Saturday, January 31, 2004
WHY?
Small children, as they grow, ask "Why" and the wise parent, guardian or teacher has a reply ready.
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It has always been that way. The infant, seeking. Even before it can speak, the child tries to ascertain its place in this world. Before it learns to communicate with speech, the very sense of having been touched, held, loved or moved about is an adventure in exploration of some of the potential wonders of the new and open world. The child expresses an understanding of what is being said or done to them by relaxing and drifting into its known security of sleep. Yes, even at that early age, the child has questioned to find out more about his conditions as they seem to be set or cried out. and the adult replies with touching, loving care and movement.
Later on, when the child forms some sort of communiction with older folks, even if it be only in gestures, eye movment and attmpts to grasp hings beyond its reach , the child asking why things are as they seem to be. The concept of "why" is essential to human growth and maturity. We are not content to simply be told that something exists; we want to know for what purpose it came to exist and how it can be of value to us in a personal sense.
None of us remembers the time when we, as infants, begged for reaons why things were as they seemed to be but we all remember becoming a bit older, of acquiring speech capabilities and of asking "Why, Daddy?" and " Why, Mamma?" without end it seems. Those years are vital ones. The age level, let's say from four to fourteeen , is a time of success or failure in many ways for both child and parent. When that growing child asks "why?" the mother or father had best have a much more accurate reply ready ...one which is based on fact. The playful, evasive and often ludicrous answers used up to that age of four no longer suffices. Parents, at that four-ish time of change, stop being baby sitters and become governess or tutor types.
If you can think back over those years, try to do a re-run on how you fared as a child or as a parent/. You will find many instances of how well you answered the child's questions as to why things were as they seeme to be, or how often you failed. In those year an inquiring offspring is going to seek for such answers and they very often find them, or think they do, in peer intellects or from sources which are nbt he best for child upbringing.
And the "why" thing does not end there. The kids are gowing up and having their own experiences with their own children. But wait.
In old age, I think we can safely say at about eighty or ninety years of age or so, you begin to notide that your peers are droppingf off one by one. Many of them die when they are still twenty years your junior.. Questions of "why?" enter your mind, naturally. You are now eighty or ninety years of age seeking answers to "why?" all over again. Why is it, you wonder, that so-and-so, younger than you by several years is dead and gone, yet you continue to live. Do you have any purpose for continuing to live, you wonder? ? Why have familes you have known divided and scatter and scattered?
What, if anything, you ask is the purpose of my being here? Why>
To whom do I address such questions?
,
That depends so much, does it not. on how your parents answered our childhood question: "Who made me?"
a.l.m. January 30, 2004 [C560wds]
Friday, January 30, 2004
NEXT!
Plan for tomorrow.
Do that, and things will go better. Try it yourself. There is no reason to take my word for it.
Actually, what you are doing is a “dry run” of the project you have in mind. Plan it so you have the exact tools you will need;, the proper materials and correct means of joining one accurately with the other for assured results. You will save valuable time, too by eliminating second-guessing,, go-get-it side trips and trial and error tangents.
Planning is work. Get over any ideas that you are merely playing with an idea you intend to work on later. Planning is jump-starting. It telescopes starting times into now.
Be aware, too, that it – like many good things - can be overdone.
I witnessed such an all out planning effort years ago when worked as a Technical writer and PR person with a major manufacturing firm. Management had become enamored with i motivational whiz kid from the academic sector and gave him complete freedom to set up a modernized system of planned management which would teach people well. Within two weeks he had the entire staff so busy preparing his beloved “perk charts”that they couldn't find time to do their jobs. We poked perks at each other detailing plans for routine steps until all movement came to a halt.
Planning usually involves due consideration for other people at their tasks as well. To isolate oneself from humanity is not the most pleasant or effective ways to go. Learn to appreciate the input from other than your own little brain and the concept will remain more secure. Being a lonely isolationist avoiding all human contact may fit the make-believe world of stage and screen, but it is not essential in the real world. In a very practical sense, good planning can be said to be like sensible housekeeping . It is not necessary to do a complete Spring Cleaning routine every time you see something amiss. Learn to feel at ease kicking the trash our of the way so you can plainly see the path you must travel.
An old maxim fits the needs of many:. “ A place for everything and everything in its place.”
Don't make it that way. Keep it that way.
A.L M. January 29, 2004 [c394wds]
Thursday, January 29, 2004
YES OR NO
Quite often we chance upon stories related to product, procedures, places and personages. Some of them are true. Some are not.
Some such tales in circulation, however, which are not founded in facts, can, if allowed to continue unchecked, can bring real harm, to the stars of radio, stage, big screen, small screens {getting larger all the time}, cell phones and Internet pages.
It is true, for instance, that our nation's favorite beverage for many years Coca-Cola,(R) did, indeed, in it's early days, have at touch of cocaine, but - and this is the part of the story which so often remains untold - in l909, I think it was, the owner of the celebrated Coke(R) formula insisted that that element be entirely eliminated.
So often stories about foods and medications make gross misuse of terms "poisonous” and “toxic”.One can make you even unto death while the other can make you so sick you sometimes wish you could die - well, not really, but close enough. There must be entire shelves of tales out there about what harm can come from certain food combinations. When I was a kid it was forbidden to eat cucumbers in the same twenty-four hour period with ice cream. I don’t remember what was supposed to happen, but we were careful to pass up cucumbers if ice cream was thought to be somewhere in the future.
The “Statler Brothers” Quartet - now retired - will, themselves, tell you they are not Statlers at all. In their early days of travel, they stayed at Statler Hotels so often they came to feel they were part of the family.
There is another rich lode available to those seeking such information: the “used-to-be.”That pert , little red-haired girl growing up in Jamestown,N.Y. named,MacGillicuddy, I’ve heard, became the western world’s prime commedienne - Lucille Ball. And, there are scores of others in that group.
There is one story which keeps coming up to which I have not found a straight answer.
Some of you see signs of it every day. The next time you drive past a "Day's Inn " take a good look that sign. The art work. Does it remind you of a sunrise or a sunset? If you chose the setting sun you are right in tune with the original owners plan for the motel chain. When his first inn was completed and ready for opening day, the big sign for out front on high poles was not completed. Artists and glass-tube benders worked overtime to get it finished. The day before the opening the poles were well set and that night the giant sign was raised to the top and secured,
Everything seemed fine until someone realized that our wonderful English language - as heard and spoken in the Deep South - had dealt artist or tube-benders.,or both, a dirty blow. The sign read "Day's Inn" but their instructions had been to build a sign showing a sunset and the words "Day's End."
Done in by a dialect! Someone had mis-heard the words. There's a happy ending,. however. The name stood. It stayed and has served very well.
Was there a Mr. Day? I wonder.
A.L.M. January 28, 2004 [C520wds]
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
CONFUSED CONFUSION
Do all voters realize what is taking place in the various Democratic Party Primaries?
I have listened to people talking about what they have been seeing on TV, and I have come to realize that some of those who watch are sometimes of the opinion that this is the real thing. I actually have heard two such voters complaining that "them folks out there in Iowa and up in New Hampshire get to vote fer President afore we do and that ain’t right!” They seemed to be in agreement on that, and one asked of other which one of them "are you gonna vote for when we get our turn?"
Those two discussed the negative aspects of the men running for the nomination .The dwelt almost entirely on the negative aspects of the candidates and told each other and anyone else in the group in which we were all waiting for a delayed bus why they could not vote for so-and-so. They seemed resigned to wait until our section of the county got to vote. Our bus came along and I did not find out which candidate displeased them the most.
