Saturday, January 27, 2007
TUBE TALK We have many types of tubes with us today. Some take us our highways and rail roads through mountains and under lakes, and in larger cites we often ride sub-level networks of underground tunnels fitted out with amazing comforts. The tube concept is with us in industry and commerce, as well , and serves us domestically in more ways than we can keep a count of realistically. There is a plant down in the Tennessee area which is unique in the ways it is seen by local residents. People living nearby see large vans loading and departing daily for destinations all over the country - large steel boxes, too, filled and ready to be taken to leading seaports to be stacked on freighters for overseas use. They witness this busy activity of products being transferred to where they are needed. Never do they ever see any raw materials entering the plant to be processed into some manufactured item. There are no incoming trucks. other than an assortment of various types of smaller vehicles delivering office supplies, cafeteria requirements, vending machine supplies, and other things it takes to keep a plant of that size in operation and in full production. The product made at the plant was a plastic made with water from the nearby river plus chemicals made by the parent company. Everything required to manufacture their product - large blocks and sheets of a foamed plastic used in construction work and in various specialty projects requiring insulation qualities. All of the chemicals were delivered to the plant's tall silos - really upright tubes - through pipelines from the firm's Chemical Division Center. Many people saw a plant shipping a product with no incoming raw materials coming in. It was, of course, more of an illustration of how the collapsible tube came to be is a vital part of our way of life. The main use today, I suppose. is the common use of such a tube is our toothpaste, shaving cream, lotions of many kinds, beauty aids, medications , an artist's colorful tubes of paints in a wide array of colors They were not around at all until after September 11, 1856 when an American artist who was earning a living of a sort painting houses and signs more than doing portraits, landscapes and still-life studies. Upon insistence of a friend of his by the name of Samuel Morse - who you will know to have been an inventor - John Goffe Rand was urged to write the description of something he felt we all needed. "... a metallic vessel so constructed as to collapse with slight pressure and thus force out the paint or other fluid confined therein through proper openings for that purpose and which openings may be afterward closed air-tight, thus preserving the paint or other liquid remaining in the vessel from being injuriously acted upon by the atmosphere". Thus it was was that the collapsible became a part of our present day culture. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 1-27-07 [c506wds]
Friday, January 26, 2007
GHANDI - TEACHER? Mahatma Ghandi, when he gave up his post as President of the Indian National Congress in 1933, he set forth some of his ideas about how his nation should go about educating the class people then known as "The Untouchables". The very name sets for us a broad, distorted and deceptive picture for us concerning where these unfortunate people stood in the social structured of Old India in Ghandi's time. He suggested that the first step should be a change of that name. He urged the use of a single word: "Harijans" which means "God's People." It is only in his speech for that day, and comments upon his views, that we have ever seen or heard the term used again in that context. In the rest of the 1930's era, Ghandi's ideas were set forth and praised lauding hims as being the predecessor of the,then popularity of growing "progressive" learning here in the United States. Listen to some of the Mahatma's suggestions which I wrote down in a notebook in l934to be remembered, I suppose, to be remembered remembered at times such as this. We have, generally, paid very little attention to experts in the educational field when advised changes were in order. "I should use" Ghandi said,"no books probably for the whole of the first year. I should talk with them about things with which they are familiar and, so correct their pronunciation and grammar and teach them new words. I should note all the new words they learn from day to day as to enable me to use them frequently till the have them fixed in their minds regularly." Ghandi saw teaching methods changing radically. "The teacher will not give discourses but adopt the conversational method. Through conversations he will give his pupils progressive instruction in history,geography and arithmetic. History will begin with our own times, then, too,of events and person nearest us, and geography will begin with that of the neighborhood nearest the school." The teacher will be concerned with his students entire life. "It is criminal to stunt the mental growth of a child by letting him know only as much as he can get through a book he can incoherently read in a year. We do not realize that if a child was cut off from the home life and merely doomed to the school, he would be a perfect dunce for several years. He picks up information and language unconsciously through his home but not in the school room. Hence do we experience the immense difference between pupils belonging to cultured homes and those belonging to uncouth homes, which are no homes in reality." End of quotes...thank goodness! It seems plain that the near worship accorded such false figures of fame has been and will continue be one of Mankind's greatest cares. Think of the many people who say they model their lives on the "peaceful" patterns set by Ghandi! Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 1-27-07 [c502wds]
Thursday, January 25, 2007
