Saturday, January 22, 2005
NEXT!!
Who is next in “lion?” King of the human jungle! Tab-head creator! Entrepreneur of evil-seeming actions having borderline definitions and ingeniously mis-placements?
Next in line, since Donald Trump has placed himself off limits for the time being by becoming a newlywed once more.
I'm, sure we can confidently look forward to a profound shift in this sort of social comedy in the next few weeks as the name Sir Richard Branson comes to the fore to claim its place among names which associate easily and naturally with such companion terms as :”arrogant”,“quirky,”,”unusual”,“eccentric”,“dashing”,”sexy”,
”flamboyant" or just plain “nuts” at times.
The brown-bearded billionaire Bronson continually describes himself by his actions to be a prime candidate for such a place We are in a slump insofar as having figurehead for fancy, farce and fable. He is well-known to many of you through his financial holdings but he lives his own life style both in London where he is one of that city's forty-four billionaires. On his own private island of Necker, in the Virgin Islands he lives life by his own rules. So often the term “virgin” obsesses him. He started the cut rate airline 'Virgin Blue” with two planes just a few years ago.I brought him i$700-million last year and he has just ordered a dozen of the all new Air Bus 500+ passenger jet giant jumbo airliners - six for right away the rest as needed. His Virgin Atlantic airline is doing well. World wide he retails more records, CD's and electronic gear than anyone in countries all around the world - except the United States.
You may remember Sir Richard a few years ago when he was intent on being the first man to fly a balloon around the world. He spent millions on the project and tried several times, but when some one else did it, he quit. That's typical, if he can't be “first” he won't play.
The new Fox TV reality show “The Billionaire” stars Richard Bronson so he's very much in your home today. It you want to stay alert to times and events during the year, there is a Richard Bronson 2005 calender available on sale right now on behalf of a European charity for needy railroad workers. Richard and three of his feminine friends posed nude as the calender's photographic art feature. It is selling well and a fine place to check today's date on the Internet if you are tempted to doubt the date sheet's existence.
Richard Bronson is an ideal choice to be our zany of the day. That's “Sir”, too, by the way. Refreshing. It's been quite a while since we have had an English person as our comic relief buffer against all the serious news we have to face.
A.L.M. January 22, 2005 [c483wds]
Friday, January 21, 2005
STUDY IN STEADINESS
I liked the relaxed feelings which went along with much of the Bush Second Inaugural ceremonies. The whole thing was expertly planned and produced and it went well as far as most of us could tell. It had more of home-town air about it; less of the usual Hollywood flare and false fragrances larded heavily over thinly framed crepe paper. It was folksy, too without being Texas-ranch corny. There was a friendly,light-hearted feeling to much that took place. That's a quality we Americans have needed for a long,long time in our public life as a respite from dire times.
So often, much concern is expressed about what the first lady and the wife of the Vice-President choose to wear. Both Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Chaney set forth modest wardrobes which were sensible, appeared to be comfortable and not at glitzy with designers diversions from reality. The attention of the press and public at the dances was on the President and his wife dancing {not exactly his forte in most minds) rather than focused on some famous designer's daring departure from standards of proper attire.
The President's short inaugural speech, too, was a classic in steadiness and simplicity, as well, pointing out that our future era of success is to be found in our willingness and eagerness to spread the concept of truth and liberty to all needy nations. He words testified to sincere understandings of the costly disadvantages of military methods, while being fully aware of the fact that there are some who will wish to maintain even less admirable forms unstable rule.
In these simple ceremonies of accepting the task of running our government for another term of four years, George Bush has tacitly shown the way. We, as American schooled in history of dire and inspiring events, know it will not take place in that ideal way. The change will not be without difficulties and the steadiness needed to meet such challenges when they do arise is the underlying strength of this much-needed moment consolidation, re-girding and reforming of existing forces. George Bush has let it be known to all - friend and foe alike – that he intends to work at his set goals and cause Americans to take part in the restoration of human rights to be enjoyed by all.
Certainty the open candor of yesterdays events though they usually seem to be farm too expensive and even arguably unnecessary – enhanced the feeling of Americans en masse that the choice we made on election day was one well done. You noticed, no doubt,the presence of ex-presidents Bush, Carter, Clinton and of Senator John Kerry former-contender for the office just weeks ago. Where else in this world could that sort of thing take place so agreeably and without bickering, backbiting, rancor or worse?
We, too -each of us – remain always “at liberty” to live our own lives.
A.L.M. January 21, 2005 [c520wds]
e and security we can come to know by being a leaders in spreading truth and freedom throughout the world.
Thursday, January 20, 2005
DDT?
I read an editorial just the other day which praised the efficiency of using the well-known insecticide DDT. The view urged the material again with special care concerning its ill effects on our society, of course, to curb the increase in loss thousands of lives lost to malaria and other insect borne diseases.