We sometimes forget that we are now taking much of what we used to term "news" to be "ëntertaiment".The major talk radio personalities speak of themselves now as being members of the entertainment species rather than being designated as "reporters" or "commentators". Their adherence to factual information wavers at times in order to be more alluring as they seek to expand their audience into new areas. We, the listeners do not always make such a selective designation.
Candidates, too, in keeping with the latest changes will do and say certain things which satify this novelety liking among viewers at home, Extended shots showing Kerry on the ice with genuine hockey players, is a good example. It has very little to do with the political issues at hand, but it is of vital imporatance in connecting with thousand of sport fans all across the spectrum - young and old, men and women, who see Kerry is a more, acceptable light than before. The various networks can, and do, make selections and highlight points of special interest to their specific viewers likings.
And, we need to be aware of the fact that a great many people who say they "watch" TV are rather addicted to watching cable and other such topical channels rather than the network outlets. Take time to wander up the channels from twelve to whatever extremes your system might go, and - except for
some of C-Span, Fox, CNN and MS-NBC the viewpoint one gets concerning current poltiicial affairs is that of forty-year old reruns in many cases.
Notice, too, how often some people start off with crediting their political statements to a Delphic authority of their own making ...someone ,or something, called "they”. If a political view follows "They say..."or "They tell me..."you can be sure you are in wisdom's wasteland at its worst. The show elements disapper as we then head into a series of seven such primaries which become more serious and deliberate with several favorites running and with less need of being different.
By this time, too, opposition is firming up and some real issues are brought forth. There wil be a grand show at each of the National Conventions, then four years before we do it all over again.
A.L.M. January 28, 2004 [c490wds]
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
THINGS I WONDER ABOUT
How we can think and devise all sorts of wonderful gadgets and procedures to allow us to do so many fantastic things; to travel to glamorous places; to converse with each other while many miles apart; even to repair our own ailing bodies, but continued to fail to find a way to make wheels - cars, carts, chariots, wagons and others - stop appearing to go in the wrong direction when being filmed in straight-on, passport , nostril shots in movies?
Why we continue to manufacture cars or have them made for us in a foreign country in many versions, styles, types and all designed and equipped to travel at hundreds of miles per hour with instruments on the dash to prove it, but still remain unable to build roads and to fashion traffic flow patterns which might enable us to drive at such speeds with relative safety?
Why we have devised a way of determining which movies are favorites by adding up the steadily advancing prices we pay to see them, rather than by counting the number of people of people who paid to see the film?
Why we continue to gluttonize and are fast becoming the fattest folks on the planet - if we are not already at such a shameful point?
Why we are such ready prey of con-men and con-women in our daily lives, ready and even eager, to bite at the same old bait when dangled before us again and again?
I worry at times, too, for the reason that you can sit down and and write a list of such as this faulting just about anything we do on a basis of either paucity or excess. More and more we find people who seem to think a benevolent government authority should be charged with seeing that we stay happy and content.
A.L.M. January 26, 2004 [c-319wds]
Monday, January 26, 2004
OPENING PRAYER
Most of us have made wishes. We have thought it would be nice if we could have such-and-such a thing or that some event would take place which would make living a paradise.
Few, if any such wishes “come true” and we ought to be especially grateful they fail because most of them are without merit.
To have some chance of success with changes we see in our lifestyle which would be an improvement can be acquired only by our working toward such objectives. Wishing, in spite of the popular song we sing to the contrary, will not not “make it so.”
Take this recurrent problem of world peace, for instance. So much of what we say about the need for a peaceful world is wishful thinking , at best. Too often, in even our prayers, we elicit the help of God and ask Him to bring it about a world in which all of mankind, in his many variations might dwell, someday soon , in a perfect situation without animosities toward any others.
There is one place and time when this occurs ritually without any hope of success. I cringe quite often, and I'll wager you feel a little edgy as well, when you hear some of the elongated prayers being said at government gatherings such as party conclaves. Either a paid Chaplain or a Guest Minister is assigned the task and the Janus-ed petitions are complex and twisted as they flow forth.
When restrictions are to be set in place to prevent the placement or posting of religious texts in public places; when school children are denied the use of prayer - even during exam time - or when statues, placards, banners, badges, and monuments to religious leaders - when all of that any more is to be forbidden
An opening prayer such as those we hear spoken at such meetings as are called to order is often misplaced/ I have never known a minister who has refused to provide such a religious opening even though he find himself opposed to the decisions the group will make. It is an honor just to be asked; a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a young minister or a token of appreciation for an older man of the cloth.
I have often wondered, as I see ministers praying over the Senate, how many of those ministers keep their fingers crossed under the manuscript page from which they are so carefully reading.
A.L.M. January 24, 2004 [c419wds]
Sunday, January 25, 2004
AND THEN, THERE WERE NONE..'.
We are daily witnessing the Democrats of the state of New Hampshire go though their system of choosing a candidate who will run against incumbent George W. Bush in November of this year.
I have yet to see one who would seem to me to be worthy and who has the political power by which to make it possible. Each is lacking in one factor or the other.
At the moment, Senator John Kerry seems to be the popular choice of those in attendance, but the people of New Hampshire are individualists moreso than any other group in the country. There we find a sufficient number of independent voters to give that classification genuine meaning and kick. Voters in the Granite State stand as firm as their natural resource one they have decided how they wish things to be. They are not so easily moved as are the voters in many sections of the nation. Their independent nature makes them rather more difficult to convince, but, once they have decided, they will stand by their choice firmly. At this moment, just several days into the week-long action of choice, everything seems to be up for grabs.
It appears that John Kerry leads the field, He is a fellow New Englander and responds well to the native criteria. In many ways he thinks and acts as ety do, and that is a tremendous plus factor without effort. He has less he muist overcome.
Howard Dean , also a naive son as former Governor of the State of Vermont, has that advantage as well, but he blurred the image somewhat in Iowa with a few arrogant words delivered in an uncharacteristic tones and with violent gestures unbecoming to his usual stance of seeming stability. I can see Kerry besting him in this primary largely because of that unfortunate incident. How deeply it has hurt his overall campaign is yet to be seen, He has , it appears, accepted good advice which enables him to make fun of himself concerning the event. That treatment can win over many American voters who like that trait . They saw it for many year in comedians such as Jack Benny and who created huge evils which seemed to fall upon him so that he merited special sympathy and understanding.
I think Lieberman stands little chance in the area. People seem to know what he stands for and they do not particularly care for such package programs.
Wesley Clark will make firm inroads on the Kerry-Dean but John Edwards from the southland, will not be as readily accepted as the “chance for change” In New Hampshire that he proved to be in the mid west.
Al Sharpton and others may just as well have stayed at home. Move over Richard Gephart! Company's comin'.
A.L.M. January 24, 2004 [c479wds]
Saturday, January 24, 2004
A HUBBLE BUBBLE?
I have heard a disturbing rumor recently saying that the celebrated Hubble Telescope - one of the truly great achievements of our generation - has been tagged by some as being "obsolete".
True enough, the Hubble has been out there since 1990 which is a long time in space gadget aging, and I will agree whole heartedly that it "has done itself proud”, and, thus, in a sense, made itself age beyond its years by the sheer immensity of information it has given us... far more than man of the most optimistic among us expected.
Hubble, you might recall, had a rather dismal birth when it was placed out there at six hundred kilometers away. That’s a mere three hundred and seventy-five miles which is just down the street a few block in space distance counting. You will remember that a major glitch was revealed at the time, becase the lens mounted in the telescope was of the wrong size or type. Many critics at the time, said that would doom the project but service mission was successful and even severe critics were won back to the fold of Hubble believers. The visionary modular design of the Hubble craft allows visiting astronauts to replace worn parts as they are needed, to make precise adjustments shown to be helpful by work the Hubble has been doing thus far. The count is out of date as I type, but the Hubble telescope has made a total of around three-hundred an d thirty thousand observations and relayed about twenty-five thousand photographs back to Earth for study, Someone has calculated that the information sent back by the telescope would fill your home computer every day for about ten years. Scientific scribblers have written about three thousand scientific papers for various publicaitions and the Hubble has traveled about l.5 billion miles - the distance for Earth to Uranus. It circles the Earth every 97 minutes and shows no signs of slowing down or stopping.
