Saturday, March 06, 2004
LET'S GO!
We are looking for a new way to move from place to place; to move our belongings to a new location, and to get there faster than ever before,and to do so with the utmost comfort and as little trouble as possible.
We ought to have been satisfied by the horse years ago, perhaps, but that mode of movement but that form of travel has long ago become a matter of memory.
The very latest kind of energy usage is, I am told, using stuff called “anti-matter” or. it properties of push and pull. No one know, for sure, just what an anti-matter motor might look like. The idea is in the talk-only stage right now, but that means it is time we got ready to accept the soon to be be stated fact that we have been watching them work for centuries without knowing what they were. We have been duly warned by those fraidy-cat individuals who ooze out of the woodwork periodically to warn us that we “are messin'' with the makings”. We are, they say,”playing at being God,”- which is what they are doing in showing such absolute wisdom.
I have seen cars and trucks appear and supplant the horse and cart-wagon-carriage-van-cartridge-surrey- cabriolet etc . Notice, too, that dog sleds have disappeared in arctic climes, replaced in arctic areas by snow mobiles. Dugouts, in the tropics, are powered rather than paddled or poled. The whole world of man is on the move by some means or other and from time to time we realize we are going to run out of fuels which supply the modes of movement. Right now, the worry is that concerning supplies of coal and oil! One of these days theywillall bze spent and we will we need to find another way to move ourselves about. We have made good use of wind and water over the centuries but it is time for another look at them right now in anticipation of our future need for electrical power closely associated with most modes of movement.
In our space age times we have learned much of the values of being able to sling an object across the void . Sails and tethers have been adapted to move object into a nd through space. We are actively engaged in the making of an exotic heavy-metal glass fiber called “Zblan” which will need to be made under microgravic conditions. Their claims to future fame hold promise however. Then, we are never quite sure of what the next phase in computer technology might be, and some anticipate an acquired ability for computers to activate,manage and control objects in motion. meant. Elsewhere there are other working on Highways of Light upon which man may travel pretty much as a message does today on a beam of light.
Fusion is another possibility with special promise in thats it can use hydrogen made from common sea water .But, by that time, they all all be polluted, won't they? Or, boiling away from the greenhouse effect.
Maybe we had best go back to Dick Tracy's old idea of s powering everything with “magnetism.”
A.L.M. March 4, 2004 [c543wds]
Friday, March 05, 2004
ISZATSO?
Smile when you say "TV".
It is not all bad. Some? Right. How much?
Television sets in home use are bearing an inordinate portion of blame for all sorts of national ills.
The TV set is being used as whipping boy for all sorts of real and imaginary trouble by people who are prone to mishaps in almost anything they try to do.
It is not unusual for some people to blame anything new as being the cause of complaints they've been trying to get rid of for years. It is the easy way out. The more vague the association can be, the better, it sometimes seems.
Not too many year ago young people where being told to stop reading what werE then called "dime novels", which became, inflated from "the penny dreadfuls" pf the previous generation. In the 1920's[a publishers moved that sort of materiall – adventure, mystery, romance, detective store, and toward the end of the era – science-fiction into magazine called "the pulps".They were so called because they were printed on rough-textured paper rather than slick-surfaced paper adapted to increasing use of photographs and color - also branded as being evil innovations in their turn.
Cartoonists suffered other barbs of condemnation and when radio came along it, too, was vilified as an encroching evil poisoningv the very air we breath!
When you complain too obviously about all the shows on TV you say you never watch, you are building a picture of yourself which you would rather not be.
Having worked on both sides of newspsper, radio and television entities, I realized, long ago, that there is only way to "improve" any of them.
As a reader, as a listener, as a viewer there is only one way of bringing about changes for the better...causing the demise of poor shows and helping good ones succeed
It is so simple your first reaction will be to say that it will not work. But, it does. It works on both sides of the entertainment field, too.
