Saturday, December 20, 2003
DEEP DOWN
Why, of all places, would a man such as Saddam H. choose to be placed in a hole in the ground?
Even under the most dire circumstances, it would seem that such a choice would be about the last one on the list. The fact that he, apparently did so, should tell us a great deal about this curious man.
For what weird reasons would a person deliberately accept being confined to a hole dug six feet or so into the earth. It cannot seem good even with such luixuries as a breathing tube leading off to the side and a shelf dug to one side on which one might lie down to await whatever happens. Such a man would have to have a tremendous amount of trust in the group of soldiers let topside. To save their own hides, they could easily make a quick pass over the area with a bulldozer and eliminate all chances of being captured with “Number One�on their hands.
Men and women of medical areas dealing with mental processes determining what the human mind might attempt under stress, must be having a field day with this case. He was man who must have felt lost, alone, very insecure - unshaven and disheveled. He will be seen as a man seeking the security and comfort of his pre-natal state. His fetal position on the cramped, short shelf might suggest that view..
This is, surely, not the stuff from which maryters are made. If he had hoped to leave his nation a heritage of strength, dominance and fortitude, he could have chosen no worse way to make his exit from world affairs. He had guided scores of suicidal men and women to their deaths, yet chose to hide like an animal in a miserable hole in the earth when he faced immediate danger. It is, perhaps, best for all of us that it happened in this way because, had he gone out of the active picture in a blaze of firey glory, fighting to the very last, he would have "earned" maryterdom in the eyes of many people.
What happens to him in the months ahead is an unwritten page in history. It could take some amazing turns.
A.L.M. December 19, 2003 [c384wds]
Friday, December 19, 2003
MODELS
It is now more important than ever for us to be aware of how people see us picture by our outside appearance.
If you happen to look “Arabic� or “Mid-Eastern� in your coloring, the texture, style and coloring of your hair, and the territorial overtones you confirm by the way you wear your clothing. - all make you suspect:- in a general sense - at so many points in the daily of a security conscious nation.
A few that concept would have seemed wrong.. To judge someone so severely by their outward appearance would have been an infringement of private rights in a legal sense and unacceptable in a commonsense sense, as well
No more. The immediate thought is often that you may not be what you appear to be. And, furthermore, that basic idea has mushroomed into a tidal wave of suspicion which now includes the idea that you may be what you are eagerly pretending not to be.. People showing any eccentricities in conduct, bearing, or manner of speech ...even in what is worn as clothing.. Such are potential suspects. Any variation from the accepted norms of different areas make every individual personal potential suspect at one time or another.
We might all be helpful to each other if we, during this stressful times of suspicion , if we dressed honestly, and stop to trying to be something we are not. The dowdy woman dressed as a Hollywood star,remains in the eyes of many a dowdy woman dressed in what she thinks of as being Tinseltown garb, A teen ager by who is trying to give an impression of being natural but wears his baseball cap properly with the bill forward can cause suspicion, especially if he takes if off when indoors night or day..
We might dress for comfort rather than for style, too. A comfortable person is nicer to be around. Style changes are fine; nothing wrong with with the fashion trends which reverse themselves periodically like a pendulum on a clock. Skirts go up and down';trousers are pleated, then, plain; Lapels are narrow or wide, necklines shift about, shoes go from near nothing to ponderous pods being checked as potential bomb storage areas at our airports. with good reason. The style shifts seem to be endless .but certain qualities tend to go with times of national peace and prosperity while others go with times of war and disunity.
A.L.M. December 18, 2003 [c415wds]
Thursday, December 18, 2003
GROUP NAMES
Among your treasured musical memories, I would think you might find an awareness of a time when musical groups had sensible names.
We called them “orchestras,� or “dance bands� or so-and-so' “Trio,� “Quintet�, or “Combo� if they were smaller units. They were, most often, named for the instrumentalist, vocalist or composer who who led them. Oh, yes – we had a few “stick wavers�, as we called them, who were not musicians in a true sense. They were usually movie stars at various levels of stardom on their way up or down, with an occasional or occasional Hollywood “had-been� seeking a new career in a promising field.
Today's musical groups suffer needlessly under an unmerited burden of strange, often derogatory names, which, purposely, I'm sure, have little or nothing to do with music in any way. I have often wondered for a long time how much longer they can keep digging up such degrading designations.
