Saturday, March 04, 2006
HERD SECURITY I find there is a new and active market here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia for llamas. They are being purchased by local farmers because they are proved to be dependable "watch dogs" in protecting livestock herds from scavengers. The particular unwelcome rustler of calves and lambs in the area is steadily increasing numbers of wild hungry and inquisitive coyotes. They were re-established in the area upon environmentalist insistence several decades ago. The e-agitators are now campaigning for the re-introduction of the wolf to its olden-days of glory and lordship in numerous locales here in the Virginia-North Carolina highlands. Evidence indicates the wolf was more numerous in the Shenandoah Valley than the coyote, and that they prospered by keeping the deer and bison herds in check. llamas, "The Shenandoah Herald," Woodstock, Va. (SVHonline .com)(Mary Byrd Blackwell) reports that one nearby llama farm is currently selling llamas for four hundred dollars and up per head to serve as caretaker-guards. The llama, grazing with cattle or sheep remains amazingly alert and protectively cares for the herd by warning them that predators are nearby. Calves and lambs, favorite coyote foods, can be protected or removed from the immediate danger area. Farmer who are suffering losses due to the wanton raids by vicious coyotes are finding it to be worth while to keep llamas grazing with their other animals. The llama will sound the alarm when predators are found to be nearby and and lambs can be better protected or moved to a less dangerous area. People who have put the llama to work as watchmen and police work are finding their loss due to coyote raids to be falling. If your age level is bumping the ceiling like mine, you must recall how Valley poultry raisers used to always allow a few guinea hens to mooch their meals and have a place to roost. They were the best watch-dogs a man could get. If a strange car came down our lane from the highway we were warned. Our family vehicles - even during late night - entered with a few friendly cackles telling the chickens everything was okay. Remember when you used to see a proud owner marching down the street in your favorite holiday parade leading his pet llama? People in the crowd who didn't know any better would scream: "Oh! Look-at-the-ostrich!". Those days of showcasing a novelty are no more. They are gone. More and more people realize that these fine birds may well be, one day, an important segment of the livestock wealth of the entire Appalachian Range in both Virginia and North Carolina. A.L.M. March 4, 2006 [c454wds]
Friday, March 03, 2006
SORRY ABOUT THATWe are currently in what I hope will prove to be a temporary phase of sharing of the blame(s) for the various disaster(s) occurring with and from the overall Katrina flood conditions. We find tapes coming into existence which were, a few weeks unknown. Such tapes had been “wished for” by those who hope prove themselves innocent of various charges being bandied about rather loosely. It seemed the logical way to prove that someone else was a fault. It would help set definite times when they issued warnings about the strength of the oncoming storm or that they had taken some other commendable action to help the area face an emergency of greater amplitude than had been, previously, anticipated. Exactly where this “missing”, “delayed” or “hidden” tape came from is still unclear but it does showing plainly that FEMA Director Brown did, indeed, notify the Presidential Staff and others, concerning the excessive nature of the impending floods and the possibilities of losses far in excess of existing plans. As conditions worsened, he also asked for troops to be deployed in the areas where going to be subjected to the worst of the storm. He did mention special concern for the AstroDome structure which was below the water level expected by a good six feet or more. He expressed some doubt about the roof of the building holding fast, too. He was, it appears, making plans to use that large building as a center for incoming flood victims. Few, in any one seems to have anticipated. The term term used"topped...if the flood waters "topped." any such barriers their problem would be multiplied many times over. No one seems to have actually made use of such terms as"broken","breeched","washed out" or "destroyed". This phase will lead to better times,I'm sure, when people will begin to speak up honestly and with sincere desires to make better and people can move back and start to live normal lives once more. Those people who had to live through this series of events need time to re-assess what it all meant to them and to come to feel of accusations -free to gain perspective. Out of meetings now being held, new understandings will come to fashioned, with the idea of improvement in minds rather than the placing of blame. We all have to learn,in times of special need to:"Take a little and give a lot!" A.L.M. March 3, 2006 [c424wds]
Thursday, March 02, 2006