It is time we take a mature attitude toward such matters.
We seem to have a streak within our makeup which allows us to be overly impressed with a dramatic factor at the expense of limited, sensible ways of a wider view based on facts. In 1938 a scientist by the name of Othmar Zeidler, synthesized a substance and a full year later Dr Paul Meuller. a Swiss entomologist, identified its application as an effective insecticide. In 1940 Meuller and the Geigy Corporation patented the product as DDT. It was initially used to get rid of moth infestations, but further studies showed it to have a far wider potential. It enabled health officials to eradicate malaria in Italy in 1945. It was noticed some species were already developing an immunity to the substance and it was made available in various forms and strengths and crewmen routinely “dusted” plane loads of troops and their gear being transported from one area to another. In 1955 the World Health Organization (WHO) granted its approval for world-wide use.
Yet, in 1972 it became the first insecticide ever to be banned in the United States.
In 1942 Rachel Carson's book “Silent Spring” was published, and it was followed by others of the same type but of inferior quality. A full decade passed before the literary affect was strong enough to bring about agitation calling in sufficient strength to cause a ban to be issued. The ban, politicized in some areas. It was total; allowed little or no discussion concerning partial, controlled or limited use of the insecticide. The contention was that DDT killed just about all natural life.
It took thirty years for the “opposition” to mount their attack. There was great deal of insincerity in the movement. It was used politically to bring about other change while an environmental diversion was being staged, I am still waiting for some explanation, in logical terms, as to how we can continue to buy our fresh fruits and vegetables and other foodstuffs from Mexico and other such places. The “rule”, I have been told, requires we ask them if they have used DDT in growing the produce. If they say “No.”... it's considered to be O.K. Buy it. It's cheaper, too. No bug damage. You might wish to ask if a crop was grown by rigid organic standards? And, do not inquire into their human waste disposal methods.
I agree with some aspects of the DDT ban “reasoning”. It is true that the substance is dangerous,and tricky, too. I think our scientific community was lax or lazy in mid-century decades. They were aware of dangerous changes and, seemingly, did very little to modify the product to suit man's needs. The half-life of DDT in water solution is from twenty-eight to fifty-six days and in and if anyone known that sort fact about it they can deal with its hazards for efficiently. It is time for us to move on this DDT front in the fight against needless deaths from malaria. Some variations may well, serve us in our farm and gardening needs, as well. How much is left of the original DDT of Meuller's time? This was classic example of throwing the baby out with the bath water.
A.L.M. January 22, 2005 [c609wds]
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
CHOICE
Feinstine at her finest.
I was not at all surprised to see and hear Condoleezza Rice at her top form this week at the hearings concerning her nomination to be our next Secretary of State. The big surprise for me was to find her being introduced to the Hearing Committee members by none other than California's Democratic voice Senator Dianne Feinstine. I was impressed.
This is a rather usual situation when you consider that we have here a dedicated and rather insistent and even noisy Democratic voice speaking in cheerfully, even eagerly in bright “gleaming” terms on behalf of a potential member of the George W. Bush cabinet. Condoleezza Rice is unflappable, I'd say and anyone else would have blanched a bit at the parade of terms allowed to flow forth from the Feinstine lips. Feinstine made it sound as if we have been remiss in not offering her the job long ago and that, certainly, no one better nominee could be found. I wondered if she had be same thoughts in the back of her mind,even as she was praising the lady beside her, that she was, in truth, speaking of someone who someone who might well go far beyond serving this nation of ours as head of our State Department. I found myself jumping a few years ahead and hoping I could one day hear Feinstine presenting the same young woman to a national convention nominating a future President of the United States. I don't think I was the only person watching who had such a thought, either.
Since we are all in a confessional mode at the moment, I must also let it be known that I have never been Fienstine fan. Far from it. More like a “foe” than a “fan”, I'd have to say, but judging by her spoken words the California legislator we all saw this week she made a fine, generous, speech “presenting” Doctor Rice to the Senate Foreign Relations Committe members there to take the young lady over the political hurdles.
If Feinstine had any doubts whatever concerning Rice, she must have given them her California compatriot and fellow Congressperson Senator Barbara Boxer, who unloaded pallets of ancient political pablum left over from the recent election on the nominee in a gruff and,at times, nasty maze of mean mannerisms. It remained for Condoleezza Rice , herself, to publically scold the Congresswoman - not once but twice - during the latter hours of the inquisitional trial Boxer seemed to think she was being called upon to run. Rice first “asked” her to refrain from maligning her honesty and veracity; the second time, she “told” her to stop. There was a gleam in her eye that sent forth a subtle warning that one had best remember that while Rice is nice, she can also - if need arises – become quite different. A riled Rice could prove to be something else.
