Saturday, October 30, 2004
SOMNAMBULISTIC NOTATIONS
Some nights I have trouble getting to sleep. It doesn't happen often enough to merit one of those sleep clinic innings.
Well, now, you wouldn't expect me to call it an”outing” would you? Such a test session has always struck me as being a little silly anyway - sleeping away from home in a strange bed, wired for sound and motions, noisome fragrances wafting wildly and exotic, soul-searing sounds emanating as strange territorially constituted noises and sans my favorite pillows or coverlets. How can all that demonstrate how I normally sleep. Since I enjoy sleeping, it seems a bit odd I have not been tempted to try such a supervised sleep session, but the idea has never rated a place on my “Things To Do” (TTD) list.
My occasional tendencies to sleeplessness are few and far between and I have felt them to be associated, quite often, with things which - during the preceding wakeful hours - have been “on my mind.” I suppose one would have to label them as being “worry”items. Yesterday, for example Bin Laden choose to come out of the wormy woodwork. That, alone, would have been cause for concern, but to do so on the eve of our election week-end when “poor judgment” is standard operating procedure with so many of us adds to its upsetting nature.
Why now? We can only assume that them move was planned, because we have certain been shown that just about everything the Terrorist Mind does is based on their idea of a perverted purpose. The concept of suicide bombers is the oriental idea of “kamakazi” attacks which took us by such illogical surprise during the early days of World War II. In one sense, the technique can be seen as a sign of weakness when even the perpetrators cannot devise a means of escape unharmed. If being an especially revered and honored corpse to the cause is such an honor, it just may be that we can encourage Bin Laden to show himself other than on cowardly spools of magnetic tape and be a volunteer not unlike the dedicated idiots he has been dispatching worldwide to do his dirty work for him.
Bin Laden's sudden willingness to appear on or near center stage might be a good thing I reflected on words of worldly wisdom uttered in my note-taking presence by a Mexican-American army buddy of mine who said: “You will fin' it easier to crush the cockroach when you can see heem!.”
Don't lose any more sleep about it. B. L. will decide B .L's fate in due time. Do be concerned about choosing our national leader. As of this morning, each is out-hawking the other. Bin is back.
A.L.M. October 30, 2004 [c462wds]
Friday, October 29, 2004
HOLD YOUR BREATH!
Tantrum time?
This is the week-end when some American voters think they can act like idiots in exhibitions of their understanding of false patriotism.
It is curious mix. There are clowns on both sides of the sides of the political fence - all sides, for those less-than- minor groups who do not stand a chance of elect their candidate whatever happens.
Far too many party persons seem to think the campaign rhetoric must continue right up until the the final chad had been done or undone properly or improperly. It's all over when the candidates go to bed for some much-needed shut-eye time. There is little need for you to drag your pet political prejudices into the voting site itself on Election Day. The shallow-headed individual who stations himself or herself just outside the actual physical dimensions of the voting area wrapped in a national flag, as it were, haranguing, or loading them up with more literature designed to make them change their mind at the last moment. A vote that fragile is not worth the trouble it takes to change it.
A voting area is not a combat arena. It is, rather, a place of quite, resolute action in which we set down our choices from among the candidates discussed over the previous weeks, months and even years. It is not to be a place of continued bitterness and criticism. It is not a proper place for the flexing of political muscles. The disagreements should be left behind. We are, often, among the first and loudest to be critical of elections in foreign nations where violence is often a deciding factor at the ballot box. We demean and dishonor them even more so by naming monitors to stand by to see that their election may be said to be honest and above board. It may be time to watch our own conduct.
There is a strange undercurrent abroad this year which has people being fearful of violence at the balloting places.
The campaign is ended. The time of testing is a hand, when we find out how well we have responded in this tradition which is ours enabling us to - peacefully - choose our own leaders and what our future is to be.
A.L.M October 29, 2004 [c402wds]
Thursday, October 28, 2004
HOW FAR?
How long do we allow a personal affront from a friend to continue?
Our nation's acknowledged finest newspaper has purposely and with malicious intent, published so-called "news" which it knew to be other than that which they suggested it might be. They have, once again, found "news" which was not "fit to print" and published it anyway.
Exactly one week before Election Day 2004 the New York "Times" published a fine example of old-fashioned boiler-plate journalism - both text and photographic scraps depicting an ammunition dump which a have been hurriedly vacated and stripped of whatever weaponry it might have, at one time, contained. Whatever had been there was, beyond all doubt,gone.
The hanky-panky took over the story at that point. The entire spread was presented as if it had just happened. The event suggested and the photographs date from as long as eighteen months ago when American forces first entered the area. Readers were left with the illusion it had all happened within the last few days. TV news picked the story quickly and eager and printed news releases fanned out in a flood around the world and placing all blame for the ??sudden?? ammunitions loss on George Bush. Poorly led troops just sat there while terrorist stole about 380-tons of arsenal items in about thirty-eight semi-truck loads. Care was taken not to mention that the story and the photographs date from as much as eighteen months earlier when the American forces first arrived in the area. George W. Bush was to blame and Kerryisms were deftly done describing in fearful detail how, even now, terrorist gangs were fabricating a giant Election Eve attack on the United States made with the stolen ammunition. It was alleged that our uninspired, mis-led troops just sat there in the desert sands while Bin Laden's boys were stealing everything in sight ??through air vents in the roof of the storage buildings.?? Some think the contents of the ammunition dump may have been left over odds and ends from the Gulf War.