If it needs repair or servicing of any kind it’s close enough for us to do the work promptly and efficiently. The solar wings the Hubble wears were added in 1993 and enlarged by another service mission in 1997, Those wings are the largest structures every replaced in orbit. In a mechanical sense, the Hubble Telescope has been kept in a modern , state-of- the-art condition.
I have rather strong suspicions criticism is most often founded on petty political points. We will need to be careful during this election year when such faulty information downgrading any current project is bandied about quite freely and often accepted as Truth.
Inform yourself. Be prepared to “say it isn’t so.”
A.L.M. January 23, 2004 [c459wds]
Friday, January 23, 2004
FORT EVANS, OHIO
At the same time that we, the English settlers who occupied the Atlantic coast of North America, were busy building protective walls to our west, the French were busy building fortifications in their vast wilderness beyond the Appalachinan mountain range.
We are familiar with some such forts such as the larger ones such as the one at Fort Duquene which, in time, became the Pittsburg area occuring in our history annals a number of times. They served primarily as pylons aound which sheltered masses of migrating people expanding into the wilderness.
One such site can be seen today about ten miles west of Coshockton,Ohio, on U.S. Route 36. Until 1952 it appeared to be a random pile of scattered limestone rock which seems to have been quarrIed about a mile away and dragged to the site. The mysterious pile of rock was named "Fort Evans" because a man named Isaac Evas owned the land in 1806. The fort was restored as near to the way the Coochocton County Historical Society though it may have been when built. The acual date of construction is uncertain.
A single documentary reference has been found which mentions the construction of a new fort norhwest of the Ohio River. Other forts were of logs and of such material is probably it was menioned at all rather than it's strategic importance. The building has been reconstructed an now stands as a silent, small and sturdy symbol of the era we call "The French and Indian War”.
The finished building looked more like a small shed of some sort on a level site with thick forest all round at a dustance of a hundred feet or so. It was built of large, limestone slabs, thought to have been quarried at a point a mile away. It is twenty feet long, fifteen feet wide and sixteen feet high by outside measurements. The roof is of long, pine shakes. The walls are an average of twenty-two inches thick so that limited the space available for defenders inside. It had only one door, which would seem to be a mistake. A fort, large or small, needs a back door. The front door is of sturdy oak planks. There is no record to show that the fort was every used for its intended purpose. but it was part of a phase of construction which the French undertook to protect their Mississippi-Ohio valley holdings. That which they did helped to determine our future.
This small fort in Ohio is of special interest to many of us here in the Shenandoah Valley because the church in which we worship today - the very stone building itself still being used - Virginia was built of native stone in 1740 - dedicated in l746 - and it was built as a fort to protect the citizens from depradations of Indian tribes from the west.incited by the French in the time when Fort Evans was a reality.
There is another reason, geographic and governmental, which connects us with the fort on the northwest bank of the Ohio River. From 1738 to 1770 Fort Evans was, legally, a part of Augusta County, Virginia adminstered from the County Court House in Staunton, Virginia.
A.L.M. January 22, 2004 [c467wds]
Thursday, January 22, 2004
FIREFLY LORE
As children, we enjoyed chasing firefly lights across the lawn .
They came out shortly after the sun had gone to rest, and on quiiet, dampish nights. in particular, they were to be had in abundance. It seëms to me we always called them ”lightening bugs” but the books and magazines called “fireflys” or "fireflies".
They were different from all the flying things we knew.They were obvouisly not flies; certainly not glow worms to us and it was only later we discovered them to be a form of soft-shelled beetle. They emitted brilliant lights as they flew and we developed a syetm of catching them. The light was bright enough to fool your eyes for a second and you had to scoop your hand through the blackness ahead of where the bug had been when the light was shone. They moved faster than one might think, too. so it took some skill to gather the hundreds we often did. We put them in glass jars and hung them about the yard as "lanterns."
There was a special element of mystery about the firefly which had a special appeal for kids, I suppose. We wonder, of course, how they made such a bright light over and over again. We leared in a rather vague sense, that it was done by chemicals in their bodies which, when mixed with air, glowed as s brilliant burst of light. It was interesting to hold a bug on your hand and watch him crawl to the utmost end of the highest fingere to take off. If, however, you hnd down at the last moment, he reversed his path and started to climb once again to the highest take-off spot. We devised other ways of amusing ourslevs with them, and some of those acts, as we look back at it all, and as our parents sometimes told us, was "cruel ". When we had obtained piles of them we sometimes poured them on the sidewalk and ran over and throuigh and over them with our bikes or roller skates. It made a fabulous display of of flickering bike and skate wheels. If you "squshed" some on the sidewalk, the made a glow which stayed there until the chemicals were used up.
We had a list of superstiions about those bugs, too. The chemials were, of course, considered to be poisonous and if you got any of the goo in your eyes you would go blind. We noticed that birds did not eat them and you only rarely saw them entangled in a spider web.
How did this page come to be?
I read in a newsaperr that the 1928 record by the Mills Brothers quartet was the only song about a bug that ever became a popular song which stayed on the charts for weeks. The item said the song was all about fireflies. It was called "Glow Worm" : Thus far, I have not found that the glow worm is the transient stage of the firefly . They do not give off aa light, but they do glow a bit, very softly in the dark. I remember the tune and liked it, but I never associated it with lightning bugs over the years. I had to do some reading and I have learned a lot about the firefly - called "lightning bugs" the south. Maybe someone, somewhere, has called them glow worms.
There are over two hundred species in the United States and it will vary a great deal depending on climate conditions.They like dampness and in the pupae stage eat grubs and earthworms. There are about thirty-five species in our area and yours may have more or less. They emit various tints of light, too - some wtih a hint of green, other of blue, some bnight white and larger species specialize in a yellow-tined off-and-on light. If the weather is dry the rascal stays in the pupa stage until it gets wetter and warmer. They may stay in the earth two or three years before becoming adults. The usual life span is seven days.
All of our destruction of so many of them, and the civilized ways we have of gettig rid of them today by exessive spraying and by draining swamlands where they prosper, has no sign of them disappering. Their light is not a simple thing either. Four chemicals are involved plus air and water..
The tiny, fragile firefly is one of the most interesting creatures of all.
A.L.M. January 22, 2004 [c492wds]
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
SENTRY DUTY
If I had been able to choose the type of duty I might have had in World War days it would not have been sentry duty.
Ironically, as I glance though the notebooks I kept during the years as a G.I, some of the most durable memories are associated with being in such a spot.
Ours was an unusual situation. We were a small groujp sent to England to prepare a new airbase for operational use by a Bomb Group which would fly in months later from the states. We were to set up basic frameworks for various functons to serve that groups needs. We were unaware of the fact that we were just one of nineteen such air bases which would spring to life in Norfolk County, England alone.
With the help of a small contingent of Royal Air Force personnel back from some rather severe beffeting on the isle of Malta who were there for a period of R&R before reassignment, we did some unusual things.
Sentry dutry required manning posts around the “aerodrome” we were starting, at the gates and certain vital installations such as two large, wooden water towers. One of our duties was, however, to "site-sit" fallen planes - all British and a few German at that time. The guard was needed to keep people from stealing the wrecked planes, especially at night. The wreakage of a crashed plane could all but disappear within a week if such care was not taken to ward off seekers after anything which could be resold on the various gray or black markets of the day.
