Saturday, May 13, 2006
NOW! The best time to gather in firewood for use during the months of winter is the summer time - now. Precisely, the late summer and fall days are better. Working wood can be more pleasant in late summer or Fall. That's prelude to a suggestion which keeps bugging me as I ride along our Interstate and Regular highways. We ride for endless miles and see, on both sides of the speed strips , an endless array of dead or downed trees, knotted growths of struggling saplings - ten or twelve trying to grow in an area where three might reach maturity if given a fair chance. I can think of three good reasons why this excess supply of usable firewood ought to put to use. First: large segments of our population burn wood to heat their homes and cook their foods as well as other uses and they would - I'm sure - welcome a less expensive source of fuel. This would, in time, cut down on the use of electricity and of other means of heating. Secondly: a great many of our forest fires and brush-fires start along highways when unthinking persons toss cigarette stubs from car windows or when careless campers mis-use fire in their hurry to rest and to recreate. A third reason for using this excess material which Nature provides so abundantly is unseen but real. Such use would lower the amount of harmful gases generated by rotting vegetation. Rotting is burning at a slower rater. It creates gases and residue some of which can be good for many other plants but which also harms parts of our general environment. If you have any doubts about that little quirk of Nature stand close to a cud-chewing, contented, cogitating cow where , when you take even just a shallow breath, you can be driven along the edge of illness. You can find other reasons why non-use of such a handy resource is wasted. I would like to see some sort of legislation, possibly with each state's highway construction and maintenance programs which would enable landowners, if they agreed, to have their property adjacent to highways "cleaned" annually. The state contacts with individuals in various localities have such work done which would safely, economically and steadily remove downed, dying and unsightly debris from such areas at some set distance - perhaps a quarter of a mile back from the highway berm. I should think it would prove too difficult and very unwise simply to open such activity to just any private citizen in need of firewood. by granting permission to work in such areas. It could well be fashioned so that it worked to benefit local fund raising or , in some areas , it could become a source of revenue. Why should we continue to ignore such an opportunity for us to create what the media and some politicians can truly call "new jobs"? The next time you visit your mega-market, take note of the little bundle of leftover carpentry wood pieces, hand-picked from your local housing development sites - selling to firewood buyers for around $3.00 a bundle - about ten-cents per stick, at the least. To waste such a ready source of revenue is simply wrong. Can we get busy and correct it to everyone's advantage? Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 5-13-06 [c559wds]
Friday, May 12, 2006
BIG "Z" MUSIC I like to listen and to move about to the sounds of "zydeco" music. I can name it, specifically, largely because was, for so long, it remained, for me, strange,foreign-flavored - even flawed. I didn't even know what it was called until fairly recently. How could I like a thing which seemed to be incomplete, raw, unfinished and ever-moving before my pursuit? Yet, today, when I hear it, see it being done, or, actually participate in the making of the thing, I hear, and have to deal with a tug of consciousness with which I must deal personally as it grabs at my inner being. In some, strange way "Z" seems to be at the lower of things musical. It rates far down, if at all, with serious musical preferences lists,I'm sure, yet it has strange, compulsive appeal for me - as if it were telling me "this is truly where you are musically. As is, I think, true in so many cases, the difference found in this and another type of musical composition, has a great deal to do with with instrumentation, too. Bluegrass -for instance - traditionally demands set selection of instrumentals. Zydeco, in like manner, demands certain physical equipment to remain authentic. There is always a fiddle, for instance, played by two names - a rollicking, jaunty fiddle at times and yet, as background coloring, violin sounds prevail. Players meld such styles change instinctively, often without being aware of doing either as a strict discipline. The soul of zydeco may well be in that subtle area - the mindset of the fiddle player. If so, it would be, I think and hold over from conventional Bluegrass and other folk music types. A rhythm board is another requirement. This is, to some, a mundane aspect they had rather not see around because it is a common,conventional home-use, corrugated metal wash board. Fancier styles are refashioned as a garish vest worn by the performer with brightly corrugated areas on rhythm panels. Th "instrument" provides a steady, easily acceptable beat which is part of zydecos structural makeup. It is played with thimble-tipped fingers and the ultimate result is a "mushy" sound which can be likened to the ultra-mod electronic imitations of a triple paradiddle sound