Do you remember when we used to speak of “Guy Lombardo and the Orchestra� and most people around you knew who you meant and thought, immediately, of the ultra-sweet, soft, melodic tunes that group featured. You may or may not remember they were also known as “The Royal Canadians� but that was not their salient banner.
What about a band called “Barney Rapp and His Orchestra? They were a popular band for college proms and featured a bright girl by the name of Ruby Wright. I remember so well her singing of a song called “Rain� and did well in the movie “shorts: name bands made for theater use in those days. That band was also known by another name but it was kept in the background and used to give the group a regional idenfication. You may remember seeing posters advertising “Barney Rapp and His New Englanders.�
The “Big Band Era� brought scores of such bands and here was amazing variety among them. Some offered sweet music, but it was easily to identify the difference. Dancers knew how the Lombardo Brothers, Jan Garber, Jan Pearce, and Wayne King differed.
There were other bands which featured loud, faster music but they could all do what the other did on occasions if demanded.
That may be one of my troubles in giving to total acceptance to today's pop music. It is all too much alike. One press of noise is much the same as the other. The only distinction is to be found in the strange name of the record label.
A.L.M. December 17, 2003 [c429wds]
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
ROCKS IN THE ROAD
Our present day highway system � in spite of many shortcomings you might bring up - is nothing short of a massive miracle.
People give me a stage look when I mention that I remember quite well when all of historic U.S. Route 11, the �Lee Highway�, the �Valley Pike� of early American expansion westward was unpaved. A few wiseacre skeptics have asked me if I saw them sink the �Maine� in Havana Harbor, as well.
I'm old, but not quite that ancient.
During the decade of the 1920 we traveled on dirt roads. Some of them where covered with layers of crushed rock. Very often the rock was dumped on the path in the form of large boulders which were, then, beaten into small piece ;even embedded in the base of mud, to form the road bed. The notorious prison inmate �chain gangs� were used to do this work to a large extent at that time for road building. A new type of highway construction was being introduced at that time invented by a man named John McAdam. His plan called for the construction of a road bed raised a few inches above the terrain level. This level bed was, then, covered with layers of rock. His �Macamized� road had not covered. Traffic alone packed it down and unevenly so quite often. His process was quickly improved upon by adding tar to a covering mixture of small stone and pressed into place by rollers. The English devised a term for the new process. They call it �Tarmac�- a perfectly logical combination of terms still in use today, but that expression did not gain ready acceptance in the United States where we know it as an �asphalt� road.
That's what Route 11 and many American roads became in the 1930's and during the following years. There were, paved sections which usually ended at the town limits forming the small ones among the thousands of miles of twisted maze of arteries and veins reaching to and from every corner of our complex country today.
In rural areas local landowners maintained the public roads which passed through or near their property I remember such work parties among local farmers well into the days of the Great Depression. The practice was done to death by the W.P.A., the C.C.C., the N.R.A, the AFL/CIO and other alphabetical groups of the Roosevelt Era.
A.L.M. December 16, 2003 [c-411wds]
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
POPPY CROP
How can it be that a nation, which is of producing enough food and fiber for domestic needs, can usually far short also ranks as the leading producer of the opium poppy?
The basic reason this happens boils down to a matter of profits but it would seem that those nations who assist by sending agriculture assistance in the form of products, services, and equipment might well consider examining their assistance programs. Into who's hand do such donations go? How does that nation define the term agriculture? Does it go beyond essential food and fiber to include such products as the opium poppy?
This, of course, is not the sort of study which can be made by mailing out a questionnaire form. In fact, no established method of coming into possession of such information is available, save those used in the investigation of other criminal activities. The primary need is for local government to re-define the meaning of the terms and to punish violations as rigidly as the do other transgressions of the law.
In so doing we may well learn a great deal more about ourselves, too. We are a gullible people by world standards and often ready to take their expressed needs of to be dire emergency when that is not always the case. We react though government programs at both national and state levels. We join in church and social club in-gatherings of aid and we, as individuals, often give to groups of unknown merit.
This is not the time to cancel such giving. Far from it. It is now more important n ever that we set forth the image that is so natural to the America public to be willing- even eager - to give to help other in times of genuine need.
Or image around the world is not at its best around the world today because large numbers of people have been mis-led by those who would do us harm to think our motives for taking actions are questionable. In truth, some of our own people, ally themselves with more from what may be called learned-idiocy than any other single reason.
Give. But examine why and where your do so with a bit more care. Try to make sure your gift gets where you intend it to go.