One might think such a post would be acceptable, but the usual plan was to put a man "out there"
at eight in the evening and pick him up at about eight the next morning. It was a lonely, all-night duty. We had a carbine rifle, an ammunition supply totally two shots, and we did not have flashlights because “torches” were among the many items in short supply and those that were available were needed far more in other areas. We were there, you see, more as a deterrent to thievery than anything. The dismal foggy conditons most nights and planes overhead along the North Sea coast did not give a feeling of security.
In such situations a man does a lot of thinking.
We usually took a canteen full of hot coffee or tea with us. We stopped at the nearest fish ’n chips place and bought a double ration of that favorite food wrapped in newspapers, and an old towel or an extra jacket to ward of cold dampness if the night turned foul. One nibbled and sipped all night. Those who smoked did so a bit removed somewhat fromt the wreakage because the odor of petrol was often evident at such sites. One seldom hit the same such site more than one or two times, because reclamation teams moved by day and took it all away for safekeeping and salvage.
A favorite guard site was in front of a small, thatched, story-book cottage at one of the gates. of the base. The village constable and his wife lived there. Every morning the 5 A.M. the front door opened and a piping hot mug of tea was handed out with a cheefell greeting to, start the new day for the guard standing just outside the door under a small overhang of doorway thatch. That cottage had it’s wall lined with rows of carefully preserved, yellow-spined copies of “National Geographic Magazine” and every man who stood guard at that post was asked to write home to see if missing copies could be sent from home. I have often wondered if they ever got the copies they needed.
In a sense, I suppose, we all “pull guard duty” at some point in our lives. It can be a rewarding time, too. We are forced to take stock of and, perhaps, to re-evaluate our experiences in a positive sense as we ward off potential dangers, real or imaginary.
A.L.M. January 21, 2004 [c420wds]
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
TO HEAR/TO LISTEN
Hearing and listening are not the same thing.
We may fail to realize such a distinction when we get involved in politics, or social and religious affairs. Far too many of us are hearing but not really listening to what is being said at times.
We have become skilled in being able to have others - people who should know more about a given subject than anyone - to tell us what was said and what it means to us. We are hearing but not heeding.
Much is lost by this conditon. In the recent Democratic party primary in Iowa it quickly became obvious that a great deal was being said was heard by noting the reactions of those who did not get the support they though they had.
We met with it when we were children. Most mothers have a cruel memory of some time when their offspring seemed to ignore the guidance and parental instructon. That spirit of contenion is, in a way, a sign of growth and an indication that the child is to grow and become an individual apart from protective parental care at every moment. Then, it may but a few years when it seems they are too dependant upon parental care, until teen age years intervene and decisions are made which are often final. Some go to an extreme at this time and are forever lost from parental associations. They hear but are incapable of listening to exactly what is being said.
In Iowa those running for office seem to have heard supporting sounds from the crowds attending the caucus gatherings. One may hear such outward expressions but listening must be a bit more selective. Hearers were impressed with the glitsy, carnival-like qualites of the presentations, the noise, the bombast, cheering, the touching upon points with which they were concerned, but not always were they so impressed with the speaker's seeming capability to solve the problems they felt to be important. Isn't it odd that the two men selected, seem to have been less show and more tell without ego-centered gushing. They did their thing without screaming, without beating the air with their clenched fists and without a constant flow of villifications being heaped upon the incumbent of the office to which they aspire.
Hearing is not always listening and seeing is not always believing, either.
It could be that the losers in Iowa spent far too much time condeming each other which has created a debt which will be paid when a Democrat faces George W. Bush in November. Voters will remember what his own associates accused him of being in the early phase of the campaign. If they don't remember, they will be reminded.
We do very little listening compared to the flood of hearing available to us as voters. But, we do selective listening and seek out firm understandings of those basics which enable us to continue
our form of government to yet another generation of citizens.
A.L.M. January 20, 2004 [c467wds]
Monday, January 19, 2004
YOUR BEST BET
Your best bet is the one you never made.
To put any reliance in wagers, taking a chance of success, as many people have had to learn the hard way, is not the most rewarding way to go about living.
We all do it, even - or especially those who would insist they have never gambled. It seems to be a part of our very being as we plan our forthcoming steps and ,in so doing, trying to make progress in our lives at the least possible cost in money and effort.
Right now, millions of people of all walks of life are trying to decide what they would do were they the judge in the Pete Rose problem. We tend to see this as a special case in which a popular very capable baseball player was alleged to have engaged in betting on games in which his team played which was a forbidden activity by the rules of the game to which he had, tacitly, at least, agreed were a valid guideline in which he had to accept as an active player in the major leagues. The term "alleged" is a loose way of seeming to keep judgment on a firm footing, but the many of the sursvey seem to show that many believed all along that Pete Rose had, indeed, been guilty as charged.
At that point, many of us, were saying: "Aw c'mon now! Pete's not the first one to try such a stunt!" We looked around, hastily, for other seemingly valid reasons why the offence should be aside and that he be allowed back into the world of baseball and that his admittedly fine achievments of the past be properly entered into records of the game as in Baseball's Hall of Fame. To fail to mark what the man had accomplishment would be an unseemly action for us to take.
Then , to complicate the problem even more, Pete Rose took someone's ill-thought-out advice and "wrote" a book about it all. He has been condemned for having done so thus seeking to "profit on the whole affair." In that book, he told whoever actually wrote the book, that he had, indeed, engaged in illegal gambling at the time when he was actvely engaged in the sport. That in effect, admitted that he had been lying to all of us for a total of fifteen years during which he, repeatedly, claimed to be innocent of all such charges.
That, I feel, in my bones, did it.
Now, even if the popolar verdict comes out in favor of granting Pete Rose a second chance, as I think it will, he will in the memories of many baseball fans be forever branded as being guilty of a major transgression for which he might have well be denied those honors which would have been his to enjoy had he openly confessed and contritely said he was sorry for what he had done. Fifteen years of lying did it.
Lest we feel too confident be ready the next time you gamble and buy a multi-millon dollar lottery ticket to describe how your lifestyle will not change even just one little bit if you are the winner. That’s a time to check one’s nose for new length.
A.L.M. January 18, 2004 [c4l0wds]
Sunday, January 18, 2004
WHEN?
At what point in daily usage does an expression cross over the line and fail to be acceptable in polite society?j
The expession I have in mind is one which I have always been led to believe was not to be used daily in that it was sacrilegious to do so. I find many people, however, who do not cosider it to be profane at all, yet find it uncomfortable to make use of it because some others may think it to be a verbal affront to their religious faith.
You hear it almost daily on TV on major network channels and it is not restricted to cable or other add-on channels. One recent TV program which was presenting gifts to a needy guest "to make her every dream come true" elicited from that individual a total of twenty-one clearly spoken lines, all using the same words in the same order and about the same tonal emphasis. It contituted her entire on-air speech.
As each gift was revealed the recipient ackowledged by saying:"Oh, my God!" I counted twenty one such attempts plus one "Oh, my...." which was left uncompleted. This strikes me as wrong in several ways - other than as being an affront to my Christian religous sensibiliies. It depicts the recipient of the gifts, perhaps unfairly, as an ignorant, uneducated individual who does not haver sufficent vocabulary of terms to express apprecation. Some individIuals are presented as trying to say they are thankful; others are saying they cannot believe such a thing is possble; still others are suggesting there must be some mistake, while others are trying to say it can't be happening as it is. Only a very few say it as an expession whereby they are actually thanking God for the gifts. The same expression will be used if they see the garbage man spill a containter of waste matter on their driveway, or if their car has a flat tire in a tunnel during rush hour. The use of the expresion has little to do with being thanbkful for anything, It seems rather to be a cry of futility from deep within by which the speaker makes himself or herself. Rather, the person is expressing doubt saying "Am I worthy of this?" Or, " Do I deserve this?" or, something to that effect.