from a well-touched snare drum. The sound has static edges but fluid entrails. While being, in reality, made up of parts it sounds as a unified segment background - a kind of slush not unlike a composer's use of a solid shelf of full chords upon which to rest a harmonically augmented lead line - thought of as being a melody or tune. Zydeco exemplifies "corn" to many critics. That's an understandable feeling, I'd say, because it does, at times, resemble the "ticky-tacky-too" element heard by many earlier jazz forms of our l920's. With understanding of the social source of each type of music people get over such feelings of disgust. Additional instrument requirement was added in the l840's when Germanic are developed the accordion.. It found its windy way into zydeco bands as a small, mushy, modified, version also know as a harmonium, a bandalore, a squeeze box, and some mis-named it completely by think it to be a concertina. The usual instruments so often seen today is limited to use, in the main, and we seldom see nothing other than an octave-and-half version always triggered by buttons to the left and right. Advanced models play in several major and minor keys. The "accordion" and the fiddle share melodic duties and back each other. Other instruments may vary - six-strings guitars, mandolin, dulcimer, five-string banjo,reeds, bass viol any one of which can influence the overfall feel of a specific zydeco band to give it a "style". This variation, plus exceptional musicianship and technical abilities of many individuals so involved, keeps the genre awake and growing. Even if "just for fun": listen in on this zydeco sound. A.L.M. May 12, 2006 [c673wds]
Thursday, May 11, 2006
PLAYING WITH BLOCS Rain is such a simple thing. Yet,for want of such a blessing, entire lives and careers can swerve unsteadily, even be destroyed. The loss of a promised crop can spell disaster for many people even now in modern times. We used to hear a great deal more about such agricultural concerns years ago when our population included farm dwellers - workers, owners, lease-holders, and associated industrial and commercial business firms in towns, villages and cities build around farmland cores. They made up a political force well worth consideration by any candidate for whatever office rural or urban, local, statewide - even national. To avoid it called for extreme caution. Rural elements gained new respect in the "New Deal" - F.D.R..era -when it,too, changed to alphabetical designations for each and every segment so that they lost their meaning for most folks. When treated as a political unit it began to fade away. Joined together as a union concepts it started to fade away - it fragmented into grape growers, wheat behemoths, corn cabals ranging from solid trough liquid renditions, sugar cane , rice growers - et al - each classified, re-shaped and coded to be exclusive, self-regulating and coded to work as something it never really became. The family "community" withered and was swept away,in part as a physical entity, by a momentous, natural tragedy of the time, known by today's "social studies" booklets as "The Dust Bowl" era. I remember one subtle little mechanism by which the new way was nudged or forced to go along and unlikely path. The Editor-Publisher-Owner of our local weekly newspaper and print shop in our rural town, by out of the reasonably blue haze of the New Deal sky shielding new concepts, was suddenly named to be Undersecretary of the Something in the of agricultural maze in ,around or near the Foggy Bottom of . He was, as I recall, from Iowa or some mid-western state, and understood what "great, n big farmin'" as all about. Lesser powers took over at home and I don't recall ever hearing from him again, other than a weekly boilerplate handout column he did for home town publications - plus reams of press releases. When told to do so, our paper was emblazoned with "Blue Eagle" artwork - symbols of our rural unity strength and loyalty. Many years later I found other instances where rural editors had been chosen to augment the undersecretary forces in Washington. I don't have any idea if it worked or not, but it does show how the farm bloc vote was to political planners of that day. The agricultural person of today is quite a departure from the one of just a few decade ago. The simple fact that it can be either to wet or too dry for him to function in his present-day role as producer of a product useful to mankind which society about him wants, needs and is willing to make a proper payment. A.L.M. May 11, 2006 [c504wds]
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