Praise that which you consider to be good. Don't overdo it. Sincerity counts.
Ignore that which you do not feel meets with your approval. Totally. Completely. Absolutely.
A.L.M. March 4, 2004 [c379wds]
Thursday, March 04, 2004
READY? HERE WE GO!
I am finding it increasingly difficult to understand how we can except to avoid serious conflict with a number of the strange forces haunting us as a nation today.
Some progress has been made.
We are fortunate to have a President who has strong standard of morality. Few Americans knew the depths to which we had fallen on that score alone. Even today, we prefer not to talk about it, but we are pleased with the fact that the problem has gone away. For a time, at least, the seamy side of White House living has been eliminated.
We are involved in election time at this moment which is going to tell us if we have, indeed, exorcised some of the qualities of decay which had become so obvious.
We are going into a national election which is going to be a rough exchange, and if the Democratic Party banner bearer, which now seems to be a “done deal”, the campaign is destined to be a rather weird one.
I was surprised to see John Kerry emerge rather early in the primary routine over some others who were not so regional in their political experience. John Kerry is known as a ”liberal” if we find it necessary to apply labels. Such tags do not tell, the entire story, however. He would have to be called a “Loose Liberal” because of his tendency to vote on both sides of many issues dependent on immediate advantages seemingly to be gained by such both-way voting. In the primary campaign it became quickly evident John Kerry could not run on his voting record. He made an error when he allowed his military experiences to be given hailing him as a “Viet-Nam War Hero”. He overdid it. He accused President W. George as having been AWOL from his assigned Air National Guard post on one occasion during the Viet Nam war. The charge was was met by publication of official military records for the date and time concerned This proved Kerry's charges to be false. The really, big mistake Kerry made at this point was to seem to vilify the National Guard as being a haven for rich men's sons and slackers. He seems to be totally ignorant of the fact that the National Guard, in absence of a national draft, is now and has been our main source - practically our only source - through several modern wars.
Other points of Kerry's military career will haunt him and hurt his campaign. He served a total of four months in his “tour” of Viet Nam and requested home assignment because he collected three purple heart decorations which gave him the privileged of requesting his return home. Only one of the purple heart decorations, involved more than primary medical attention and loss of time from work duty. Each time they are mentioned more and more veterans of all wars think of them as having been the “Band Aid” version, and an insult to all Purple Heart recipients. Kerry, upon coming back to the states, actively participated in anti-war demonstrations as a “peacenik” complete with long hair and rags and there are published lists of numerous American army atrocities he claimed to have witnessed during his stay in Viet Nam,but failed to report, deeds of theft, torture, murder, and rape of innocent civilians.. If this darker side of the Kerry background surfaces prior to the Democratic National Convention you can expect to see a new slate set before the American people.
That may well be the moment when a new personality will be called from the wings to save the Party and the nation - Hillary Clinton!
A.L.M. March 3, 2004 [c621wds]
Wednesday, March 03, 2004
VERBOO0M!
Where had it been?
Where was it going?
Would you think about that if you were in any way whatsoever concerned with the presence of of a sea-going tanker loaded with around three million gallons of ethanol on board?.
Wouldn't you want to know where it was at the moment and where it was headed? How about where it had been in last few days?
The Singapore registered, Philippine manned Oil tanker which blew up last week about fifty miles off Virginia an took the lives of all the crew except a half-dozen or so who were found adrift on a raft shortly after the explosion and sinking of the impressively large vessel was traveling more or less incognito.
News releases concerning fire and explosion conflicted in regards to where the vessel had been during the past week or so and of its intended destination. The second day after the sinking, some some papers where, if they said anything at all about that bit of information, said it was going from New York to Houston. Other papers were saying it was going from New Orleans to New York City with a full load of Ethanol.
That means that the explosive craft which shook a large chunk of the North Atlantic last week, had either been in New York harbor within the past few days or was due to dock there within a few days. It is important that we note the vessel was registered in Singapore.
