Wednesday, November 30, 2005
THE GRATE PYRAMIDS Our U.S.D.A. or some other agriculturally-oriented branch of our expansive shade tree of governmental ever-growing in foggy-bottomed rotation in Washington, D. C. started to emulate the work of the rulers of ancient Egypt by building pyamids honoring the foods we consume and which many of us have been accused of worshipping in a sense. For some reason which I have never been an enthusiastic booster of their food pyramid charts through the years but now that have grown older my dimensions have changed somewhat. Like it or not, I am now eligible to be called f-a-t. I say have come around to admitting my general physical dimension shave exhanged somewhat. My physical structure is a few inches shorter North-to-South - head to toe - or that my exercise routines (Ha!) my work habits...my play habits....snack habits and all my habits in toto. It's my East -West dimentions which are proving to be troublesome. In the equatorial line area dominated by belt pressures I can work miracles to lessen the distance by several inches between where I stand an Venus off low in the last days of the month of November. When one gets fat, one also learns to talk about big, ponderous, or outsize things.. We learn to mention Hummers rather than Jeeps; limos rather than boxy, little half-cars. We are selective and try to speak of speak mainly of larger items appoved by today's society. Think of Grand Canyon and not of your local landfill; think Niagra instead of a kiddie pool shower. on TV screens and to minimize [rise for skinny stars. Self-esteem is part of this overweight problem. Hire yourself as a sort of at-the-ready PR person. Sooner or later, I suppose, I will have to look, up one of the latest pyramid charts and take it seriousl and not let it grate on my sensibilities. I do think they known what the answer might be. The old maxim is still with us: “Eat less; exercise more.” One of those pyramids things calls for five fresh fruits daily. What am I expected to do: gluttonize on five Concord grapes at one-and-a portion-of-another per meal? A.L.M. November 30, 2005 [c385wds]
Monday, November 28, 2005
CHANGES Our conversation was about spectator sports and how different people might re-act to the regard to potentially inclement weather which appeared to be ready to become active at the football game were on our way to see. The exact sub- ject changed, however, when one of the older crew present shifted the talk a bit to changes he felt were taking place. “We are seein' a different kind of game today 'n our folks used to watch. We see more deeply set team work today than they ever did, and millions of people watching get an even more deliberate dose of logistic details than we on the sidelines watchin' what pieces of a play we can patch together after we see how they worked out. Someone mentioned today's simulations are, at best, cartoon-like, or tic-tak-toe-ish in appearance...stick people and stabs of coded colors. “In the future we're going to see quickie-shot “sims” which have what you now see in miltary simulations...movement!...action!..punch!” The poker games have come to television only recently but we are already seeing a flow of complaints from irate losers who think it unfair to allow promoters to have computers play their end of the games. Even if the computer is a hundred miles away and used solely for “advice” the fact that it has memories of thousands successful ploys for winning players, could proved to be irksome while taking care of the promoters modest thirty per cent take. Imagine, if you will what tiny speakers in football helmets could do. Of, another such passage to perversity, allow just enough time when dealing quiz questions for someone to find the answer on a computer. Our talkative futurist in the back seat claimed that new technology will evolve much faster, too. Between now and 2015 we will see growth about like the amount we have seen from 1985 until now. There will, of course, still be people who like to dress well in layers of woolen materials and seek out the colder spots which only “bowls” can generate. Another factor currently acting to cool down attendance at games and entertainment events in general, is the ever increasing cost of tickets. Lets hope these people find some way to get prices back down to where the average one of us can attend such events now and then. A.L.M. November 28, 2005 [c-408wds]
Saturday, November 26, 2005
OWNERSHIP Does the physical acquisition and a condition of holding materials constitute wealth? We use the term: “Losers, weepers; “finders keepers.” We speak of “gathering in the sheaves”,”bringing home the bacon”, and other such folksy-sounding maxims which suggest that “possession is”, indeed, about “nine-tenths” of ownership. Certainly many people think that to be true. Some seem to think the world, indeed, owes them such a living and they purposely learn acquire possessions and call such items wealth. We all know persons we consider to be greedy in that they would assume, naturally, that every shoulder and berm on every highway provided road-kill items just for them. Some item are not worth keeping. There is a vast difference between “aroma” and “odor”, between ”smell” and “stink as any able-beaked buzzard could tell you. Human collectors can become that sort of person. They show sure sign of doing so when they start to haunt yard sales, garage, patio, driveway and just sale-sales to buy all sort of items strewn along the leftover berm of some wreaked households. They agree that “all that glitters is not gold “contending it may be “silver”, instead. They buy anything and everything which can be fitted into their attic or basement ”Plunder Room”. In recent months we have witnessed countless wildfires raging through thousands of acres of forests and grasslands. Many homes are lost in such senseless fire each year yet people still think of such forested areas as personal property. They claim ownership or vast panoramas of Nature's finest but do not accept the duties of proper care. The can prove ownership of vast areas by showing pieces of paper authentically inscribed signatures applied but they cannot tell you what the term “back to wilderness” mean today in regard to forrest fire presence. Such wealth can be lost in a few hours. Owning a forest and allowing it to go back into a wilderness state can prove to be a tragic loss. The prying winds, such as the Santa Anna, can sift and stir and dry the of mated leaves, twigs, branches, fallen trees and dying one – all of the accumulation a resplendent forest can build. Low growth must thrive as well, as pasture for small, then larger creatures. The combination is required, not just endless tree-after-tree-after-tree. Possession is but a way station in life. Only in their proper use do they become wealth. A.L.M. November 26, 2005 [c418wds]
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
CARNEY CAPERS You, perhaps, recall quite well the carnival capers attitudewhich loomed so large during the hectic days of the Iowa Primary caucus gathering. Then, New Hampshire came along as a kind of let-down for some. It was much tamer. Many seemed to feel relieved, I think, glad that the carnival aspects had been eliminated. It was soothing to once again see politicians engaged in flipping hotcakes above a griddle or rearranging hot dogs and hamburgers on a smoky grill. Too many Americans seem to expect their candidates to be become in such active and to take part in local problems and concerns, but the average performance rating of most political aspirants is on the low side. The semi-historical “laugh” given by Vermont's Governor was memorable moment of this phase. It was cry, to me rather than the laugh TV imitators have made seem to have been. It was ,in my opinion more a cry for help than a laugh of any kind. It was a call for assistance from a man on the edge of a threatening abyss. It was not like one of TV's so-called “reality” shows. It was not faked in its original form. The trapped man was speaking to the entire nation, not to just one faction or a narrow part of that in fact. It was the cumulative result of a series of judgments made by one man which showed us just how far that man could be pushed...either by himself or by others. The hysterically uttered series of numbers and days which followed it were even more hysterical in sound and this tone dragged him back to a saner level. We should exercise special care in choosing our future leaders that we do not cause them to realize that there is very little one man can do to change our set ways of living. Modify? Yes. Change? No. A.L.M. November 19 , 2005 [c326wds]
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
THEM RICH FOLKS!Time was, and tain’t been too long ago either, when I was, I will admit, downright envious of all that rich people had and the way some of them flaunted their wealth in front of us. Goin’ wide-open honest, for the moment, I’d have to say it was more like being jealous. It was something more than just having an occasional pang of envy...deeper...and it could hit heavy when I witnessed a display of wealth. Looking back a those pre-teen and teenager days I realize it only happened occasionally usually in early Spring and again in the first days of the first says of early Spring or just before the Fall arrived. At two set times of the year a change took, place in the railroad town in which I grew up. We had seventeen trains per day at our two railroad stations which were on the north-south rail axis. In the Fall the wealthy owners of private railway cars passed through on their way to Florida; in the Spring they went north.They were fabulous creations and seemed they grew larger and more ornate as the years went by. It was the custom of wealthy people chug south for winter and eagerly back to the north in summer. We boys had a favorite place for obsevation of said private train cars. In those days the Railway Express had four or five, twenty-foot carts on the ramp The woodenc deck on the carts was good four feet off the platform and the carts were used to drag up to fill the expanse of the rather higb,open doors of the express cars to unload or stow shipment aboard. Those carts were our special observation platforms well above obstructions putting our questing eyes more on a level. Our town of Radford, Va. had a complicated switching system at the eastern end of the extensive yards which made to necessary for many trains to be, liteally,”backed up” or pushed into the to allow other trains to use certain tracks. The delays worked to in our advantges in examining the visiting cars.We were often overcome by the elaborate designs. The owners had their name emblazoned on the sided of the cars and they were really museum pieces. They are all gone today. I suppose they are actually in some museums. Or, more likely, stripped an discarded hulks in landfills everywhere...discarded toys. A.L.M. November 22, 2005 [c443wds]
Friday, November 18, 2005
