purchased $19.95 for Cat Welfare and remember to note it on my bill.

#119 Victor Davis Hanson

Victor Davis Hanson apparently doesn’t have a blog. I’ve looked. He’s in the public eye so often, perhaps it doesn’t matter. A Google search turns up about 14,000 possibilities if you enter those terms, but it is just others blogging about Hanson and the calm, sensible way he has of laying it on the line. He has about as much inflection and charisma as a weather reporter, but he’s always engaging because he presents his case meticulously. I’ve seen him on Book-TV several times and perhaps it is his training in the classics, but he does have a larger grasp of our current problems in the Middle East.

December 2003

November 7, 2003

November 3, 2003

September 28, 2003

September 15, 2003 (audio)

June 11, 2003

April 8, 2003

March 28, 2003 (audio)

‘Hanson has a lot more to say on many other subjects, among them the privileged Arabs, "driven to murder by hatred and envy," who are the real terrorists, and about the privileged Americans in academia and among the illuminati -- he cites "the likes of Mary Beard, Eric Foner, Frederic Jameson, Barbara Kingsolver, Arundhati Roy, Edward Said, Susan Sontag, Alice Walker, and a host of others" -- who "are not merely ignorant of politics, history and culture, but often downright immature, hysterical and inarticulate." As is so often the case, he is right.’ Washington Post, August 29, 2002

#118 Fairly traded coffee

I noticed an announcement in the newsletter from my home church (Church of the Brethren) that they are now using "fairly traded coffee" for the church social hour and events. The Inter-faith Coffee Program buys direct from the farmer. Then I saw in the WSJ that Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts and Procter and Gamble were also purchasing fairly traded coffee.

"By serving Equal Exchange fairly traded coffee at your place of worship, home or office, you can share fellowship with our neighbors in coffee-growing countries, making a difference in their lives while enjoying a delicious cup of coffee. Through the program, farmers earn a fair price for their products, receive affordable credit, and gain a long-term trading partner that they can trust. By pooling their resources in democratic cooperatives, farmers are able to invest in training, health care, and agricultural improvements in their communities. Every cup you serve helps these farmers as they build better lives for themselves and their families."

#117 Reading the Bible in English

I mentioned in blog #114 that we had 22 Bibles in the house. Now we have 23. Yesterday I bought Tyndale’s New Testament in paperback (Wordsworth Edition, Ltd., 2002). The English spelling has been updated, but the words and rhythm are original. I had printed off a few pages of a photocopy of an early edition from the Internet, and because I learned to read phonetically, I had no problem reading it aloud. The marginal notes of Tyndale and the introduction by Priscilla Martin enhance this new updated translation, for which Tyndale suffered and died.

In reading McGrath’s “In the beginning,” I learned that the use of thee, thou, thine and ye was already old-fashioned in 1611 when the King James version was completed. The archaic forms were continued because the translators were instructed to change only those parts of the older English translation that were inaccurate, so they included pronouns that were no longer in use, but which were not inaccurate.

Also, in 1611 use of the word “his” was just beginning to be replaced by “its” when referring to neuter nouns like cubits, or wood, or any inanimate noun. The translators went the conservative route, thus giving us some incredibly awkward sentence constructions not unlike what we have today with “his or her” following a singular noun describing people.

But most interesting was learning that the verb forms ending in “-eth” were most likely pronounced as “s” in the early 17th century. English isn’t phonetic in many words (through, tough, plough), and although the people were pronouncing “sayeth“ as “says” and “giveth” as “gives,” a hundred years later when the 1611 version really became almost universally used, no one corrected the pronunciation while reading. There are no recordings of how people spoke. The closest we have to English as spoken in the 17th and 18th century is our own Appalachian people in the U.S., since it is no longer spoken in England.

#116 A not so funny analysis

I don’t think I knew that Jackie Mason was still around, let alone that the comedian could make political sense. I wonder if someone can get him on the Democratic ticket?