Think about this ridiculous, warm-over "story" presented as current news. Remember this deception when you read, see or listen to the "news" during the rest of this week.
What else might be set forward when there is not enough time remaining for refutation?
A.L.M. October 28, 2004 [c401wds]
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
CHRISDAY CONFLICT
I have decided it had something to do with the fact that we are in an election year. This was the first time I remember hearing some edge-of-nasty arguments about who discovered America and when.
Most of us, I think, are willing to give Christopher Columbus the credit or the blame for having brought the existence of the American continents to the attention of a curious and gold-seeking throng of Europeans. Chris, himself, was intent on finding a passageway to China, India other such places. Never before do I recall so much comment as in the week of our recent “Columbus Day”celebrations. Those who favored all that we had been taught about Columbus had to put up with a veritable flood of guff from those who contended that America was discovered, at least a good five centuries ahead of Christopher Columbus' numerous trips across the Briney. They claimed Leif Erickson, or, maybe, Eric the Red, or just another shield-studded gang of generously blond-bearded Vikings with bull horns glued to their headgear, had came upon both hunks of western real estate in their wanderings. Some even went so far as to suggest, that which is probably true; that Old Chris died not knowing, for sure, exactly what he had found.
Even callers on the radio talk shows were hot to hate that week and it had to stem from the critical stance we all seem to have adopted toward the finals weeks of our election process.
The Columbus-was-late-crowd argument seemed to be enhanced by ignorance of the facts, intensified by confusion and worse this year because of the voting booth jitters so many of us are apparently susceptible to at this time of the quad-year civic cycle. He slightest bit of disagreement - conflict!
Columbus went back to Spain and talked to interested, concerned people about the new land. He even wrote a book about it , some insist, but the Norse left their sparsely sustained settlements on the slightest setback - such as bad weather - to return to their former camp sites in Greenland and Iceland. It is true they were centuries ahead of others - Spanish, Portuguese, English - but the Norse settlements have been vastly over-extended, romanticized and over-rated. It is likley they did build at least two rock houses - a second one when they had a spat over who was going to live in the one old Leif had left for them to use. The first to make a settlement effort was Leif Erickson and his red-headed son Eric tried it a few years later.
We have confined Columbus to the southern seas, even though he made at least one trip to Iceland and through that out-of-Ireland over-supply of imaginary islands which never existed which give Ireland a “Me, too!” position in the “who-found-America com petition. The fabled feats of various Vikings have
been dragged all over the map of the eastern half of the United States. Alleged Norse droppings has been found at a vast number of sites by overly-eager “histerians” who seem to think that any pile of rock means that “Vikings” had a colony there.
To complicate it all a bit more, a couple with Eric the Red's bunch had a boy-child child they named “Snorrie” who was born five centuries ahead of “Virginia Dare” down Roanoke Island way. Then, worse yet: November is almost upon us which brings back the well-worn - “when and where was the first Thanksgiving Day dinner consumed?” Usually the contending Commonwealths of Massachusetts and Virginia are the only ones who get excited about it.
By that time, our election ought to be over - perhaps.
A.L.M. October 27, 2004 [c619wds]
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
A NEW ERA
The repetitive nature of so much of our election time routines drives me to seek distraction in the form of projections concerning our future. Uppermost among them for this morning I seem to have become aware of the fact Mankind faces yet another era of great discoveries.
Politicians make some astounding prophecies concerning the future and I think, perhaps, may be that which has trigger my interest of wondering about what tomorrow might bring.
Mankind is, I think, is facing yet another era of great discoveries.
We have been, at times, too much like our Congress which, in 1912 serious discussed a bill which was designed to abolish the U. S. Patent Office because “everything worthwhile had all ready been invented”. I suppose we should be appreciative of the fact the bill did not become law, and I can't refrain from but wondering how such a proposal might fare today. It would, I dare say, a least make it into committee hearings.
We all remember when Alaska was spoken of as being ”our last frontier”. It still holds a fascination in the mind of many curious people and is a prime potential for a bright future once we escape the binding thrall of a maze of eco-nut hindrances.
Alaska was replaced in the public mind by more space - “outer” space. Then, closer to our needs, perhaps, we are speedily beginning to become more and more aware of the immensity of values yet to be obtained through further knowledge of our inner selves. We have worlds of minutiae as yet undiscovered. Such subjects as DNA and Stem Cell research have propped the scientific doors ajar so that more men and women can enter such fields as those to learn more about our very being.
Just as in the case of a growing child being impressed with their discovery of smaller forms of life, we are becoming more aware of the largess of our heritage of many small blessings. We have, in recent years made some tremendous progress in our ability to diagnose malfunction of specific portions of the human body; we are constantly discovering new or better ways to treat such conditions until they cease to be costly, even deadly problems.