OLD WORD RE-USED We usually try to avoid unpleasant events as much as possible, so when I first heard the sentence accorded Saddam Huisen was to be "hanged by the neck until dead",I more or less, backed away from the entire concept. I recall thinking: "Certainly that will not be shown on TV!" I wondered,I will admit,how I could arrange to be busy at something and be unable to see it when it did happen. I realized I was,in the view of some people, being more chicken than they, but I have never wanted to witness an execution. I have known enough of death; seen more than my share, I suppose. The Iranian judge in this particular trial added a codicil which called for punishment to be history within thirty days or less. Not being used to such a "let's get on with this" attitude, I was watching TV to learn of any progress being made when it all took place! I don't know what I expected and the series of quick un-professional pictures washed across the small screen again and again for some time. It is reported to have been the handiwork of one of the guards using a cell phone with picture taking capabilities. I that initial moment of realizing what I had witnessed, I may well have said aloud:"There we have the raw makings of some the martyr propaganda literature our enemies have been seeking" The view of the condemned man's unmasked face and bodily stance as the trap was sprung has become, by this time, a widely distributed piece of hate literature. We would all have been better off had the film not been made. I did not meet with much objection the filming until a few days later when "official" (I suppose) photographs - a more general of view of the site became available. The next two hangings of Saddam's half-brother and an associate proved to be exceptionally; flawed by extreme conditions such as total beheading of the half brother. A newly released photograph showed Saddam's neck had been badly torn, too, in his fall. The media picked up an old word from Pennsylvania Dutch dialect which I had not heard used for many years. They said the hangings had been "botched". The press, TV,and radio have all been "botching" away ever since. Andrew McCaskey Sr amccsr@comcast.net 1-25-07 [c409wds]
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
RECALL We have all done it. We have called our public servants "politicians" until the very moment of their death when they became "statesmen." The timing of that event calls for additional terms: such as "late","former,"greatly missed","one-time", even "beloved" on occasion. As a rule, however, it happens rather gradually -this change of life which comes with death. It can be embarrassing,too. Perhaps you, too felt; a bit edgy recently when bundles of praise unloosened in the media concerning former President Gerald Ford. I always though him to be a pretty regular guy -a bit slanted to sports - but likable and friendly did not care for the media tendency to make him appear to be a stumbling muscle-bound misfit in politics. He was pictured as a clumsy playground participant. He was said to bump his head getting in and out of aircraft, he fell from platforms, and a once-President of the United States said Jerry Ford must have played "a few too many football games without a helmet." I cringed when I heard that one for the first of many times. Last week it became "all sweetness and light." Jerry Ford was widely praised as a truly honest and upfront man. About time, too. There is an "underground" set of words used only by those among us who are charged with keeping track of everything president or other political official might do or sag which can be "read" as a indicator of that which they may be thinking. So much of my memory of political campaigns over the years seems to be colored by things I'd rather not remember. I disliked the insult and injury he nation inflicted on another honest,upright man- Herbert Hoover - who served our needs well man ways. We have been been reading just recently long accounts of how this man same much of Europe from starvation and complete ruin. We hurt in petty,little ways,too. "Boulder Dam -truly a remarkable engineering feat - was renamed in his honor "Hoover Dam" but the name faded away unused. Have you noticed, too, that the Florida Cape which was re-named in honor of Jack Kennedy is, once again, called "Cape Canaveral?" We are entering another national election campaign era which always brings up this petty manifestation of meanness one to the other. It need not be. Think back over our leaders and from a long list you will have difficulty finding three or four who seem to have escaped such vilification when in office. Such a list of shortcomings now runs the gamut,too. Isn't there some way wherein we might elect "statesmen" who, when they die, become "politicians?" Andrew McCaskey Sr. amccsr@comcast.net 1-24-07 [c459wds]
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
CHINA The nation named "China" on our maps of planet Earth's varied classifications of different types of peoples seems marked. China has become more evidently that it may, before too many years pass by, be a nation which is among those few which we might well have studied seriously in the past. The "past",remember,was also our future. That which we are doing now become "news" to far-flung north-east-west-south. I remember when young "journalists" were taught that was the derivation of the term itself. Just as the designation" journalist" has now expanded - endlessly it seems to old-timers - Journalism College grads in particular, to include any person who passes along a news item in whatever form might be available to them. There are now more radio and television "journalists" than newspaper men and women...photographers of every level,- even "pap-a-raht-esses" and other such over-eager subspecies. Internet's bloggers, plus research and tech writers in every known occupational field. Anyone who has even a vague association with passing a news items or comment opinion, may now be called a "journalist." That's my long-winded way of getting around to a renaming of China as a nation among us. The nation has been doing very well with new ideas for decades now and the China you heard about as a child no longer exists. Emphasis has long been placed on the population figures for China. If, for instance, you arranged for the population of China to walk past you in single file,the line would never end because of the birth rate in China. China, today, also has more English-speaking persons than the United States. You share your birthday date , we are told, with at least nine million people in the world. How many Chinese share our birthday? Mr. and Mrs. American have not yet become acquainted with Trade and Production or Manufacturing deficits we are incurring. There is an article of special interest in the magazine section of one of our local papers. It was written by Luanne Austin, a feature writer for the "Daily News-Record," Harrisonburg, Va. Bring up "dnr on line.com."...down near the end of a fine daily page click under SKYLINE. Read it and be ready when you,too, discover that your favorite apple juice is made with an apple concentrate from China - 40-60% savings for the local manufacturer. More articles such as this one will irk homemakers to an awareness of just how far this drift of our economic and social treasures has gone. It will become a thing for political focus,in time but by the time the "barn doors" are locked the horses,cows,lambs - and apple juices will be long gone. Journalist Luanne Austin,in her column "Rural Pen", specializes in articles concerning country life and this juice story is certainly about the life of a country - ours. Andrew McCaskey amccsr@comcast.net 1-23-07 [c496wds]