In commenting on Billionaire George Soro’s anti-Semitism, Mason says: “The ovens, grown cold over the last sixty years, are there, waiting only for a spark to be fired up. The only thing in this regard that is different now from then, is that now there is a State that Jews can turn to, that righteous countries can morally and practically support, a State that even if it were abandoned by the whole world could defend itself and be a haven for all Jews.”

#115 Dakota by Kathleen Norris

I’ve been reading Dakota by Kathleen Norris. (I’m listening on tape, actually.) Because her grandmother lived in South Dakota and she vacationed there as a child, she isn’t exactly an outsider. However, her education and Eastern upbringing make her somewhat suspect when she and her husband move there in 1974. Much of Dakota appears to be a diary--spiritual thoughts and meditations. Amazing how the printed page helps you figure that out--but a tape gives no visual clues. I find I miss them terribly.

She writes about doing writing workshops--for children, for women. The plains women who want to be writers have a problem because there are no secrets in a small town (sounds familiar, since I grew up in a small Midwestern town). Hard to disguise your characters. The women belong to so many activities--clubs, church groups, extension--they can’t find time to write. People who do write about the plains successfully, have usually moved away. One woman who was successful and got a column in the local paper, found she was completely ignored by her friends. Nor do they want to read novels by plains people who have left--Norris says they want lies (that must have made the locals happy).

Norris seems to spend a lot of time in a Benedictine monastery (don’t know where, but on the plains), but is a member of a struggling Presbyterian church in Lemmon. One tiny church named Hope near Keldron she served as a lay pastor. Texts about Advent are accepted there, she says--in town they are eager to get on to Christmas. Waiting is something they are good at. She is humbled and in awe--and describes little Hope Church as near the top in per capita giving among Presbyterians in South Dakota.

Outsiders (and she is one) are never really accepted, she says. But she understands how homesteading had this influence--the women particularly had only each other to help. Only the toughest survived--and they had a love/hate relationship with the plains--and that has been passed on.

The internet has come into common use since this book was written, and I’m assuming much has changed in the last 10 years, although not the geographic isolation. Some of the towns and churches she mentions now have web sites.

#114 End of the month round up, November 30, 2003

Our senior pastor had colon surgery this week. The mass was benign. One of the associate pastors is calling him “Semi-colon.”

“Columbus Bar Briefs”suggests legal writing needs more periods, fewer commas. Strive for an average of 18 words per sentence. Good advice for non-lawyers, too.

First Sunday of Advent at our church. So many things planned. Our Visual Arts Ministry had four items in the weekly reminder handed out this Sundays. Hope I remember.

In the last 7 days we celebrated two birthdays on Sunday and one on Saturday, went out for lunch with a visiting friend from San Antonio on Tuesday and then enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner at our daughter’s home on Thursday. This has caused me to search the closet for the next size up pair of slacks.

We watched the DVD Bruce Almighty on Thanksgiving Day. Funny and thought provoking. Seemed appropriate for our family.

Best quote seen this month: WSJ Nov. 20 p. D8 “[Al Green] put the afro in aphrodisiac, writing songs that inspired a generation and helped create another.” Ashley Kahn

After finishing "In the Beginning” the story of how the Bible in English came to be, I walked through the house and counted Bibles: 22. Only one was King James. And to think that people were exiled, imprisoned and executed for translating the Bible into English!

Today we put up the Christmas tree. So far, the other half of “we” has been doing all the work, while I write my blog.

#113 Can hardly believe it

Could a teacher, someone with a college degree, really say this?

#112 Finished the Beginning

Book club meets tomorrow night, and I finished the selection, "In the Beginning; The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture," about 15 minutes ago. I learned many interesting details which I may comment on later, and in general thoroughly enjoy the book.

There were two things about this book that did not please me. I can't put my finger on it, but somehow there are sections that don't seem to hang together--like McGrath dropped his note cards or misplaced a document on his computer. Also, the documentation consists of a very large bibliography pp. 317-328, but no notes. The author of "Seabiscuit" who is an editor of a horse magazine and suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome compiled the most incredible, detailed, unobtrusive notes I've ever seen in a non-scholarly work. McGrath could have at least tried with a far more important topic.