All this takes on more serious meaning when you find such vessels flying the flag of a small African, Asian, of South American nations. Or, closer offshore islands are also in the business of selling such authorizations. The ship owners do so for economic reasons and much of the savings found through foreign registry comes about largely by minimizing or ignoring safety and fire regulations. Such rules are less stringent.
Imagine what would be if that tanker had blown up in New York Harbor!. It was either going there, or had been there – depending on which paper you read. Either way, don't you think we should know when such a potential time bomb is in our urban centers? Worse yet, suppose it were a suicide bomb rather than a regular hazard potential.
It is time to take new look a our law books concerning the use of our harbors by ships of questionable foreign registry. Do we have any restrictions concerning port entry of ships – especially those with flammable or explosive cargo which does not meet our basic standards of maritime safety?
Let's not wait until we hear a strange boom.
A.L.M. March 2, 2004 [c449wds]
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
OLD SALEM VISIT
“Old Salem” is located in North Carolina, rather than in New England as many people may suppose.
It is that part of the city of Winston-hyphen-Salem. Both ends have been leading cigarette brands over the years because that has been the root of culture in the area for many years.
The Salem section of the city dates from 1716 when members of the Moravian Church, having migrated from their homeland in that section of today' Czech Republic, worked their way south to the Carolina Piedmont area seeking a definitive location where they could carry on their traditions apart from others.
The restored area includes four distinct museums dedicated to different facets of living in the 1700' .There are restored dwellings and public use buildings to provide a good representation of the manner of living of the
Moravian people both here in America and of their European heritage. They have .been expanded to include those elements of Old South living as well - elements which became a part of the Moravian's new world culture in the 1700's.
My first visit to the area many years ago came through a chance opportunity to see the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (conveniently shortened to “MESDA ) It is the largest of the four museums in the area.
The presentation there pleased all of us. It takes place in what I have been told was formerly a super-market site. It has been divided into a chronological series of rooms containing - not restorations or reproductions - but the actual, authentic furnishings of each room lifted up physically and relocated on the south edge of the Old Salem area. One room is a reproduction that of the Poindexter home in Virginia with its unique window glass feature. That is the one exception. All the others you see are “the real thing” physically transported to the present location intact. Many of these rooms have thus been preserved, some of which would have,long ago have, fallen to the auctioneer's hammer and been broken up and forever lost. The rooms you visit are the original in every detail - furniture items and “decorative arts”items. All represent the way people lived years ago; including those things they enjoyed, having with and about them. What you see is authentic in detail. historic evidence of good living from many years ago.
Your docent opens the first door leaving the Reception area and you step into the actual living room area of a log cabin from early settler days. Now that I try to set it down I cannot say how many such room one visits, but it is a complete study in reality - decade by decade - with rooms from historic homes in Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The display concludes with a visit to a golden-era Dining Room in the ante-vellum days of Charleston, South Carolina.
Strictly speaking, is is logical that one would have to agree that the MESDA is not exactly a part of the Old Salem theme. It is, however an exceptional “bonus” to such a trip.. I get carried away when I think of it. It may be that we can talk more about “Old Salem” the next time we meet.
A.L.M. March 2, 2004 [c553wds]
Monday, March 01, 2004
TRIO
It seems odd that three musical events should suddenly come to mind yesterday afternoon when I was walking around the cul-de-sac turn-around near which we now live.
That's my daily trek location now during my eighty-eighth year - and it is not unusual to use it as think-back-when locale, as well.
During my walk yersterday I found myself thinking of a time when Ullyses S. Grant is said to have visited Staunton, Virginia - possibly on an electioneering junket, and who was to be entertained, quite logically, by their justly famed and respected "Stonewall Jackson Brigade Band."
When asked what tune he would like to hear them play Grant, without hesitation, replied: "Dixie!