AT THE TOP It seems to me that we had better accept the idea of naming a military man to head up a section of our government we conveniently choose to call "non-militant" by nature. Our overall concept of what the counter intelligence twig of our governmental organizational tree is supposed to accomplish is rather vague to start with and the ground rules are constantly being tweaked to make sure in someone's mind that we are not stepping on someone's touchy toes by making it impossible for a dictatorship to rise up and smite us. Could there be any better reason for putting a military-minded man in charge from time-to-time? Let's avoid names in this, for the time being. If our President has found a men whom he feels can do the job as he wishes it to be done, then, he certainly, should be allowed to nominate that person or whatever procedure one must undergo to enable such a talent to be an active part of his administration. Granted, there is a chance that such an individual - military or civilian - might, in some way, seek to gain unauthorized power. There are those among us right now who would, at this point, insist that we went far along such a road in those days when J. Edgar Hoover was, for many years, in charge of our FBI. Others, would quibble about the illegal nature of some "New Deal" actions and of F.D.R's "P.H." factor. Still others would wonder about the mysterious absence of restricted documents which turned up, eventually, in casual reading material at the White House. We talk about these and other incidents which are a bit aside from the straight and even narrow path we profess to be ideal. Admittedly, it is possible that a dictatorship might well have been established on such a base at some point in the man's attempts to organize himself and his activities. The entire question becomes moot if you think about the number of leaders we have been authorized to care for our clandestine information sources have been civilians who are accepted, praised and promoted to even higher office because they have served in one of our military services. Far wiser, it would seem, for us to be concerned over the fragmentation of our basic institutional ideals - not so much changes in our way of doing thing but in our basic reasons for doing them at all. Now, go on back to today's news and put in name of the specific "General" who's name has been set forth by our President - like many before him - a former military man. We make a news game of checking out their "Good Conduct Medals," "Ruptured Ducks" and and their "Purple Heart" collections. Occasionally, there is conflict and we step aside. Let's try to keep it that way. A.L.M. May 10, 2006 [c487wds] fulkp
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
TUNE-UP It was a good feeling for me to see that "Fats" Domino was among those stars chosen to perform during the re-starting of the celebrated New Orleans Jazz Festival last week. Domino has never been a personal favorite of mine, largely because I stem from a slightly earlier era is which the use of the term "Fats" in music applied exclusively to "Fats" Waller who was a musical force to be reckoned with. I felt, and feel, that much of the material Domino does so well is not quite of the New Orleans jazz style, but more of what the genre has been becoming. Domino was just the right choice to hold up as symbolic of defiance against such encroaching factors as the hurricane, flood and great losses sustained. And, we did the proper thing last Sunday when he was scheduled to be on stage,by appearing-though ill - to personally thank people present for all they had done to make him what he has become and to encourage to work hard to restore the festival. He was a very real victim of the natural disaster, having lost home in the desolated North Ward of the ;ten musical instruments, plus his entire silver and platinum recording recognitions and other mementos of his career. He was speaking to other people who can do something about it all,too. Bruce Springsteen was there; Bob Dylan, Jimmy Buffet,Paul Simon as well as Irma Thomas, the soul singer. Even if these singers, composers, producers do not seem to fit the exact street definitions of what you think the New Orleans ought to be, they are brethren of a common cause to sustain a section of jazz which is so typically American. Pete Fountain was there, of course as a good example of how someone of special talent can find an authentic place in the New Orleans heritage. Local artists Art Neville and his three brothers were there in essence as they have always been. Irma Thomas sang "In the Middle Of It All", too. Domino, who had severe heart surgery done this past season served as a key to it all in a real sense and his being present will be remembered and,I hope, appreciated. It is not at all disturbing that this years attendance at the Festival was smaller than the usual brag-about-it figures, but the Jazz Festival was,truly, re-launched and will do well, I feel, in this era of electric guitars and digital innovations. We are already well into a next pop music world! The Jazz era needs constant redefinition to sustain its unique characteristics and New Orleans can be the focal point where such music can be sustained and properly memorialized. A.L.M. May 9, 2006 [c467wds]
Monday, May 08, 2006
FRAIDY CAT TIMES By this time you may have forgotten what "Y-2" was all about not too many years ago...six or seven, perhaps. Remember those times? As with bad dreams you would rather forget most of it but it was a time when many people lived in fear and fully expected disaster to strike all of us! When we faced the beginning of the new century many people did what Mankind has, apparently, always has done when a new century was about to begin. It sound silly, but records indicate that when a millennium is ahead, people get edgy and can't quite accept the idea that what they have is more-or-less permanent and not subject to sudden withdrawal. They invent all manner of evil which might bring about such catastrophic change. It is easy enough for us to recall that this was done by "other" people. Other people see us as other people ,however, and many who will