#111 [In the] Black Friday

I never shop the two days after Thanksgiving. I always look at those six hour specials that I see in the fliers on Thanksgiving Day. This year I even noted that there was an $88 digital camera at Target and my daughter’s Christmas china was 50% off at Lazarus, but still I didn’t venture out on Black Friday.

I hear that the economy is depending on me! It’s the cost of freedom I heard on a talk show this morning! It’s just too much pressure! What ever happened to the good news, that God in Jesus Christ humbled himself and became one of us?

This year I’ll again take the time to write seasonal checks to Nurturing Network (saves unborn babies by helping the mothers), Lutheran Bible Translators (380 million still waiting for a Bible in their own language), Cat Welfare (caring for homeless cats), Samaritan’s Purse (outreach to children), and our church, which needs to retire a large mortgage. It still puts money into circulation, even if it doesn’t benefit the retailers

#110 Penmanship

Last night we went to the dollar theater to see Freaky Friday, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. It really was a cute movie, very well acted, with only the wooden performance by Mark Harmon spoiling it. But then, maybe he was supposed to be that way and is really a fun guy who had to tone it down?

In one scene, Annabell the daughter (in the body of her mother) goes to a parent teacher conference and gets to read an essay her brother Harry (played by Ryan Malgarini) has written about her--expressing his love and admiration. (They had been squabbling throughout the movie.) The essay is in cursive writing (the audience gets to read it, too).

However, I've been told that cursive is no longer taught in public schools. Recently a senior in high school filled out a form for an art show, and I had to ask her about the word, "Paradize." She spelled it aloud for me, correctly, when I asked. I think she didn't know the difference between a "z" and an "s" in writing but is very bright. Probably only uses a computer. So I asked her if writing was taught in school, and she turned up her nose--"we never use it."

This private school in Houston is proud of teaching first graders cursive. Perhaps the boy in Freaky Friday went to private school.
Kimberly at Number 2 Pencil had these comments on "fancy writing."

#109 Harry Smith radio talk show host?

Harry Smith was named an anchor of CBS’ The Early Show in October 2002. He has served as the host of A&E’s “Biography series since 1999 and continues in that role while co-hosting The Early Show. I’ve always felt a bit sorry for him trying to be a respected journalist in that female dominated gossipy, gabby Early Show. Which came first, The View or The Early Show? Harry is handsome, charming and articulate, and his talent is totally wasted with his vapid co-hosts.

I think Harry secretly wants to be the host of that phantom and fantasized left-of-center talk show the Democrats are trying to fund and place on the radio waves to combat the popularity of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Dr. Laura, et. al. I watched Harry interview Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the President’s National Security Advisor, this morning about President Bush’s surprise Thanksgiving Day trip to Iraq, which included her.

To the troops Bush said: "You are defeating the terrorists here in Iraq so we don't have to face them in our own country." We’ve heard it many times.

And Harry couldn’t pass it up. “Why does he say that when everyone knows Iraq wasn’t behind Al-Qaida and wasn‘t a terrorist threat” is a paraphrase of what he said, trotting out the liberal media line. Did his bosses insist he turn an interview into a high school debate, or was it his own idea? Or perhaps, it was a set up by the President’s speech writers to allow Dr. Rice to reiterate all the administration’s reasons for taking the war to Iraq? I’m not sure she made it through the 10 reasons the war helps fight terrorism, but she’s good--and fast. If Harry had a two hour talk show with commercials every ten minutes, he could have done better.

#108 A cup of coffee on Thanksgiving morning

Many employers really do give Thanksgiving Day off. This morning I had quite a search to find an open coffee shop. Panera’s, Caribou, Starbucks, Bob Evans, Tim Horton’s, Wendy’s, McDonald’s. All were closed so employees could enjoy time with their families, or time to sleep in, or time to clean the garage.

Finally I saw an open White Castle and pulled in. I’d never been in one. No house newspaper or classical music, just big windows and small booths, but the coffee was excellent. Perhaps because it was a holiday with no baggage for them, there were two Hispanics, an Asian woman, a developmentally disabled man, and a Canadian supervisor (I don’t know that, but his haughty attitude and countenance reminded me of Peter Jennings, so I’m calling him a Canadian) working the pre-dawn hours. I’ll have to stop back tomorrow--they wouldn’t take a $20--and said I could pay next time.