OUR GREATEST ENEMY? I was asked just this morning, in a meaningless little quiz, to choose what nation I thought could be called our greatest enemy. The three nations from which I might choose were Iran, Iraq and North Korea. There was a place to check off “None of the Above”, and a fifth one, I think, was “Not Sure.” I had a strange feeling as I left the page that I have voted with my head instead of my heart. Actually our greatest enemy right now is apathy and not any one of the specified nations. I felt, after the fact that perhaps “I don't know” or “None-of-the above.” I do know. If they had left a blank space I could have written in the fearsome words “Our apathy!” Therein are the seeds from which our destruction as a nation may , and therein a very good chance they may do so if we continue to feed such a malignancy through the inept dealings with the foundational qualities which have caused us to be a leading nation. If we feel it necessary to draw up a chart of which peoples around the Earth don't like the things we do, or the things we say or favor for all it is an easy matter to simply take the role of the United Nation organizations and put little “Plus” or “Minus” ( “fer-or- agin'-us” tags) to see that the majority of the more than a hundred member nations disagree dramatically with either everything, most, or all that we think, say or do - or “have done” or “might do.” Our dismal lack of proper use of the affirmative aspects ability to defend ourselves is a constant that our well-being. We dawdle in common place domestic trivia even while other nations are seeking harder than ever before to best us. We allow it. We encourage it. We submit to it and, in time ever shortening, we may well be subjected to the evil it, so often, seems to symbolize. In my own apathy, you see, I was unable to give a true reply to a petty little question of who has been a baddest lil' bad boy in the international community of late. It could be Iran at 37% of people polled when I was. 15% thought it was Iraq, and 21% of us thought North Korea was the greatest threat to the American way of life at the present time. Twelve per cent said “None of the Above” and 10% said “”Not Sure”...of which a goodly portion may well have asked instead: “What in the world are you talking about?” We are in dire need of the will to stay informed at all times. To accomplish such a goal might involve some changes in what we read, write, think and say. Examine your particular situation. Re-arrange your daily take of the day's news events with disciplined care for accuracy and factual information only. A.L.M. March 2, 2006 [c505wds]
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
NATURAL WONDERS We have cobbled up lists we call: “The Wonders of the World”. There are usually seven of them to indicate “completeness” and two such lists are usually set forth – one called “natural wonders” created by God, and the other lists those items made by Man. Each list is subject to rot and decay. There is always some disagreement as to choice of a person, place, or thing which might be more meaningful to you. At times, I think, when we might also profit by compiling another such list to be called: “The Seven Great Blunders of Man.” I believe most of us would agree that Man's contention with the Holy will of his maker has caused repeated trouble. Setting that trait to one side for a time, what else do you judge has caused us to make mistakes? How about greed, avarice, jealousy, envy and other such terms? We can all look at of those characteristics and we see them illustrated in other people quite easily and often. Ego-centric planning yields poor results even under the best circumstances make it obvious that our League of Nations and United Nations were in error. In like manner so many so-called peace treaties and agreements such as “The Balfour Agreement”, our “Volstead Act”, and year ago Britain's “Stamp Act” against their colonies in America. Our mistakes have been numerous and each of our war times must be the result of “blunders”in our actions. We are, according to nutritionists and fat-fighters posing as food experts we are in fast food cycle which is a highway to discomfort and suicide. A blunder? In our world of business, buying, selling, manufacturing, distribution we are rapidly sending our abilities to do any of them overseas as we become a ”user” rather than a “maker” nation. Our mistakes have been numerous, but to hang on to them after they have happened is a tragic thing. We are witnessing a prime example right now during the “Clean Up” work being undertaken in New Orleans, La, The project is moving slowly and millions of dollars of federal funds and several added millions from private donations, are being wasted by political confusion and a wide variety of strange cross-purposes. Graft and corruption are becoming more and more obvious. Elsewhere people such as you and I,dropped dollars in the relief containers crying “Help the Flood Victims!” are thinking: “ Hm, I may have made a mistake there.... A.L.M. March 1, 2006 [c432wds]
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
WHAT'S COMING/GOING NEXT? “It seems to me I've heard that song before....” Do you remember that song...those lyrics? Of course, you do because it is pretty hard to really forget things which keep repeating themselves as the years go by. You have certainly noticed how the People's Republic of China has been very busy at buying up large chunks of America. Have you noticed you no longer see or hear about what used to be called “Big Blue” desk and book computers? I.B.M. no longer makes them. As a matter if fact,they sold all of their small computers – desktops and book-sized models to China some months ago. You will see them at your local stores advertised as “Lenova” computers. IBM has, for sometime, wanted to get back to full-time building and merchandising the big stuff which keeps the little stuff alert, alive and applicable to business, commerce and industry in nations all over the world. The deal with China puts 18% of the new stock in I.B.M's pocket which can mean they now have potential possibilities of manufacturing in the Asian ways. Other deals are in the work with China, too. Another Chinese industrial expansion has a bid in on the MAYTAG washer sale which