not admit it had some set fears about what was going to happen when the world slipped into a new one hundred year sequence of days, weeks, months and years. Just to "play it safe" many others stock piled essentials such a fuel oil, canned goods to feed home-bound families, gas, oil and extra tires for the cars and trucks, and batteries of all kinds, because a major possibility was that all electric grids were going to go dead at midnight of the last night of the year, or just dim at that moment and gradually fade away. The ocean tides were set to do some strange movements, as well, changing usual old land masses to new configurations. Airport runways would buckle and split and train task would warp wildly. Silly wasn't it? But serious talk about potential disaster was a part of living for many people during those last months of the dying century."Back fence gossip" dwelt on the dangers facing Mankind even wile we were unaware of such dangers as the terrorist threats which have come our way in reality and for which we could have been preparing. When the great night arrived we watched fireworks burst in unequaled splendor all around or under from Sydney. We experienced old feelings of exhaust and hangovers as a natural part of such celebrations. Few people seemed to be concerned what had become of the pending disasters which had been forecast. Right now, today many people are predicting the outcome of our wars and other conflicts. Some - once again "other people" are at the root of such dissent. Many suggested ways to end or "finish-off" our troubles are D.O.A. because they are based on tings which are supposed to take place - "maybe", "perhaps"or "if". Get real. Nothing is going to be perfect. Let's relax and do the best we can with what we have at hand. That which "might be" - may not. A.L.M. May 8, 2006 [c497wds]
Sunday, May 07, 2006
GAS UP! By what values do you actually live? We self-set such standards, and, very often, make a vocative show of our basic choices when some abrupt change takes place in our living sphere - such as the recent surges in the price of gasoline. The average,nation wide price of gasoline $2.92 per gallon as of Friday, May 5, 2006. At one nearby location members of our family bought gasoline at $2.74 per gallon. The price varies daily in each region and there seems to be no obvious or readily apparent reason for the change other than the price the selling site across the highway has just posted. Users seek a reason and make one up out of the whole cloth of some really wild possibilities when the cause of the changes are not specified to their liking. Different people see the cause as originating in different places, too. Gasoline price have always been on an upward scale over the course of many yesteryears. A gallon of gasoline we bought in, let's say - 1924 - the year my father bought his first car, were in the range of 17-20-some cents, as I recall. In the intervening years, the price has worked it way up the scale to, shall we say, roughly $3.00 per gallon and more in some areas. At this point we must start to understand and respect the quality and quantity of the product. Quantity remains pretty much the same. We buy products by set measures - a gallon, in this case...ounces, pounds, inches, yards, rods, acres, but often forget how much the quality might vary. We also assume such changes are always for the good of the user, but that need not be the case. In the food industry, for example, people demand that caffeine be removed, to a large extent, from their coffee even while they support the ever expanding number of caffeine-laden sports drinks, sodas, health, and energy enhancers. to which the excess coffee caffeine has been transferred. The quality of gasoline may well be better today and during even those halcyon days of nostalgic memories. So much can depend on specific and specialized uses to which it might be applied and to safety and environmental requirements in certain areas. Quality has been improved both by taking things out and by adding to the basic composition , as well. In 1924, my Dad bought a brand new car of a popular make for $333.00. Other cars, such a foreign imports and bigger show-cars went of over $2,000. The prices are quite a bit higher today. The 30-cent gas is now $3.00. You may fail to remember when a "loaf" of bread cost 8-10-or 12-cents but think what it costs you today. There is plenty of room for argument about quality there, as well, but I don't hear many voices demanding that the "big flour" firms be punished. And, more people insist now on what each of them calls "quality" in their driving - which ranges from essential aids to safer driving all the way down to the most foolish excess of the silliest kind. Think a bit about this gas price problem we are having, before you go placing "blame" for it on anyone in particular. In a very real sense we have all had a hand in it. We all have more control over it than we may, at first, realize. Ours is a large country in a physical sense and it is unwise to try to compare our driving habits with those of European nations. Many or our states are far larger than entire nations elsewhere, but, if we wish to do so, we can cut down on the quantity of our driving and still maintain the quality thereof and, along with it, better price control. A.L.M. May 7, 2006 [c647wds]r
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