Many have toned it down. You will hear :"Oh, my word! in English plays, "Oh, my Lands! in down-on -the-farm epics, and "Oh, my Heavens!" ...all the way down to ”Oh, My Achin’ Back!”. Listen and watch for the expression "Oh, my God!" on TV. Oprah leaves them in. Bob Barker either bleeps them out or covers them with crowd noise. Contestant are apparently well-schooled by Pat, Vanna and Alex.before air time. Edited bits of tape cuting out those three words would stretch from here to the other side of nowhere.
Can't we do with less of this?
A.L.M. January 15, 2004 [c506wds]
A BOLD MOVE
A leadership group know as The Harvest Foundation, located in Martinsville,.Viirginia - Henry County in Southside Virginia is seeking to have a four-year public college established in their area. They stand ready to back such an effort with a fifty million dollar challenge grant to the commonwealth to get the institution started.
Two Martinsville developers have offered a one-hundred acre site, off Route 58 and the development of such a four-year college and the Foundation is urging the construction as "one of the keys to economic competitiveness in the 2lst century" The general public is supporting the effort more actively since the announcement of the grant, and it is encouraging to see that the members of the Board of Supervisors Henry County have unaimously agreed to support the plan and have set forth a resolution calling for the creation of a university in the area.
It is an encouraging thing to see a community, once again, alert to the potential of the future. To aspire to such a goal seems to have vanished from the American Dream, but it is very much alive, and doing quite well, thank you, in Martinsville, Virgjnia and surroudning Henry County. Their innovative approach to a real need is inspiring and I, for one, believe they will, in time, achieve their goal.
Another key to sucess in the future, should also be considered by these same groups of civic minded individuals. The reaction of Governor Mark Warner and the Commonweath of Virginia was supportive while seeming to be inderstandably hesitant. The Governor's statement, which he made recently in announcing the fact that "MasterBrand" Cabinets is to build a new plant in the area, holds another key for Southsiders..Whether it's for a new college, the Govermor said,"or some other new project, until the state gets its finanical house in order, it can't take on new financial commitments." He was right. The members of the Foundation would, I think, realize that, and seek other ways of bringing their dream about.
With that goal in mind, It is time to open Martinsvile and the Henry County area to new business success. It can be done by actively supporting plans build a totally new Piedmont Interstate Highway from the Triangle area of North Carolina, north to Martinsville, Lynchburg and into the Frostburg, Maryland area, Such a highway is urgently needed to take pressures of overuse from Interstates 81 and 95. Now is the time for Southside legislators and leaders to act while temporary modification shemes for I-81 are meeting with renewed opposition from both trucking firm,s and private car owners. The proposed plans call for making Intertate 81 a Toll Road and proposed "improveents" are largely cosmetic in nature such as widening some areas, adding an additonal lane - theoretically for "trucks only", other "make-do" and "fix-it" gimmicks creating safety hazard thus far unknown to the 300-plus mile passageway to northern market areas.
Right now there is an open window of opportunity for the same innovative leaders of Southside who have spoken out so boldly for a college in their area, to actively support a plan for such a new Interstate highway through the area. New economic advantages will come with such a veture and the dramed-of univeristy level school facility will become more feasable and certain.
A.L.M. January 16. 2004 [c460wds]
Saturday, January 17, 2004
A BOLD MOVE
A leadership group know as The Harvest Foundation, located in Martinsville,.Viirginia - Henry County in Southside Virginia is seeking to have a four-year public college established in their area. They stand ready to back such an effort with a fifty million dollar challenge grant to the commonwealth to get the institution started.
Two Martinsville developers have offered a one-hundred acre site, off Route 58 and the development of such a four-year college and the Foundation is urging the construction as "one of the keys to economic competitiveness in the 2lst century" The general public is supporting the effort more actively since the announcement of the grant, and it is encouraging to see that the members of the Board of Supervisors Henry County have unaimously agreed to support the plan and have set forth a resolution calling for the creation of a university in the area.
It is an encouraging thing to see a community, once again, alert to the potential of the future. To aspire to such a goal seems to have vanished from the American Dream, but it is very much alive, and doing quite well, thank you, in Martinsville, Virgjnia and surroudning Henry County. Their innovative approach to a real need is inspiring and I, for one, believe they will, in time, achieve their goal.
Another key to sucess in the future, should also be considered by these same groups of civic minded individuals. The reaction of Governor Mark Warner and the Commonweath of Virginia was supportive while seeming to be understandably hesitant. The Governor's statement, which he made recently in announcing the fact hat "MasterBrand" Cabinets is to build a new plant in the area, holds another key for Southsiders..Whether it's for a new college, the Govermor said,"or some other new project, until the state gets its finanical house in order, it can't take on new financial commitments." He was right. The members of the Foundation would, I think, realize that, and seek other ways of bringing their dream about.
With that goal in mind, It is time to open Martinsvile and the Henry County area to new business success. It can be done by actively supporting plans build a totally new Piedmont Interstate Highway from the Triangle area of North Carolina, north to Martinsville, Lynchburg and into the Frostburg, Maryland area, Such a highway is urgently needed to take pressures of overuse from Interstates 81 and 95. Now is the time for Southside legislators and leaders to act while temporary modification shemes for I-81 are meeting with renewed opposition from both trucking firm,s and private car owners. The proposed plans call for making Intertate 81 a Toll Road and proposed "improveents" are largely cosmetic in nature such as widening some areas, adding an additonal lane - theoretically for "trucks only", other "make-do" and "fix-it" gimmicks creating safety hazard thus far unknown to the 300-plus mile passageway to northern market areas.
Right now there is an open window of opportunity for the same innovative leaders of Southside who have spoken out so boldly for a college in their area, to actively support a plan for such a new Interstate highway through the area. New economic advantages will come with such a veture and the dramed-of univeristy level school facility will become more feasable and certain.
A.L.M. January 16. 2004 [c460wds]
Friday, January 16, 2004
January 16, 2003
BAN ON BOOZE
One of the great features of our national life when I was a kid was the concept of probibiting the use of alcholic beverages nationwide by setting up legislation which said it was illegal to do so. After surviving such an era, I think I may safely say it did not work.
I do not remember the actual campaign which resulted in the concept being built to such a peak that it became a law. Those were Post War years with "Kaiser Bill" in exile chopping his own firewood. In the "Roaring Twenties,"as those years came to be tagged, the law was ridiculed, disobeyed and questioned. It amazes me, now that I think about it , that it took until 1934, wasn't it, for the law to be repealed.
Our family did not seem to be too concerned about it one way or the other, but I can remember my Grandmother and other famly members talking about the way saloons once did thrive in every block of every city and talk about the terrible miseries of family in which the evil monster of strong drink was a genuine horror. I think we kids agreed that there was a need for reform and not only in that paricuar area of social life pof he early part of the century - new, then, just as our days are for us in the next century.
It was common in those days for residents in rural areas, in particular, to be engaged in other than farming as occuation. Entire areas were given over entirely to the illicit manufacture of any types of which came to be called "moonshine" - used widely as in comedy. The empahsis was, naturally, in isolated, rural areas.but there were functioning distiliing systems in the towns and cities as well. They were constantly being raided and trashed out, but they were back in business within a week. They became more and more complex over the years. but many were quite obvious and even “open”. As a young music dance band musician I worked in so-called “bootleg joints”. One, which was
raided from time to time, had a simple system. The investigators never noticed there was always a happy, black lady was always washing pots and pans. She laughed heartily as she stood there shining a big copper kettle. At the first, which, a the first signs of a raid, its contents had gone down the drain and a suddsy aroma permeated the area. Our family doctor, who served many people living on the mountin ridge above town could, from his porch on Sunday moring, point out scorers of rising [ plumes of smoke each an operating still. Their owners and operators outnumbered those forces working to see the end of such operations.