A.L.M. December 15, 2003 [c398wds]
Monday, December 15, 2003
PLAY SOME OLDIES
The United States Senate can be a dull place.
C-Span is about our only connection we have with the active and inactive affairs of the Senate of a steady basis. The lackluster lulls which are so often a part of the day's “business” are dragged before us on C-Span. They also provide sotto voce background notes, included from time-to-time as public service announcements, pointing out that these slack times, offering silence and solitude, are a normal part of the senatorial day. We are thus assured the members are working harder than ever in “committees” “commissions”, “boards”,”caucuses”, and things prefaced by the Latin term “ad hoc”- something-or-other, assuring us that something must be getting done some where.
C-Span might do well add some sparkle to the viewer's day, by inserting taped recordings of previously delivered speeches by some of the Senate's “old timers”.
Several such senatorial showmen of a time long-gone era are still at it and they are available at the sound of mike being clicked on.
Robert Byrd, of West Virginia. Would be among my favorites. Teddy Kennedy, from New England ,is good at it as well, and there must be others with whom I am not acquainted.
Men and women of this diminishing breed used to be trained and tutored by methodology and example by experts in the of talking without saying anything in particular.
The stance, the posture, the insinuation of eagerness to get started, and the vast sweep of the forearm and wavering hand which draws in some special wiffledust from above to polish up a specific idea. They are part of the show and what is being said in words is not all that important. Informative,yes; but not critical in what is to be accomplished - a change in the hearer's viewpoint.
The orator uses passions - from pink all the way to purple, if need be, It is there as a gossamer web which he applies deftly on the spur of the moment and often only in passing. The sight of his slumped shoulders can make his hear feel the burden of his heavy words. Adroitly the can snap his fingers, wave his wand-like hands and create an opposite feeling of elation and youthful joy The speaker remains at ease and moves about naturally knowing as well as a film editor what his “best side” might be. Good orators are never nervous “bobbers” or “weavers” at the lectern. An experienced orator will step away confidently yet stay put on camera, he may sidle, shuffle or sashay. He does all those subtle little things others think are the job of the person monitoring him on two or three cameras set at different angles. He selects what is best for the precise moment. If there something which demands being voiced in a whisper? He can do that loud enough to budge a banquet hall, an give an illusion of having passed a juicy bit of gossip over the back yard fence.
Actors! Actors one and all! A dying breed.
A.L.M. December 14, 2003 [c528wds]
Sunday, December 14, 2003
TV OR NOT TV?
Aspirants seeking political office need to realize early in their careers that precise, controlled television coverage is essential to any modern political campaign. It replaced the railroad's rear car platform of long ago.
It is a definite technique which must be learned and the sooner the better.
Far too many might-be political leaders take the wrong path at the start and it is a difficult, even hopeless, to correct the error.
Proper use of television cannot be a haphazard thing. It must be a well-planned activity sustained and guarded against it from other media. And, it can be over done in the wrong places.
“More” is often “less” in the use of TV. The concept calls, not grabbing at each and every opportunity to be on the air, but rather in precise placement of demographically prepared material professionally produced for maximum results. The campaigner who grabs at every street corner camera opportunity to be on TV reaps a quite harvest. He is shown at his average or worst, rather than at his best ...with all warts, wens, and wrinkles plainly detailed rather than rendered minimal by makeup discretely and professionally applied.
TV has become so common among us that it pays to pick and choose with special care which aspects of it are going to be used and which ones will be refused. A chance mention on a news show can be more harmful to the campaign than one think, being, usually, out of context and tinted with dangers of being mis-understood or mis-applied.
The Ross Perot campaign some years ago, clarified many aspects of how campaigning should be done. For the first time, on a major scale, we saw how each niche can be made to work wonders. We also saw examples of where and how one might easily go astray - usually through a lack of innovative attention to many details. Television is still growing. It is not yet a definite solidified, in-stone entity. It can be risky but it a politician's best avenue to high office available today. Neither,is it sacrosanct. It does not stand too well alone and it often the skill with which it is balanced with the use of other media which reaches the required voters.
A modern campaigner ignores television at his own peril. It can also be wrongly used if one thinks of it in a limited sense of being a mere entertainment form. There is a vast difference between appearing as emcee on “Saturday Night Live and in being a guest on “Meet The Press”.
Few of us in the voting public, really understand how deeply television has affected our lifestyles. The changes have been profound. We need to reflect on our voting practices more than ever before.
A.L.M, December 13, 2003 [c474wds]
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