I found a turkey stuffing recipe using White Castles.
http://www.channel3000.com/health/2665725/detail.html I think I'd sub the
sausage sandwich.

10 White Castle hamburgers, no pickles
1 ½ cups celery, diced
1 ¼ tsp. ground thyme
1 ½ tsp. ground sage
½ tsp. coarsely ground black pepper
¼ c. chicken broth

In a large mixing bowl, tear the burgers into pieces and add diced celery
and seasonings. Toss and add chicken broth. Toss well. Stuff cavity of
turkey just before roasting. Makes about 9 cups (enough for a 10- to
12-pound turkey). Note: Allow 1 hamburger for each pound of turkey, which
will be the equivalent of ¾ cup of stuffing per pound.

#107 The Great August 2003 Blackout

I was sitting in a music class at Lakeside that day in mid-August when shortly after 4 p.m. the lights went out. We assumed it was local, and the instructor continued. When I got home about 5 p.m. I heard it was northern Ohio. I removed our uncooked dinner from the oven and we went out to eat at a local restaurant that had gas stoves. Only coffee wasn’t available.

Even though we were then at the start of what later was known as the great blackout cascade affecting huge areas of the United States and Canada, our power returned in 4 hours. Other areas of the country suffered for days. Now the interim report “Causes of the August 14th Blackout in the United States and Canada” (November 2003) provides some interesting analyses, conclusions and a good look at possible security problems.

C/Net found this quote within the report: "While the very largest provider networks--the Internet backbones--were apparently unaffected by the blackout (in North America), many thousands of significant networks and millions of individual Internet users were offline for hours or days," the report stated. "Banks, investment funds, business services, manufacturers, hospitals, educational institutions, Internet service providers, and federal and state government units were among the affected organizations."

Related stories at C/Net.

106 Wenger, Wanger, Winger, Wingert--you may be one too!

My grandfather was only 16 and living on a farm in Montgomery County, Ohio, when his widowed mother died. Consequently, her surname, Wenger, wasn’t in my consciousness until I took a mild interest in genealogy. Once I learned to look for Wenger, I noticed a huge book (over 1200 pages) at a used book store, “The Wenger Book; a foundation book of American Wengers,” Samuel S. Wenger, Ed. (Pennsylvania German Heritage History, Inc., 1978). So I bought it. The book chronicles the descendants of one Christian Wenger who arrived in the United States from Switzerland in 1727 with his wife Eve Graybill (Kraybill, Krabill). I think by 1900 they had about 200,000 descendants, but as many of them as there were, they are not my Wengers.

My Wengers are descended from Hans and Hannah according to "Hans and Hannah Wenger, North American Descendants," a four volume work by Daniel L. Wenger. They didn’t come to this country until 1749, but they were also Mennonites. This information is available on CD and an on-line database which makes it easy to search.

Three of their sons and Hannah immigrated to Pennsylvania in 1748 and 1749. Hans apparently died shortly before the trip. Their descendants have spread across the country and the world. Many other families are also included in the database, including other Wenger lines, in particular many descendants of Christian Wenger, immigrant of 1727 (of the book I can‘t use). There are over 100,000 names of individuals who are not connected to the Hans and Hannah Wenger family. These names (like my father’s parents) were collected in order to assist in identifying possible other ancestors of Wenger descendants and possible other Wenger descendants.

The DLW genealogy database contains over 232,000 names (last updated Oct. 1, 2002) of individuals, mostly descended from 18th century Mennonites, River Brethren (Brethren in Christ) and German Baptist Brethren (Church of the Brethren) who settled in Lancaster, Lebanon and Franklin Counties, Pennsylvania, in Ontario, Canada and in Washington County, Maryland and Botetourt County, Virginia. In the 1800s a number of the families moved to Darke County and Montgomery County, Ohio and to Iowa, Indiana and Kansas. In the early 1900s there was continued migration to Upland and Modesto, California.