Today we have serious problems which demand attention and it might a mark of wisdom if we would remember what happened when we decided we could ban booze. It is becoming more plain every day that it is difficult to pass any legislation to control morality and human social conduct. Let’s not be too hasty in total eradication. When a thing is made to be a "no-no", that only spurs many people to seek ways to get around it.
Controls? Yes. Total bans? No.
A.L.M. January 17, 2004 [c423wds]
Thursday, January 15, 2004
OBSTACLE COURSE
I was one of many draftees in the early days of World War II who was assigned to a basic training program which was planned to create Medics specifically for infantry units. We were sent a former WWI camp where barracks from that training period were still in use.
A new obstacle course was built by Quartermaster Corp workmen who had a strange sense of humor, in the construction thereof. It was booby-trapped to make life even more rigorous for the incoming infantry medics who were supposed to be transformed into a new bred of tough, endurance-oriented corpmen to support fast-moving infantry units.
Existing obstacle courses to be used in their training were considered too easy. On the overhead series of ladders above a deep swampy creek the pipes which firmed the rungs were not only spaced at varied distances instead of at rhythmic distances. That was innovation enough, but the real trick was to leave at least two of them loose in their sockets so they would roll instead of hold firm. I discovered them the hard way and waded ashore after the second one.
Once I knew the were there, I changed my grip and had no more trouble.
We did our thirteen weeks of hikes and swamp camping routines. We were put though what I found out later was more rigorous than usual training. There was an entire battalion of us, too - not a small company. At the end of the full thirteen weeks of intensive training, someone discovered there was no need - much less demand - for such medics. The entire battalion was transferred summarily into the United States Army Air Corps.
Even today, people cannot understand how or why I entered the army as “Infantry” and came out as “Air Force.”
Why would I bring all this up today? I do so because in life and living today we come across some situations which make us wonder if anyone knows, for sure, what might be going on about us.
Do you every wonder why our schools continue to teach young people to fill jobs which no longer exist? Why do we build cars designed to do hundreds of miles per hour with no highways on which they could might be run? Or, why do we judge movies by the amount of dollars spent to see them rather than the number of people who do so? Oh, there are hosts of things we do every day which (Quote) “do not make good sense.”(Unquote)
We build and maintain some very tough obstacle courses for each other in things we do or fail to do.
A.L.M. January 14, 2004 [c-451wds]
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
January 14, 2004
THIS IOWA THING
Many people seem to think of the primary being held in Iowa this week as an “election.”
Far from it. There are no voting booths, no chad producing, folded forms, no electronically sustained machines to be accused of malfunction in tallying up votes.
The Iowa system has been devised somewhat haphazardly over the years as a means of making it appear that the nomination of candidates comes from the heart of the people, rather than from a small group of experienced, campaign-hardened politicians in a “back” room , preferable “smoke-filled” - getting together to decide to back the individual they think who can win, rather than be the best man to lead our nation.
The Iowa Primary has often been likened to series of Town Meetings all being held at the same time. Each such caucus of kindred interests selects a candidate from the list presented – and there is a real bevy of them this year; and, after some haggling seeking other caucus groups to favor their choice as well, they put their wishes together to find the chosen one. He or she will be the candidate to whom the state's delegates to the National Democratic Convention will be pledged and obligated.
It Iowa primary has become increasingly important on a national scale largely because it happens to be first. The District of Columbia names its few delegates the same day but that usually goes by virtually ignored. New Hampshire is the next big one a few days later. This gives the media people enough time to pontificate on “the revelations, astounding shifts, puzzling trends and what-if” factors of Iowa and maintain enough momentum to carry them to the promising New Hampshire event. It also provides enough time for them to move their ever-growing caravan of TV tower trucks and personnel vans from corn to granite frequencies.
Entire political careers live or die with this Iowa affair. Some political fires are quenched forever. Others are caused to “s moulder” because of a relatively good showing in Iowa.
There would be a school of thought, I suppose. which would rather be chosen by working politicians in a back room - smoky or not - rather than a varied group of voters who are a very small fraction of the entire number of voters in a state, who think they know what they are doing - however sincere they might be.
A.L.M. January 13, 2004 [c-420wds]
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
OLD ROCKIN CHAIRS
Among a few other useful items, Ben Franklin is generally credited with the invention of the rocking chair.
We have Ben bashers about who insist that is not true.
Like the more modern inventor named Thomas Alva Edison, old Ben was always thinking about things which had not been done, or they both liked to taking \on the creation of things which other people said “could not be done.”
I have an idea a number of eager resters may have put curved boards under the legs of chairs long before Ben did., but they were not inventive and failed to realize that what had been done could be a helpful thing to all mankind - go-go gadget to put movement back in sitting still.
We have just one .so called,“Evans” Rocking Chair remaining in our home right now. Others have been shifted down one generation. “Evans” is a local “brand: here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia - chairs made by Walter Evans, his brother Charlie or by their father who had passed the art of chair making an caning down to his two sons. The Evans mark is just beginning to have real money-meaning at area auction points.
It was my good fortune to know both of the Evan' boys for a decade or so. The name was locally said as “Iv-ens” rather than “Ev-ans” - rhyming with “livings” They made many kinds of chairs under what has to be called primitive conditions. They made everything “from scratch”. All materials they obtained themselves from nearby woodlands. - most of which was owned by my father-in-law Irving Driver. He was very close to the boys in many ways, grew up with them, and never understood why the boys insisted on refusing to allow any electricity on their “places. They used wood stove and fire places small homes they did all of their shop work with all of their “machinery” powered solely by foot-pedals turning cogs overhead by means of leather strap connections.
I have to writ e it as being plural - as “places” - because when I came to know the Evans boys they had not spoken to each other for twenty years or more. It happened right after their Dad died, I understand, and folks al;ways told me that it came to an end “of a sudden” when Charlie, the younger of the two up and got married without consulting Walter. Charlie got himself married and that did it.. He moved, with his bride, to a location six or seven miles east near the town of New Hope, Virginia - booted out of the family homestead which had become ever so humble and run down. Charlie fixed up a small place with a workshop, and it too, like the old one,and the new house how no electric power, no inside bathroom, a small tank cistern but no well for the ground would not perk on the hill.. They hauled their water from a creek good mile away. Like Walter they got about at night with the aid of lamps/.They caned chairs as they have always done, by the fireside light.
There was time when I may have scoffed at people who would say one rocker “sat” better than another. I favor our Evans Rocker over others .It does seem to have a better “sit” to it. I'm comfortable and part of it, I suppose, is thinking about the3 troubles those two boys made for each other until their dying days... and Charlie's wife, too. How could, two people, so miserable with life itself make such comfortable, restful, supportive chairs? It may be that, with every piece of furniture they made, they put their entire world of love and energy in the working thereof, since they were unable to share it with humanity in any other way.
A.L.M. January 12, 2004 [c653wds]
Monday, January 12, 2004
LISTEN CAREFULLY
Are we listening to the right voices today concerning China?
The ancient commercial city of Venice had leaders who did not respond readily to the voices of Marco Polo, his father Nicollo and Uncle Maffio Polo. They had returned from the Orient with news of the riches of Genghis Kahn's then thriving empire the Polo's spoke with authority of their twenty-five year journey. Their words urging the Venetians to engage in trade with the rich oriental people they had come to know went unheeded. Their words were appreciated more as entertainment than as business advice or guidance.