Monday, January 22, 2007
UNDER A METRIC MOON Perhaps it will take a bit of Time before most of us realize that the Moon has changed somewhat in recent months. Perhaps two groups would lead the discovery of such changes. The people who write lyrics for romantic love songs would lead the way; quickly joined by eager boy-girl combinations the world over who are , after all, the leading practitioners of the fine art of moon glow romance. Another group - an occupational one - would see such a change as a welcome boon for the betterment of all. Astronauts - those of such concerns in centuries as well as he men and women of today who see new meanings for all of us in the stars - and in the unseen realms called "space." The change is a matter of measurement. To many it may seem silly but to those persons whose very lives depend on the precise exactness of such measurements it can be everything else but funny. It has now been agreed that, henceforth, the moon will be subject to measurement by Metric System rules only. In making the announcement before the fourteen members of the international association, Jeff Vollosin, of NASA, noted there was a "a little cheer" from the foreign reps. There was irony in that small celebration because it has long been accused the United States of being the major stumbling blocking going to a inform measurement system. There have been incidents in the past in which materials supplied by the United States were found to be incompatible. NASA has insisted on Metric measurement in their own work, but suppliers and contractors are not bound by such rules. In 1999 the loss of a Mars Climate Orbiter, a robotic probe, occurred because a contractor provided thruster firing data in English numbers while NASA was using metric. This decision is a major victory for the metric system, and that has "bugged me" ever since grammar school days when we did debate as a classroom "sports activity". When "Resolved that we should the adopt the Metric System" I always hoped we would be assigned the negative side because usually won. The English system was American but French system was foreign. It may be that this NASA note will encourage some brave soul to stand up at their next School Board meeting and demand that "our disadvantaged Youth" be schooled in the Metric System. If we continue to think in in terms of pounds and miles instead of kilograms and kilograms we are holding fast to our tiny spot in a minority. The nations of the world accept and use the Metric System. We are one of just three nations not using it. Our friends and associates are: Liberia and Burma. Andrew McCaskey Sr. amccsr@comcast.net 1-22-07 [c468wds]
Sunday, January 21, 2007
SNOW DAY MENU On a January Day such as today has turned out to be the natural tendency leads toward a need for hot drink ready to be "saucered-and-blowed" down to that semi-searing stage so many older folks can can handle without a lip cookery. most sure, of course, like it has something to do with the fact that we wear false teeth and cauterize our mouths daily with a selected anti-codifiers and antiseptic solutions until a taste is set a-tingle like a sleight bell's tickled tinkle when a potent potent passes within twenty feet. It's true, as we get older, I don't mind admitting that pour is one gets old - like, maybe, ninety years of age or so - one judgment concerning food and drink may wander a bit. here comes a time when there is no longer any such things as a "small" one. The terms such as "little","tiny", "small" and "light" concerning quantities of food and drink begin to mean less and less sound but not in fulfillment. Just "one for the road" means a six-lane express freeway and not a country lane where the horse knows the way home. I'm much more concerned with foods myself. Hot coffee, tea and that sort of thing can be a welcomed page protector sequestering the setting the scene for the next act of drama of dining abundantly. Right now, while - from my window - I can see the neighborhoods boys and girls dragging their sleds, boxes, carts, garbage can lids and colorful plastic replicas of that sort of motion holders. They are busy dragged their vehicles up and down the road waiting for the snow to deepen on the nearby hillside the moment the are happy enough racing, throwing snow at each other, falling far more than necessary showing off - boys for girls and girls for boys. Within another hour they ought to have some nice hillside sliding if the snow continues to fall. Right now, remembering reading just the other day in a bulletin from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, suggesting that we should be eating more fruits and vegetables - even to the extent of meeting their recommended suggestion of from five to nine servings per day. I have decided what I would like to have for this snowy evening, although the members of our kitchen staff - both of them - have already prepared the meal we are actually going to enjoy. I have decided I would like to have would be liver and onions. The need was inspired by reading that U. S. D. A bulletin. It claimed that, as an average American, ate twenty-one pounds of onions past year. How did you rate on that estimate? Those dinky little plastic bags couldn't hold more than half a dozen decent-sized onions! A smattering of onions chips fussed with with mustard may be enough for hot dogs, but when we have Liver with Onion liver - with being an equal serving of gently sauterned onion slices. For dessert, or breakfast the next morning overn biscuits or toast, - I like any frying pan leavings which remained wrapped around flour, milk and seasoning with one generous wooden spoon at hand! Andrew McCaskey amccsr@comcast.net 1-21-07 [c545wds]
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