It could well be, you see, even Barbara Boxer praised the nominee by pointing out she has a “limit”... a time and place when she can decree: “That's enough!”
We, as a nation, need a Secretary of State who has those qualities. She follows Secretary Colin Powell in the task, too, which gives her a good, firm base on which to build.
A.L.M. January 19, 2005 [c555wds]
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
BLACK BAG
Most doctors, years ago, hand-carried a small, black bag of leather with them whereever they went. It measured, perhaps, ten inches long, five or six inches wide. About four or five inches high - on the narrow side, sturdy and it had a good suitcase handle and a lock with a small, pressed metal key. Our doctor kept the key on the dangling , tassel-end of his pocket watch fob. It was there when he needed it; but he seldom locked his bag, as I recall. When he did lock it we knew he was carrying something special; something for limited use.
That small bag was his professional sanctum. .It was his local drug store. He was his own pharmacist.. It was his source of many of curative wonders brought to us in the mountain country to keep us well and active.
That era is gone, of course by I remember talking with a younger doctor who was “taking over”, you might say, as they died off one-by-one. He marveled at the number of cures the older doctors could bring about using just those six “ingredients” mixed with various types of “bedside" manners and TLC. I've been trying to remember what the six items were, and I've decided one had to be calimine loition, zinc oxide mixed with some ferric oxide; a bottleozf menthal- smelling linament and some iodine. More modern ones might have kept supplies of aspirin, they had to be a laxative powder of some sort and every last one of the old timers carried a bottle of liquid which had to be red in appearance. Patients, universally, seemed to be firm in their opinion that cough syrup had to be red in color to be effective. That came to mean that anything that was red was, automatically, became a cure for a cough or cold.
The basic six had to be there, and each doctor had a few specials that he was expected to carry. They may be a selected herb or two respected locally as a sure cure and, perhaps, a small bottle of peach or apple brandy for “nerve conditions” although that was more often a home preparation made in sufficient quantity to serve as an anesthetic if the illness or injury was sufficient to pose a need for surgery of any kind. I remember reading of one such doctor who was famous locally for his special ability to cure any form of rash or skin malady using what he called his secret “Indian Powders”. After his death, his son discovered a stock of homemade bread jammed like mortar between limestone foundation stones in his damp basement wall. He powdered the bread mold and tinted it various shades with dried leaves. He cured countless patients with skin ailments with a medication which would not be “discovered” for another hundred years or so when it would named “penicillin.”
Folklore entered into the practice of medicine in those days, too. The success of such a family doctor, then, resulted very much from the growth of the young doctor as he became a physician. So much of his success in curing human illness depended on his ability to assure the patient that the cure was in that little black bag or in his own brain. There was a close connection between doctor and patient – less obvious, perhaps, today but still very much present. Much of the “cure” was then, is now, I insist; was, and is, in the patient's head and in the the doctor's heart. Curative action prevails.
The mysterious little black bag contained all the physical help a doctor had in those days. The rest was up to what he knew about how to talk to, and reason with, the people he serve. The “black bag” is bigger now –-a pharmaceutical galaxy - but the element of concern remains critical to its best use.
A..L.M. January 18, 2005 [660wds]
Monday, January 17, 2005
TIMELY TALLEST TALLY
What is the tallest building in the world?
Are you sure about that? . There's a new title holder this week of January 19, 2005 – so if you said that honor belonged to Petronas Tower No. 1.in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia you get to join the rest of those people who don't keep up with important world happenings such as this.
The new champion is a glittering tower called ”Taipei 101” at new Financial area centerpiece structure in Taipei, Taiwan. It is 1,671 feet high (509 m) and it has one- hundred-and-one floors - which shows where that clever name came from. It is a multiple purpose building, as you might expect it to be, and it has a host of the latest construction advancements built-in which included, I was told, the “world largest tuned mass drum dissembler”. That one stopped me cold, so I had to Google-ize the mysterious set of words and I find it is a six hundred ton unit inserted in the 89th floor of the new building to help cut down on the natural tendencies of such tall, slender structures to sway in high winds. The gadget, now common to all such new structures, I find, will cut such swaying by about forty-percent. They're building an “Observation Platform” on the 91st floor. It is not yet completed but will be shortly if all goes well. There is some question as to including a telescope of any size, because it can't be focused if the base on which you place it is wiggling about. A great many of the tallest buildings already sway enough to pop window glass from frames but, thus far, steel and other materials are holding fast.
The United States is holding right in there with the “Sears Tower” ,In Chicago, as next in line. It was the top one from 1973-1990 when the “Petronas Towers” took over with their 37,000 windows. If you like to quibble, you will find others who do so pointing out that the “Sears Tower” actually has a top floor which is “occupied” that is 33- feet higher than any at PT No1.or No.2. Some critic take special joy in roiling stew of discussion by measuring TV towers on top of all of these buildings which are counted on our but not on”theirs”.