How do we think of that vast area today?
Our views have reversed themselves in recent years. It has not been many years since China was viewed as a potential enemy - a “yellow peril”, It had been branded as such long ago on a basis of questionable thinking in both social studies and in politics. Our subsequent leaders shied away from any dealings with them.
Marco, Papa and Uncle had Silk Road superficial which enabled them to deal, with the fringes of the fabulous Oriental markets. Their discoveries showed the famed merchants of Venice how they could make a killing, but they did not respond as one might expect. Part of the reason they did no do so is to be found in the fact that Marco Polo, the young, energetic spokesman for the threesome and their crew is found to have been too skilled in the telling their story. His manner, his youthful enthusiasm and picturesque way of saying things entertained them but failed to convince them.
Polo painted a picture of great wealth awaiting Europeans in China. Today we have been sold on the idea of extreme poverty and political confusion being the norm in China and we are to see the area as a great potential market for American products. However, the actual evens which have happened are exactly the opposite. Our trade deficit grows daily as we import thousands of products “Made in China” more with each passing year.
It is obvious that we have, in recent decades, listened to and taken the advice of the wrong voices. We may we;ll have been entertained by brighter news from the Orient, but we have. in some way, been mislead or mis-directed. The old merchants of Venice found their place in time, and we may,yet, do so with some prompt attention to the conditions which exist between our nation and the Chinese.
Listen up! We seem to have been paying attention to vibrant, energetic, entertaining Marco when we should have been seeking out the word of his father Niccolo or his Uncle Maffio. Anyway, there is a need for some serious - above and beyond party politics - re-thinking of our trade with China. What was supposed to be the cart is now dragging the horse.
A.L.M. January12, 2004 [c480wds]
Sunday, January 11, 2004
HOW MUCH?
What are our limits? Do we have any bounds beyond which we dare not go?
Again, we are talking seriously about going to Mars. This time we plan o do a stop over at a moon settlement which we establish to give us platform on which to stand in order that we might find it easier to blast off for the Red Planet. That goal is situated a few million miles down, up, over, across, or through the space between the two locations.
Notice, if you will, how non-nonchalantly, how casually we mention that part of the plan which calls for us to put permanent way-station on the surface of Moon .We are, it seems, stating a known fact that we are capable of doing so without a great deal of trouble – except monetary expense, which we minimize enough in the telling, to make it seem that the sooner we get started on the project the better. It has not been too many years ago when we wondered about the possibility of ever doing that sort of thing at all.
That's just one point we had best give some serious consideration if we wish to assure any kind of a future at all for ourselves and our progeny. One of them we attempt to set aside but it is one which grows on you the more it is ignored.. We disguise the simple warning that tells us fat is fatal. We try to ignore it. It grows on you anyway, We are becoming overweight - too much so for our vital organs to properly handle our mass and the relationship is worsening constantly, it seems.
I have no idea who would ever want to figure out but such studies now show that Americans eat about nineteen acres of pizza per day. Not that pizza is an offender to acquiring excess weight, but when it is overdone. That's true pf so many of our favorite foods in each of the food groups. Gluttons get gout, and from steady stomach stuffing by any one of them. So food intake is another area of today's living where we might well learn to apply more common sense,
A third instance among which we tend to go to excessive use in pour present lifestyle is plastic materials present among us in the form of small, printed cards which enable us to buy things as if we had real money in hand. Credit cards, Debit cards, of plastic or fancy cardboard, membership cards which entitle you to benefits not available to others, all such seemingly free passes to pleasure, rove to be painful in time.. Years ago, when Diner's Club introduced the first such card, I remember so well, wanting one, but I never arrived at that point where I could afford to do so. Huge mountains of the family debts are today credit card caused.
We are nation blessed with plenty. And yet, seemingly as a part of our very nature, we want more - or better than we have. That is a good trait in that it keeps us from becoming a nation which complacently accepts conditions as they exist at a given time as being the best, not only for ourselves but for others as well. We go to some curious clothing styles at times, for instance, taking to fashions and styles which a generation look silly. We have been given a sense of humor to deal with such problems of excess. Even now we are just emerging., I feel, from a revolution in our musical life.. Years ago we became so satiated with melody that young blood in times of turmoil and unrest, called for a return to primitive rhythms We are just now showing signs of recovering from this beyond tuneful songs with meaningful lyrics. For that, I give thanks to our Creator. In the era of Acid Rock I had just about given up all hope. That may well be the one point when I feel we came the closest to “too much.”
A.L.M. January10, 2004 [c683wds]
Saturday, January 10, 2004
SHOCKED
Are we really as shocked as we seem to want to be when we hear reports of gross scandal and mis-conduct in high places?
Or, are we, in a strange reversal of self-esteem, led to accept the view that, since life has always been so disturbed from time to time, that we can overlook much of it when it does occur.
Some of the abuses have been going on for many, many years. Notably among them, have been the various levels of the problem of rampant pedophilia among the all-male clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. This has come to light in recent years, oddly enough largely because our temporal laws concerning limitations have encouraged victims to set forth any claims they might have before the statue of limitations rulings clipped their chances of recompense entirely. Just this week a statement was issued declaring that investigations have been conducted and that the problem was now under control.
Just how much such a pronouncement of conclusion amounts to remains to be seen. That has been a convenient, and much used, way out of problems that religious body has met with before. I feel it really hurts the Roman Catholic Church, too, far more than is, generally realized for admitted. I recall the feelings of a good friend of mine when we were both taking medieval history course under that most able and truly great mentor Dr. Julian Bishko at the University of Virginia. My friend, serious and almost in tears, confided in me one evening that he was seriously considering resigning from the course ...quitting... because what we were learning about the depths to which the Church had, at that time, fallen, was “undermining his Faith”. Fortunately, he stayed with it ...saw it through, and today, I would judge, is probably a devoted parishioner because, through the pages of history he witnessed much of what the church has had to withstand in the past ...to live with and among - and strive to best. The solution is never complete. The continued skirmishing must be fought even though the battle itself seems to fade away at times. Segments of the Protestant churches have had to face like, or worse, charges as well during recent decades.
It is not only religious scandals we must face.
We have political problems perpetually, it seems. One accuses a State Governor of accepting millions of dollars worth of gifts. How familiar that one sounds? Graft, nepotism, white-collar crime now in the computer area, business manipulation, lying, cheating and stealing have all run wild at times.
Are we becoming too complacent? How far do we go in thinking of this as being natural or normal. When such occurrences begin to be questioned in your natural or normal common sense department it has become a problem which can do you personal harm as it affects our nation.
.
Scandal ....shame in high places ...makes many of our other “great problems“ seem petty in a sense, because it involves and concerns the very substance of our being.
A.L.M., January 8, 2004 [c519wds]
Friday, January 09, 2004
NATIVE TONGUES
I remember, as a kid, our being fascinated with the idea of having secret languages all our own.
I've never overcame that idea, now that I come to think of it, because I still get a thrill out of sending radio messages by Morse code. For some strange reason is more exciting than simply speaking into a mike and then listening to another operator taking his turn to talk. The use of code puts it all into the framework of being a “secret language” and I feel I am intimately involved in true radio at its finest.
You probably enjoyed speaking something we called “Pig Latin”, I”ll bet, which, in our version made use of a lot of confusing sounds of ”ix-nay” and “ax-nay” and sounded more like a horse language than anything used by chattering piglets. Its main use, as I recall, was to prevent younger children or girls from understanding what we older boys were talking about doing which was, after all, none of their business. We also spoke what everyone called “Pigeon English” which was modified version of what we thought Chinese might sound like, mixed with our version of the King's English as spoken in the Appalachian Mountains of the Commonwealth of Virginia. You, no doubt, remember it flavored with your own native dialect whatever that might have been. I remember I could never understand how it was connected with pigs down at the barnyard.