could make headlines any day. China also has been bidding against Chevron for Unical. All of this reminds me so much of the way Japan was on a binge of buying Americans things in the 1980's. Remember? We witnessed their purchase of skyscrapers and movie studios and production firms and manufacturing skills were bartered away into Japan's hands. It seems to me we worried more about then thane do now when the same thing is happening. We do have disturbing news ; war in Iraq, troubles world wide ; domestic quibbles to kept us occupied plus dark, wavering curtains of terrorist threats. There seems to be enough to keep us occupied to worry very much about what China does. Then, back in the '80's we objected we saw Japanese brands replace our own make of cars, trucks, bikes, electronics and sport shoes and equipment. Think of the tremendous stocks of items we are currently importing from China. Our dependency on Chinese manufacturing grows dramatically. Some critics of the Chinese shopping tours currently in progress say they differ from previous forays into America' s riches. The present purchases are being done with a marked difference in who is doing the shopping. The Japanese inroads were largely the doings of rich individuals or small groups of wealthy persons. The present Chinese efforts are staffed by so-called groups operating almost as cadres setting a new base of the armed forces which control them. That can be an important difference, too. Think about it. A.L.M. February 28, 2006 [c473wds]
Monday, February 27, 2006
DON 'T DO THAT! During those years when the concept called for total abolition of all alcoholic beverages nationally I worked as a newspaper reporter. I found largely largely by talking to taxi cab drivers, that there were, at least, twenty-seven locations in our small city a which such forbidden beverages were available. My unofficial “poll” used information from the area's taxi cab drivers. Ours was a city which sneaked into that level of municipal entitlement when it took just five-thousand citizens to be termed a city rather than a town. We used a wide variety of name for such places. Big cities used the name “speakeasy” with the manner of gaining admission to an night club setting. We had few such locations location in our relatively rural area. The terms ”club” or “roadhouse” suggested such degradation in progress. Most such locations came to be known – or, officially “unknown” among potential clients by the name of the owner-operator or a nick-name. A feminine side was evident at times. In one case I recall the ladies sold chickens - de-feathered, singed, cleaned and cut up ready for frying. The men of the family, helping their wives market chickens, packaged them in neat wooden boxes, provided the buyers. Such birds, in transition, found comfort all the way wrapped in papers and all, and resting all the way on a layer of liquid-filled glass containers. We used to joke about the need to keep several of the men on the road so much buying live chickens. Every time I see a new boycott, curfew or blockade affair being started I remember ways I have seen as used by more-or-less normal citizens as they bend, twist, modify and re-interpret the word of the Law. A.L.M. February 27, 2006 [c310wds]
Sunday, February 26, 2006
“GAP CREEK” “Would that I could learn to write with the effortless freedom so evident in works by Leo Tolstoy.” I wrote that line in some notes many years ago when I was reading his fine novel “Resurrection”. I was struck by the simple, directness of his style. He was adept at simply recounting a tale he had heard or was fashioning as he went along. In truth, one found out later, he was skillfully “working” his reader to his own advantage. Readers think and even say what they are thinking as they make quick judgments as too he probable advancement of the story. Tolstoy worked with the advantage the writer of radio or recorded drama in our day. Readers often participate in the telling of the story more than they may realize. The author suggests, rather than sets the next event. The reader, depending on his or her temperament, participates in the progress of the story more than they realize. The writer is suggesting a path the forming tale might take. Reading Tolstoy could do that sort of thing for me. If he had made a male character say to himself or a friend: “She was cold tonight. Could I have said something wrong?” The reader, at that moment reflects on what had been said, what was not said and what might have been said and has a task of choosing what direction the story will take, but it is the writer who remains in charge none the less. Readers feel – without knowing it – they have grown a bit in those seconds. All of this has been brought to mind because I am reading a modern novel which has caused me to recall qualities I admired in the Russian literary giant. The present day book is called “Gap Creek”- the story of a marriage - and recounts the tumble of events happening in the lives of people living along a creek by that name in the western hills of South Carolina just across the line from Carolina-North. In reading Robert Morgan you will enjoy much of Tolstoyian skill with simple details skillfully mixed and blended. It will please you that “Gap Creek” uses not a single word of profanity in contrast to the over use of such artificial terms found in so many of today's lecture novels. Get a copy and read it. “Gap Creek”, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, N. C. 1999. It was also an Oprah's Book Club selection so a friend of yours may well have a copy. A.L.M . February 26, 2006 [c434wds]
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