"
Never was the piece played with such intensity an feeling. Grant had heard them play the song before, but in different circumstances and from afar in Wilderness battlefields.
Think what courage and depths of courage and understand to both make and to fulfill and to fullfll that request.
The second musical memory was of the same locale - Staunton, Virginia but half a century later, where, many years ago, a member of a trapeze troupe with a visiting circus was brutally murdered by another member of the circus. She was buried in Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton and eech year afterward on the anniversary of her death
surviving members of the circus band showed up at her graveside to play the circus tunes she loved. Instrumentation varied, of course, and to this date people don't seem to remember exactly when the graveside recitals ceased. It was comparativly recent when someone realized the annual event was no longer being observed.
The third incident I remembered happened in West Virginia, just out of Fayetteville.
When the engineering wonder which is the high span of bridge over the 800 foot-plus depths of the New River Gorge, was dedicated I, listened to the ceremonies on, I think, NPR. It was many years before I actually got to visit the site. When I did so, the music of the dedication of the bridge flooded over me as it does to this very day.
I don't know who the production genius might have been, but instead of featuring a large band, a full orchestra or marching batallions, or, perhaps modern dancers in frilly costumes – someone had the brilliant idea of having one ,lone harmonica player starding midway of the high span playing folk melodies which were electronically amplified and sent vibrating through the high moutains; moulding themselves to fit the contours of even the deep chasm which is the New River Gorge, as a natural part of their own heritage.
No one musical moment has impressed me so deeply. The sheer simplicity of it was an artistic triumph and whoever did it should be forever enrolled in a special place in whatever book records such musical milestones.
Take a walk and think about your musical treasures. It will prove to be time well spent.
A.L.M. February 29, 2004ll [c516wds]
P.S: Happy Birthday, Buddy Rogers, Swoope, Va., on your Leap Year birthday!
Sunday, February 29, 2004
ARNOLD, YOU RASCAL!
The secret is not yet out.
California’s new Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a plan in progress to overcome the state’s huge debts.
The nation will not become aware of the scheme until the Governor announces: “Let the trials begin.”
The plan got underway just after St. Valentine’s Day - appropriately enough, when the mayor of San Francisco let it be known that he would be available to perform marriage ceremonies for homosexual couples of whatever ilk. He set up shop and thousands of same-sex twosomes flocked to the Mayor’s nuptial headquarters. Many who have previously desired to be left alone to live their own way of life, now wanted o b e,it appears, like everyone else. They had to get married. None of this “living in sin”shame for them when the benefits of being wed were obvious and becoming more so.
To date, the leap year date of the year 2004, over six thousand couplers - three thousand couples, have taken the vows of marriage at the mayor’s altar. Being caught short by the sudden rush, the Mayor has had to resort to multiple marriages quality control . Being caught rather sort-handed by the rush, His Honor’s offices has been has had to resort to marrying eight or ten couples at a time. I understand, however. The Quality Control Section of the office has looked into the matter, however, and does not like to be quoted as saying one such marriage seems to be about as good as any other.
If and when the flood of applications eases off a bit, we can expect word from Sacramento saying:”Let the trials begin!”
Beyond any doubt, the marriages have been done in clear and intentional disregard for the established Laws of the State, and are, hence, subject to fines and punishment.
Let's think of three thousand couples to start with, and more on the way, let's say at fine rates of from ten to fifteen- K each! That would add up... to what? A well known “tidy sum”, right? The take is then to be applied to the most pressing and politically correct red ink areas in the state's books. Lest we seem too heartless and lacking in compassion for our our fellow mankind and female counterparts, let's keep the punishment at say two to five years – suspended.
Each law-breaking couple should have its day in court. That's the only fair way to go about it. Maybe eight or ten couples a time, if need be. Much depends on how urgently the state's creditors need their money. Some of them are going to learn that marriage is not always what it is yakked up to be. Why not learn that lesson earlier rather than later?
A.L.M. February 29. 2004 [c469wds]
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