I faced a like problem when it came to our useful language called “Pigeon English” I never heard the birds vocalizing anything other than their constant “cooing” at each ocher. The lingo didn't sound any more like birds chattering than the “Pig Latin” sounded porkish. It was years later that I found the correct selling - and saying - was “pidgin” not like the feathered cooers at all. It had nothing whatever to do with fowl unless you happened to be buying rom or selling chicken's to Chinaman. The word “pidgin” was simply a Chinese word (one of many, I would imagine) meaning “business”. So the proper term meant “Business English”. It was the modified, cryptic and often, I would imagine, a mysteriously bickering patter when spoken by scheming tradesmen.
So much the Greek we know today is (that's “we” in a non-specific sense) comes from commercial use, abuse and mis-use of the classical Greek. We have same sort thing today in what we call “street talk”, don't we? The British still have large chunks of Cockney dialect, which is a real winner among tongues natively spoken and used to the speaker's advantage.
A.L.M. January 7, 2004 [c442wds]
Thursday, January 08, 2004
DECEPTION
The Age of the Stage Magician may well be on hold at the present time, but we are still subject to being fooled by the experts at deception found in the advertising field.
Slight-of-hand of the most insidious type is evident in many TV commercials. You can see it most readily in those advertising efforts intended to influence children.
Look for the element of deception if they are featuring sets of small plastic figures withwhich children might wish to play. The figure moved about in a lively fashion and appear in one exotic setting after another, with stance altered a bit in each instance. The child, watching these transitions on TV – everything from a scene on a polar ice cap to the depths of a steaming jungle or a sandy beach in pleasant sunlight - comes to accept the suggestion that the tiny dolls move about of their own violition. Give it all a background of terse, semi-authentic ethnic music and you've got yourself a winner. Orders will flow in from parents who's kids say they've "gottta have 'em".
The whole idea, of course, is to convince the viewer that sometghing exists which has not been apparent until that moment. One can have his or her attention distracted by music, color or sudden, offside or by a sudden movment offside and not see the quick hand effect the change. I worked with a man year ago who had developed a novel type of social "ice breaker". He would accept a persons business card and immediately ask why they had their cards printing on both sides. He waved the card toward those about him and, sure enough, the card appeared to be printed on both sides. His quick fingers turned it, not once but twice . The trick wore thin with time, however. On- lookers knew they were being tricked even if they did not know exactly how it had been done.
We are fooled more often than we know, of course.
There are so many ways of such trickery "coming at us" these days as science outstrips itself in so much our daily lives. Oddly enough, so many of the old scams which used to puzzled our grandparents are stlll around in modern dress. The hand is still quicker than the eye.
A.L.M. JANUARY 6, 2004 [c392wds]
Wednesday, January 07, 2004
THE LANDING
It may well have rankled a few British ciizens this week when their expedition to Mars did not function as planned, and, just a few days later the United States landed a second unmanned craft which deployed on schedule and is not sendng back color photographs of the surface of Mars.
This sort of competative antagonism refected by such an attitude may well have been acceptable in the early days of space studies as if it were a sports compoetiton of some type. We have now advanced too far into space technology to let petty jealoucies and distrubing elements of false pride to impede progress we can make together. The simple truth is we owe much to each other.
Such expressions of pride in our accomplishment seem, to me, to be found among average citizen groups rather than among scientist or people associated with the space industries which are fast become a vital part of our economy. Much of the sensational style reporting coming from the media is found to be a direct result of the desires and references of average readers. The media has to give its users what they want as well as some things they ought to have.
If technical flaws exixt in the British vehicle which has not worked properly, they are probably much the same as he systems used in our own craft. Working together we can ovecome such hadicaps and we can make greater progress with less expense and, hence, get more public support for space progams currently available. It would seem any efforts to overcome some of the critical nitpicking, much of which does not take the space programs seriously, is to curb the ezrering citizen rather than the those in charge.
What do we, as individuals, actully know about the values we might obtain from such projects? We know very little, We freely accept the suppositions of others who seem to think they do know, but often shows that their views are based on conjecture and guesswork just as ours have been. We are, it seems, in constant dabgerr of pre-judging space projects ahead of the actual trials which will prove what it worth.. We do the same thing when we try criminals in the court of public opinion instead of allowing the judicial elements of our governmen o do their job.
Let's refrain from allowing ourselves to be too critical of space prorgams, until we know what the stated purpose is, and some of such work being done, as well as its limitations. The true facts will come from those qualified to state them and not sugar-coated, exagerated, mutated, battery-powered and wrapped in glitzy plastic cartons for us from Disney studios.
Place a "Handle With Care" label on your space project folders and think at least twice before you get critical. We should be aware of the fact that political colorings are being added to space news to make it seem to has never been. If there is to be any one area of our existance which is best kept free of political mid-handling this space study area is that item. Envy concerning any such accomplishments can be a crippling thing.
A.L.M. January 4, 2004 [c537wds]
Thursday, January 01, 2004
NEW LEAVES
We are in need of some changes now that the New Year is under way.
One leaf we need to turn is that of medical care and that is not just for older folks, either - but for all of us.
The cost of medical care - both services and products of all types have skyrocketed in recent years and nothing has been done about except for some token payment of presription medicines under certain conditions.
Are you aware of how many mecical offices have signs in the lobby area reading: "Full payment required in Advance of Treatments" – or, words to that effect and that they are becoming common. No "on account" payments without regard to regularity of such payments in the past. It is now:"Pay At the Door" – or else.
A second medical leaf which needs turning is the one which encourages citizens to believe that Medicare free.
Medicare is far from being a freebie. It is more accurately called, a compulsory health insurance plan and recipients pay monthly premiums. My wife and I will ante up $132.00 each and every month as long as we both shall live. That's $1,584 per year. It makes limited payments toward a list of qualyfing medical conditons. Among those portions for which Medicare does not pay is prescribed drugs, as you, no doubt, have heard since that subject became a political football. Because payment by Medicare is limited in this way, it is essential that a supplmentary insurance be bought to take care of more of the expenses involved. Mine costs $109.00 per month;my wife's is $144.00 per month. That's $253.00 per month or $3036 for the year for supplementary protection. We spend, then, at total of:$4620.00 which is well over one third of our total earnings for the year.
I am not knocking any of this.
I'm glad we have such protection, but I would like to see and hear our young people being made aware of just how much and why they need to save for their old age. The medical-business world, our politicians and much of the media spend far too much time and effort dwelling on bankruptcy rumors and narrow political and economic skullduggery.
One more leaf to turn, please.
Much of the medical profession seems hell-bent on bringing completely socialized medicine to these shores as soon as possible. Witness steadily increasing prices at all levels. The prescription I bought ten years less than $20.00 is not just under $100.00 for an identical, four-ounce bottle. The local pharmacy pays more for their supplies, so it must be somewhere beyond the local level, but where? Do we dare ask?
Medicine has gone "big business,"as well. Since our local doctors joined a cosmopolitan group, charges have risen to new heights. When our community office was opened - about twenty-five years ago - the charge for an "in office" visit was $4.00. Today you will need well over one hundred dollars, depending on what procedures were done. Many of those who have insurance have not noticed the increases because "my insurance copany pays for everything." Many of them are, at the moment, doing so, but how longer can we expect that to continue in the face of steadily rising prices?
The New Year suggests some changes be made.
A.L.M. January 1, 2004 [c561wds].
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