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]
Monday, October 31, 2005
ONE CITY – MINUS Take one thriving city. Call it New Orleans, La. Then, pretend that you have the ability, by some magical method you are sure will work, to set about eliminating all those persons whom you can, logically, set apart, at least in your mind, as being the “poor people” of the city. You may wish to show what proportion of the total population of the city makes up the “poor” element and where they are among situated among the masses of people. One can determine many points if one has the proper statistics concerning the units under study, but they are temporary at best because they are dependent upon the limitations of our knowledge at any given moment and conclusions drawn from our observations by men and women of the next generations. Things we learned September 9, 1965, when Hurricane Betsy torn through the city. That was the last time the city was really flooded and we came to feel it would be a long time before such a thing happened again. At the behest of Huey Long, Franklin D. Roosevelt flew in just a day later with federal officials and they saw the damage done to Pontchartrain Park, to Bywater and to the impoverished Ninth Ward When it was all over eighty-one dead were counted; a quarter of a million people had been evacuated and water level was set at nine feet. The Ninth Ward had suffered the most. That had been true of the Yellow-fever epidemic which raged through the city in 1905; and it was the poor of the same area which had borne the brunt of the Cholera epidemic in 1849. This “poor finder” machine we have devised might be an example of the degree we so often seem to overdo analysis of the situation. You and I both know that the poor in the Crescent City have been scattered throughout a social structure which sees to be split between ours and the last century. Counselors at various “refugee” points who have talked with former residents find they do not plan to return – ever. If so, New Orleans as a city, enters a complete new era. She will try to be vibrant and alive without the under base of workers - the poorest of the poor level - those people who did much of actual work dealt out to a strata of our society few people admit exists – are, this time, saying they will not return. New Orleans will survive, but it will have a longer, more rugged road to find its way back to anything like normalcy. I once made it a point to seek out a and talk to the downtrodden in New Orleans - example of that portion of humanity which is left on the fringe after all else is taken. I, at times, find it difficult to believe what some of them told me of their way of staying alive. Mine was only a small sampling, admittedly - two men and one teen-aged girl. Perhaps my fears for the City are misguided. Only history will work it all out. A.L.M . October 31, 2005 [c527-wds]
Sunday, October 30, 2005
THE HAZARD VIEW Every time I see stock car racers slide through a window opening on their backsides to gain access to the interior of their controls, I think of two things: one of the "Dukes" of Hazard who made such action acceptable, and it takes me back to our 1924 Model Ford. It had no door on the divers sided, front. What appeared to be a door just like the others, was really a swollen noodle of metal, a rounded line pressed into the metal side. You had to up-a-leg to enter. It was line cut into the surface. From a distance it appeared to be a door not unlike the others. I have heard various explanations as to the need for such and purists like to say it was a "safety" feature placed there to keep a stray or clumsy foot from kicking the rig over the hillside. There were three pedals, some levers, handles and a steering column and wheel at that position. Those who know Henry a bit better know he was less concerned with safety that he was saving. If a "safety feature" printed-on front-left doors might cut costs - why not? Another "reason - the one we were given was that when you used the expandable luggage carrier which came as free extra with our car, covered the door anyway when mounted on the left side the accordian-like metal sections holding our suitcases and boxes covered the left, rear door as well. Henry Ford didn't worry too much about safety. In fact, he and other early innovators never seemed to think of "motoring" as being as dangerous as some people liked to think it had to be. his assemble line production methods was a real money-saver. In September of 1924,my Father bought Henry's newest Model T - with an expandable, all-metal luggage rack, a free a tire-repair kit and hand pump plus one "spare" tire... all for just a bit over $300.00! I often wondered Henry made any real money on his car sales. He did not put in any system of cost controls whatsoever until his son Edsel sided with the Defense Department of the United States at war. If he wanted to manufacture B-24 bombers at his new Willow Run plant, built for that purpose, he had to start some way of knowing how much it cost him to build the things he did. The new version of a moderized Hazard boys movie is on screens right now . I've been holding off seeing it until I can witness every moment of it from behind the steering wheel in my own car in an old-fashioned Drive-In theater. I'm wondering just how the new hazard boys enter and leave their new cars. Front windows are a mite smaller today than they used to be and I can't see at awards for weight reduction of the average Dukes of car riding fame. A.L.M. October 30, 2005 [c504wds]
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