Number 5 on the latest list I have come across credits the “Jin Mao Building” in Shanghai, China as Number 5, and it is also spoken of as the tallest hotel in the world because it has a hotel atrium up at about the 47th floor. When that happens you hear rumbles from North Korea where the monster mansion called the “Ryugyong Hotel” claims that designation insisting that the Shanghai contender houses only a portion of a hotel among many other functions, whereas they are all hotel - full time. The owner's tags all read “Made in China” for the rest of the top ten, except for Number 9 - our grand old Empire State Building in New York. Two of the Chinese buildings are in Hong Kong ,one in Gaungzhou and the other in Shenzen, China.
Some lists go on to as many as twenty tall ones which pulls a few more up from the United States. As far as I know, I think “the tallest man made structure in the world” can still be claimed by Toronto, Canada with their “National Tower.”
Year-after-year, I watch for even just a mention of how many such structures which have been built have ever proved to be profitable and really worth building from a business standpoint. Look at the night time photographs of any of them to see for yourself how much of the interior has never been finished-off and is not occupied even by floors. So often, they appear to be giant floodlit, non-occupied and unprofitable shells.
A.L.M. January 17, 2005 [c656wds]
Sunday, January 16, 2005
NEWS PRIME AND REHASH.
The first-ever “exploration” tour of Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons, was announced this past week by the European Space Agency and went all but unknown among the pulsing mass of other newsworthy events of the week.
The actual visit took place on Christmas Day, December 25, 2004.
Let's see, now... concerning our news coverage of the event went there was something more about one or more of the various troubles haunting Michael Jackson during the past year or two. Some of that was a suspected of some roiling of the back waters. Then, there was the compelling contrast of tense, active news reporting still more deaths and missing persons from the Indian Ocean tsunami; there was much re-telling about the the doctor waiting for his wife in a restaurant which she was outside in their car - very dead. The entertainment world was deciding who ought to and who ought not to win the upcoming “Golden Globe Awards” which will be handed out Sunday night.. We had a massive mud slide in California; tornadoes along the Arkansas-Oklahoma border and an avalanche of snow, ice, rock and timber in an outback area of Utah with five skiers on the “missing” list. There were floods in Ohio and L.A.; a major industrial fire in Indiana and an gas explosion in South Carolina. Washington D.C. showed more concern over the forty million dollars being spent on the 2nd Inaugural festivities for George W. Bush than on security for that event. But, that quieted down quickly when it was pointed out that the final bill of the Bill Clinton's 2nd celebrations added up to well over that amount.
This was also the week when Prince Harry happened to attend a private costume party and made the now obvious blunder of dressing up as a rather grubby looking chap wearing, on one arm, a tacky imitation of a Nazi arm band bearing Rudyard Kipling's favorite swastika emblem. The London tabloids hit hapless Harry heavily with pictorial punishment and it added to the stock of such semi-sick stuff the sleaze sorters love Stateside. Great hullabaloo about it being a thoughtless insult to the people of the Holocaust but it's drifting away slowly. Prince Harry plans to stay out of the public eye until he is de-palaced in the next few weeks to start his career as a officer in the Royal Army at Sandhurst.
Meanwhile, there was the moon Titan and the “Huygens Probe. The European built space craft managed to take over three hundred photographs on the way down and on the surface. Those shots published thus far have been few but of good quality, detail and interesting content. The entire visit lasted a little over two hours hours because limited by the short extent of battery life. The terrain of the Titan Moon was very much like that of Mars with some areas displayed a selection of good-sized rocks, widely scattered over a fruitless plain but plentiful enough to make a quarry and rock crushing business a possibility when we get the right machines up there – or, out there - with batteries strong enough to run it all a bit longer - days, at least, instead of hours. (C'mon, Battery Bunny, you can do better than that!)
Another photograph showed lands contoured which indicates the presence of fluids on the Titan. The audio portions of the report knock the knocked any watery idea aside by pointing out that the temperature on Titan is in 'way below zero - like 204 degrees below - and if any fluids did exist there they might well have been liquidized gases of various sorts. So, so you can put a “Hold”on those fancy marina plans you had drawn up. Keep them ready. We'll probably have to work out a deal with OPEC.
The exploration of Titan is in progress. It is underway. The initial step has been a small one, but it serves well as an early chapter in our development of our final frontier - space. For the time being, we had best pay attention, it appears, doesn't it, to merely staying alive to be ready, willing able to do it all some day when our other events don't override and obscure it?
A.L.M. January 16, 2005 [c722wds]
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