IT HURTS Have you ever wondered how we managed to get where we are today? There can be little doubt it; we have, in several centuries found our way to a special place. I'm asking you to strain your natural sense hesitation to brag about our progress a bit and look at what we have accomplished from the way we lived in Colonial times - and how we have done much of it against self-imposed odds. Right now when we are involved in wars that are different in so many ways from what we have known before we cannot seem to agree on just how we should conduct ourselves. In recent years we have seen protest manifest itself in some strange ways, some of which have exited fears of internal weakness which is at work doing us in. The name of Congressman John Murtha, a Democrat, a member from the Johnstown area of the State of Pennsylvania came into world-wide prominence this morning. All day we have been subjected to piece-by-piece descriptions of the man himself. He was virtually unknown to most of us. He is being put together like a jig saw puzzle of sort none of which can possibly be a fair estimate because everyone forms such an image as it appears in their own mind. I have a strong feeling Murtha is being used as a patsy by his own party. since his statements were bomb-blasted on TV hey are all ready for the major talk shows over the week end. It also hits at then moment when any good, news filtering back from the media from every angle. Next week, or at the opportune moment, better know Democratic voices will sound out with more moderate “demands” and we can marvel at the wonderful, cooperative, understanding and bsic element of love for all mankind in which we live...at times. Let's face truth. At times, peace-making, too can be “hell” A.L.M. November 18, 2005 [c354wds]
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
QUIZ: I BLEW IT. The National Wildlife people did a brand new quiz concerning this past week and I failed it miserably. I really blew it, confident as I had been that I knew a thing or two about bears. After all, I have seen live bear “in the wild – as they say. I've witnessed them lumbering across fields, crossing streams, even one fine animal ambling along the road beside which I used to lived in Virginia. Being aware of bear, of course, I thought I knew a thing or two about them. The first question on the Wildlife quiz threw me. They ask me where most grizzly bear called home. They even gave me a choice of four locations, so I became suspicious. When I saw “ Alaska”, “Canada”,”Montana“,” Idaho“ printed before me, I went first with ”Alaska”; did not bite on the Idaho bait at all, and concluded that Canada had more room for bear to wander than even huge Alaska. My answer was “Canada” and they, of course, liked “Alaska”. Next question, please. The bear is seen today in just eight species. Originally it is thought to have been it was a small animal of about the size of present day racoons and foxes. It was called the “Ursavus” and it lived in Asia; ate both plant and animal food and was heavily covered with thick fur which enabled it to thrive in the coldest areas. Those which remained in Asia eventually turned into the giant Panda living China today. Those who took the bridge across the Bering Sea, short-faced bear, which prospered in the Upper North and in the Altas Mountains in South America. The “Brown” bear and the “Grizzly” bar are one and the same. Lest we forget, the "Polar” bear split off from the regular bear family at about three hundred years thousand years ago when they took to the ice and turned white for protective reasons. Male grizzly bears find their partners by following a scent left by the female wherever she may go. The baby pups are only about one-pound in weight at birth and they stay with Mother for two years or more. The male grizzly or brown bear take absolutely no responsability for their young at all, so the romantic version of Papa, Mama and Baby are extremely exaggerated. The grizzly life is not the sort forming the base of romantic novel - far from it and it appears to be one place for humans to avoid. Other bears are found in many sections of our country - in our National Park area, in particular, and we need to take sensible steps to see to it we can coexist a while longer. A.L.M. November 15, 2005 [c000wds]
Monday, November 14, 2005
NOT QUITE READYIt appears that we will have to to wait a bit longer before we can whiz through down town in our ultra new hydrogen-powered car. They still don't have the high-cost bugs devalued enough. I may hav committed a literary boo-boo when I used the term “whizzed”,that suggests too much noise and h-car fans insist their new system “whispers” at the loudest. The thought occurred to me just the other day that, with all that quietness wrapped around us as we drive, we can not only see but also hear what other drivers say about us when they drive eratically. Lip reading will no longer be useful. Driving habits will change. I was reading just this past week about the Swiss version of such a future car the “Prius Pac-II. The figures I have were done last August and could have changed by this time, but this is typical of the way keep tabs on the matter so they are valid for me. It is sleek, tubular little thing, silvery with three red and yellow Shell logos. With paint, it weighs in at sixty-two pounds. The one hundred pound girl student stands at the ready with sturdy crash helmet in at-hip position. The students at the Swiss Federal Insitutue of Technology, Zurich,who worked on this car know what it can do and they have learned what it cannot do, and why. They can't expect to set any speed records on a car which runs on two 150 watt light bulbs. So, their next car will be a hybrid using some sort