The database can be searched at RootsWeb. If you are a descendant of Hans and Hannah and known to the author, you will have a unique number in this database. And that would make us cousins.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN Blogroll

#105 Low fat, sugarless, high carb and delicious

Yesterday I bought a huge amount of raisins at a low price. We eat raisins on our oatmeal, but I think these would last until 2005 at the small sprinkling we use. So what to do?

Last Friday a widower walked into the watercolor workshop at the senior center (all women) and jokingly said, "Where's the food?" People who live alone have a struggle finding good nutrition and socializing. So many senior centers, including ours, provide lunch for a reasonable fee and friends to share it with. But still, there is that hankering for something special, something home made. So I thought I'd make a raisin pie and take it to the senior center for snacking.

I haven't tasted raisin pie probably in 40 years, so I'm thinking it was probably something popular when dried fruit was used in place of fresh. I didn't find what I was looking for among Mother's recipes, or in my cookbooks. Not even "Granddaughter's Inglenook" had one. So I googled the following at cooks.com, using Splenda in place of sugar, and a peanut oil pie crust. Smells fabulous. Maybe I should taste it first--you know, just to be sure it is OK to share?

2 cups raisins
1 cup orange juice
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar (Splenda works)
2 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 cup chopped nuts
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
pie dough for double crust

Cook raisins in o.j. and water for 5 minutes (I wash mine first). Reduce heat. Combine sugar, cornstarch and allspice; stir into raisin mixture. Cook over medium heat until thickened, about 1 minute. Remove from heat; stir in nuts and lemon juice. Cool 10 minutes.

Pour into unbaked pie shell and cover with top crust. Cut slits for steam. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 degrees and continue baking 25-30 minutes or until bubbly and golden brown.

#104 Tyndale and the King James Bible

As a Christian, I’ve experienced distress and amusement at the battles that rage among other Christians over the King James Bible (see King James Only and responses ). At our next Book Club, we’ll be discussing “In the beginning; the story of the King James Bible and how it changed a nation, a language, and a culture” by Alister E. McGrath (New York: Doubleday, 2001). As usual, I’ve left it to the final week to read, so have divided it into equal parts and am trying to discipline myself to read (I’m a slow reader). Much of the information is not new, particularly the influence on the English language because a few years ago I read and thoroughly enjoyed “The story of English.”

Peggy, the leader of December’s meeting sent 3 pages of discussion points for us to consider ahead of time, and I noticed this interesting aside (I’ve added the links) :

“There is a group called the Tyndale Society which promotes the works of William Tyndale. The founder of the Society is David Daniell, who has issued Tyndale's New Testament and Old Testament translations unaltered except for modern spelling. He and members of his society think that the credit for the accurate and memorable phrasing of the KJV should really belong to Tyndale. According to their analysis, 83.7 % of the KJV New Testament comes from Tyndale; 2.4% from Coverdale, 2.2% from the Great Bible, 4.7% from the Geneva Bible, 2.2% from the Bishops' Bible, 1.9 % from the Rheims Bible, and only 2.8% is original to the King James. Of the Old Testament books that Tyndale translated (Genesis to Chronicles), 75.7% of the KJV comes from Tyndale, 6.1% from Coverdale, 9.6% from the Geneva Bible, and 8.7% is original to the KJV.

Daniell writes: "Astonishment is still voiced that the dignitaries who prepared the 1611 Authorized Version for King James spoke so often with one voice--apparently miraculously. Of course they did: the voice (never acknowledged by them) was Tyndale's." Furthermore, Daniell maintains that many of the changes that were made in Tyndale's translation by the KJV were inferior to Tyndale's in that the KJV smoothed off the freshness; made it more Latinized than English; were less true to the Greek or Hebrew sense; and made it more formal, majestic, and to remove it from the people and promote Anglican church hierarchy. We do not have the materials to debate Daniell's claims, but I bring it to your attention, and I will give some of his examples.”

I do not doubt that the KJV committee could have used Tyndale’s translation, nor that God could have used this for his own purposes to get his word out to the world through a political power that he used for that purpose. Oh, that the 3,000+ translations into English would just be read and believed. Click here for chronology.