Discoveries come about, so often, because the is found to be a need for change. Most ”inventions” as developed to meet a need. Now and then, something may be made and a use for it follows more or less by accident, but often because no one every took the time to consider such a special use for it.
That which strikes you as being imperfect stands as a challenge to make you to make it better. You and I can be a part of the new age of discovery which is, of a surety, a growing part of continuing life on Earth.
What part will you play? What is your role?
Dare to do that of which you dream!
A.L.M. [c500wds] October 26, 2004
Monday, October 25, 2004
RULE OF ONE
In the era in which we felt it essential to be in opposition to Dictatorship rule by Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and others there were actually eighteen nations ruled by one person. Dictatorships were in power on every continent and we managed to ignore the dangers involved for us and our form of government among so many of such a questionable nature.
The oldest of them, and the one which endured the longest, was that of Antonio Oliveira Salazar in Portugal. His one-man rule began in 1929.
He wa succeeded in 1968 by Marsella Caetano and his government continued with a slightly more liberal view which resulted in it's being overthrown in 1974. Salazar succeeded decade after decade in keeping his people unaware of developments in the nations of the world - “protected” he argued but his replacement allowed such access to economic and social advancements. By 1974 the Portuguese were again a free people.
1988 marked the 500th year since Bartholomeu Dias sailed found a way out of a severe, obscuring storm and put into a harbor called Mossel Bay. That meant that he was the first explorer to round the southern tip of the continent of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope. That act opened up a whole new world of commerce for the western world and we see now as a high point in the government-sponsored Portuguese discoveries which followed. This continued through the 15th and 16thc centuries and it had a profound influence on all phases of national and international life of those times. Starting in 1988, the government of Portugal began a twelve- year celebration as a plan enabling them to achieve unity and a sense of purpose which had been lost during the long dictatorships of Salazar and Caetano. The year 2000 saw great improvement in the nature of Portugal's place among the nations of the world. The far-flung colonial empire had been lost, of course, many years ago, but the new Century became a landmark for those who foresaw newness and a bright future for their nation.
In the past it could be said the Portuguese had been “first” Patagonia – now called “Argentina”; “first” in Brazil where their language endures to this day, as well, “first” in Japan, India and even the Arabic emirates. Wherever the Portuguese went they set up far more stable forms of government for local peoples than did other nationalities. The did their explorations with purposeful intent and did not depend so much on happenstance, chance or fortuity as did Columbus and others. They established trade with their foreign connections which was mutually advantageous and worthwhile for all concerned.
The Portugal which was a united, highly responsible, during the 15th and 16th centuries established a good example of what a nation might become. Such a time can never be again. But it does appear that the people appreciate the good work their forebears accomplished in discovery exploration, establishment and principles of management.
It applies to nations as well as individuals: appreciation of others depend on what you think of yourself. The Portugal of the future will prosper because they, at last, understand and what they have been at their best.
A. L.M. October 26, 2004 [c545wds]
Sunday, October 24, 2004
MINUS TV
What else is going to die without world-wide television coverage?
The “Miss America Competition” seems to have gone that way and that makes you wonder what will follow the same path.
Big league base baseball may be a candidate for such electronic execution in the mind of many largely due to the recent announcement saying that, beginning with next season's big league games, all such play-by-play will be carried on cable channels alone. Whether this is a good thing or a bad way to go, has not yet been determined, it appears.
One view might be that it will, at least, prevent a few 1950 sitcoms from being re-run so steadily. It should add to sports fan tune-in because it will be easier to find the exact game desired. It might, however, make it to tempting for viewers to watch more than one game at a time. Split- screen and quad-screen equipment will, no doubt, be in short supply for a time, if it goes that way.
Although I am not a solid schedule sports fan, I rather like the idea myself. I have enjoyed watching Atlanta “Braves” game because I always had a[pretty good idea of where to find them without consulting printed or run-on , too-fast or slow screen listings.
This is somewhat of a crisis in both sports and in TV programming lines, but it is becoming evident that some changes are in order.
The “Miss America” pageant pretty much what it has always been, I suppose we would have to agree, except for controlling star personality of long-timer emcee Bert Parks. To many TV viewers it seems that the “Miss America Competition” was a Bert Parks “special” of some sort. They were always modifying the format slightly, too - tinkering with it just a bit to suggest that the anticipated show might be just a bit more risque than we were accustomed to, a smidgen more outspoken, more revealing than in the past. The print media, too, played a critical role in this phase of planning especially in regard to the swim wear sequences which most of still called ”bathing suits” - more or less. As other elements of the entertainment world fleshed out the papers and magazines found the “Miss America” exhibit to be rather staid. I have a feeling this continued lack of interest from the earliest local and state contests caused the program to loose a lot of it's radio and TV audience.
It sounds odd to speak of “radio” now, doesn't it? But it did have a big part in keeping the annual contests both exciting and inviting. There was also a time when your local movie theaters ran extended “Newsreel” coverage of the annual events choosing our standard of national beauty as well.
Now, let's all sit back and enjoy this years awards “presentation” such as it may be, and we can wonder if the same thing is going to happen to high-budget baseball.
A.L.M. October 24, 2004 [c503wds]
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