of hydrogen power. It might prove worthwhile for us to glance down through some of the statistics which cause us to pause in an plans we have to turn out h-cars successfully. For instance, Honda fuel cells offered just sixty-seven miles per gallon That's about average for others, as well, it seems. Studies show that it is more expensive to operate a fuel cell car when compared to a conventional one per killowatt hour in the range of eighty five times. The United State currently manufactures about 9 million cubic feet of hydrogen perhps,enough of fuel 25 million cars. With current trends toward offshore manufacturing that could fade away fast under narrow enviornmentalist pressures and the internal production of all hydrogen fuel cancelled. Especially for those people who have continuing “Hindenberg complex” doubts and expect hydrogen in whatever form to explode at any moment.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
THE DAY AFTER What can we do to be assured of cleaner political campaign? I assume you agree that, following our election of 2005 here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, such a pristine promise, is, beyond doubt, something to be considered quite seriously. It is most important, too, that we do so before the basic structure of our state and nation are harmed in any way. Our recent experience with political cowardice here in Virginia will be something which will be long remembered by historians who will seek ways to cover it as best they can because it was a decidedly poor picture painted on a state-wide basis which gave a very poor picture of the manner in which democracy works a mong us. The campaign was blatantly nasty and a great many people were "turned off" by the negative rantings. Of far great import will be the number of people who were confused, dispirited and miss-led into faulty judgment on critical issues. There were, of course, the usual number of clowns who say they were disgusted with the trivial nature of the campaigning and stayed away from the polls as a sort of protest"; others just stayed away - as both types commonly do year after year. Television is, perhaps, the most important single element in our political society today. It has brought with it some rather drastic changes in to the art of capable electioneering. We have not kept pace with the many advances of comunications in general and often failed to adjust our thinking to the extensive power it exerts over large areas of geography and increasing segments of voting persons and new groups as well. TV is now the controlling power of elections, having taken over from the ponderous job the printing presses - with their associated art forms - did so well for so many decades. The newer versions also have a marked tendency to show things as they really are or as they might be made to appear to have been or to promise to become. The opportuniiesites allow spaious reas for working with suggestions, hints, half-truths and downright fabrication can be magnified and easily accessable to all. Today s the date t all happened - or came to a screeching halt - and most of us are glad it is ended Pleased? Some are. Some are not. We split the main ticket with a Democratic Governor, a Republican for him to work with, and the Atty-Gen contest is in a recount proceedure reminicent of "chad" days not too long ago.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
HOW MANY? How many TV channels do you actually need? Make that “use”, rather than “need”, to cancel out those people who seem to think if they mention a higher number it will make them appear to be more literate, more concerned about world affairs and generally better informed than the average TV watcher. Mike Shickman, who does a week-days evening “going-home” radio show on WSVA in my hometown area posed a question recently to find out what his listeners “needed.” The replies offered some surprises. Judging by the replies Mike handled it appears at appears that, locally, at least, most TV viewers use very few stations in spite of the fact that they subscribe to either cable or satellite services which provide them with hundreds of channel choices. Most subscribers soon realize that “hundreds of different channels” does not mean “hundreds of different programs.” So many listeners who called, when asked to do so, named either shows or talent they like best. I was pleased to find many watched the very same Schnabel's we do as we tend to watch as a family. No one channel seems to be a favorite in the usual sense.. Now, the tendency seems to be to get the information or entertainment they want with less concern about where they are greeting it from. They get used to duplications across the dial and alert to recorded replays which better suit their available time slots. The call-in reports were mainly concerning family watching. I was pleased to find other families watch the same things we do as a family. The HGTV channel, the Food Channel, CNN and FOX News, ESPN for special SPORTS EVENTS. Our local Public TV station was mentioned, I have noticed as names of personalities associated with various kinds of shows such as Jeff Ishy, Andre and Mark Viette and others. Most of the favorite shows seem to be ru-runs without end. Elaborate “new” shows - bigger money shows mostly are tried but after few weeks many fall by the wayside. In the background are scores of channels doing old-timers – a few years or a decade ago, and others millions remember with “Desi and Lucy,” M-A-S H”, ”Andy Griffith” and others, still on, it seems, every day and night somewhere on the dial. I think we TV watchers are beginning to be far more selective. Time was when the networks and agencies could the amaze and amuse millions and they still try to fit in loud, flamboyant, shallow shadows of their best from the past. Few of them will ever serve as fabulous repeats and reruns in future TV. A.L.M. November 3, 2005 [c441wds]
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
THE VERY BEST I have, I think, always been proud of my home state of Virginia. She is a state of special, merited recognition - first in many situations, and with scores of recommendations -a good place to live and to raise a family, but as of this Fall of 2005 I find that I cannot condone our Governmental election procedures. I don't think I have ever taken part in an election which was so unpleasant, violent a process steeped in so many crude accusations. It is, I think, the first time I have felt genuine shame and disgust with the way in which the political campaigns for the various state offices being considered. Party affiliation makes no different in the situation this year, either. One does it; and, then, the other side does it and it seems to become the pattern and no one will admit to having started the vile sequence of exchanging increasingly worse insults. The final days of the election have become somewhat blurred during these final days of the sometimes, almost farcical process and I have felt genuine embarrassment when exposed to some of the material in the presence of other adult men and women. One such candidates actually accused opponent of “dragging my religious beliefs through the mud.” There has been far too much emphasis upon legislation, either pending or promised,. concerning sex offenders – which happened to be a hot subject right now and the offenders are all to be jailed exceeding our limited capacity. Each candidate accuses the other of laxity on crimes, such as allowing convicts to sue the state at fabulous cost. This election of 2005 will, I'm sure, be entered in my record book of such memories as the worst I have, as yet, experienced. Part of the feeling of electioneering gone wild comes to us through a greatly expanded and influential media. In the past, you may remember when a candidate announced, the fields, trees, telephone poles, ad signs, sidewalks and lawns exploded with red-white-and-blue signs announcing his intentions. Radio came along to play an important role, which it still does, and television has moved in as the mainstay of all campaigns with newspaper support. Those statements previously made by candidates to small, often changing groups, are now placed with startling precision over huge coverage areas – repeated and repeated until there seems to be no end to it all! The manner in which we go about selecting our governmental leaders only vaguely resembles what it used to be under such pressures as are common today. A.L.M. November 2, 2005 [c439wds]
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
CHINESE TIMES FIVE We ate Chinese last night at our house. There were five of us so that we were to share five Fortune Cookies with their cheerful, challenges in quick thoughts. It just makes common sense that we should start eating more Chinese foods. Just about everything else on the dining room table, and in the Dining Room, for that matter, has a tag, stamp, label, on card attached to it by a piece of Chinese string telling you where it is made - which is – in, most cases, China. Even if the item identification reads elsewhere, it can still be from China the same selling sense by which we bought tons of merchandise said have been made in Hong Kong before it became a part of Red China technically. In like manner textiles we im port from South American locations, and others nations as well, are often shipped from stocks maintained there.. from China. The Fortune cookies are novel addition - a free horoscope for all diners, in a small way. Mine said: “Don't just think Act! So I got busy and wrote this page in praise of Chinese food – many of which I like – and also to express my growing fears about our relationships with industrial China. We are far too dependent on a foreign power - and one of political and social philosophy – than we ought to be and we are getting more deeply entangled in the crazed maze day-by-day The second cookie said: ”Begin! The rest is easy! And ,thinking along the same line, consider the Thanksgiving Day decorations we bought - look at them! Made in China!. What about Christmas ? Do-dads and toys and gifts of all types have been from Santa's workshops in China for years now! A precedent has been well set. Cookie #3: “Determination is the wake-up call to the human will.” It is going to be demanding thing if we determine to regain our ability to make the things we need e rather than depend on another people to supply our wants. Number 4 Fortune Cookie points in a cheer-up note: “Confidence of success is almost success.” Almost, brother, is a “near miss.” My wife drew Number 5 which proved to be one which brought us all back into modern times with something of a jolt. When it came her closing turn Vivian read: “Digital circuits are made from analog parts.” and looked as puzzled as the rest of us. “That's true, I think...” I commented. We face a complicated problem but we will have to solved the problem in sections. It may be that only as we come to understand the mutual needs of both social groups that we can work out an adjustment. We face some interesting times. A.L.M. November 1, 2005 [c470wds]
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