radio free mount airy

Lost Final

Last weekend we were treated to the "final" episode of the Lost Discs Radio Show on WBCQ. After 240 shows, Jim E Night, Dr Doc Brown, Chesty and crew are throwing in the towel for a while. I can't describe the sadness that Jane and I felt as Lost Discs signed off WBCQ on Saturday night. We will miss their personalities, their unique way of sharing a little bit of their life through music. We hope their absence from the airwaves will only be temporary.

Hero

R. E. Lopez

Rusty

Disco sucks!

In honor of the start of another season of, as Glenn Hauser puts it, "stupid ball games," I present an article that originally appeared in a Chicago newspaper that documents the events transpired on July 12, 1979 at Comiskey Park in Chicago during Disco Demolition Night. It's interesting to compare this "big news story" to the steroid, cash, and corruption-soaked ball game of today. I found the writer's fifties-era writing style to be particularly interesting when looking at this in the context of almost thirty years of hindsight.

The horror at Comiskey

by Bill Gleason

Baseball, during Bill Veeck's two administrations at Comiskey Park, has been many things.

Thursday night it was a horror. Not a horror show but an unmitigated horror.

It was the most disgraceful night in the long history of major league baseball in Chicago.

It became frighteningly long before thousands of young people manaically ran into the playing field at about 8:40 p.m.

My wife and I were watching the middle innings of the first game from the seats behind the screen and above the aisle that divides the upper and lower boxes. Across the aisle were seven young men who were getting themselves "up" for the evening. They passed around a bottle of peppermint schnapps. They washed that down with a bottle of brandy. Some of them ordered ice cream from a vendor.

And they shouted their anti-disco obscenity.

They were vulgarians who Comiskey Park to become ruffians.

They were not there to watch the White Sox play Detroit in a scheduled twi-night doubleheader.

I told my wife to go to the press room and stay there.

All the signals of imminent riot had been flashed during the first game. Hundreds of phonograph records were sailed onto the playing field. Some were aimed at White Sox players. Fireworks were tossed onto the field. Some were thrown towards Detroit players.

The field was littered with trash. Members of the grounds crew and batboys ran into the outfield to clear the rubble. Their efforts were rewarded with more showers of trash.

It was "Teen Night," an event that was meant to be joyous and memorable. Sox management and WLUP-FM radio added a special touch. It would also be "Disco Demolition Night," a promotion that came out of the fertile mind of WLUP disk jockey Steve Dahl.

The young people of the Chicago area were invited to demolish disco records. Those who brought a record were admitted to the park for 98 cents.

Dahl must wish he had thought of something else. For thousands in the crowd demolishing a record was not enough.

The highlight of the between-games ceremony was to have been the blowing up of all the disco records that had been tossed into a huge box in deep center field.

Large fireworks were touched off in a row in front of the box. Then a fireworks "bomb" within the box was detonated. That was supposed to be the end of it.

Instead it was the beginning of the horror. When the disco records exploded, young men and women left their places in the lower deck.

Dozens ran onto the field. Then hundreds. Then thousands.

The White Sox security force—the men in the yellow jackets—were helpless at what had become a mob. "We had about 30 men here," a member of the security force said. (David Schaffer, director of operations for the Sox, said later, however, that security had been beefed up to 45 men in anticipation of the large crowd.)

Down the right-field line, George Schwartz, a chief of the Frain secuirty guards, was virtually under siege.

Schwartz, whose post is at the visitors' bullpen, treid to stem the surge of hoodlums but was grabbed and pummeled. A Frain usher ran towards short center field, trying to summon aid for Schwartz. The yellow-jackeded security men could not help. They had hundreds of youths swirling around them.

It can be said that the majority in the mob were exhibitionists. They came not to watch baseball but to be seen. They slid into the bases. They sat in the infield.

But hundreds of them were out there to do what they do best—destroy.

They tore turf from in front of the pitcher's mound. They ripped grass from the fringe of the infield in front of the shortstop. They smashed out large sections of the wire in the picnic area and Bullpen II, dining rooms under the left field stands.

Within five minutes the police had the situation in control, with the exception of a few stragglers.

Most of the rioters ran for the stands as soon as they saw the police, equipped with riot helments and flourishing night sticks.

The cops dealt quickly with all but those few who resisted. One policeman put his nightstick against the neck of a man who chose to be combative. Other cops used judo holds to convince the riotous.

Very little more than a show of police force was necessary.

The police, about 80 men, were under the command of Deputy Chief Charles Pepp of the Special Operations Group and Lt. Robert Reilly of the ball park detail.

Men of eight district tactical units had been alerted early to be in riot uniform. Most arrived outside the park, to reinforce the ball park detail, at about 7:30 p.m.

The alert had been sounded by Capt. Joseph Mullen of the Ninth District (Deering Station, a few blocks from the park.) "I was driving in the district at 6 o'clock and could see what was developing."

Questions will be asked why the tactical units and district police did not enter the park earlier. It is a department regulation that even the men of the detail assigned to the park do not go in until requested.

The call was sounded by Ridie Schaffer, business manager of the ball club.

We must keep in mind that most of those who rioted were not "kids." Most were young adults.

When they finally grow up, if they ever grow up, they may feel a sense of shame. They brought horror to baseball in Chicago.

I'm surprised that this one made it through the spam filters

...but that really shouldn't be surprising, because comcast has no spam filters. (If they say they do, then their spam filters are horribly misconfigured, or else they're simply lying. Anyway, check this out.

URGENT BUSINESS ASSISTANCE.

DEAR SIR/MADAM,

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED TO RECEIVE THIS LETTER FROM ME, SINCE YOU DO NOT KNOW ME PERSONALY. I AM PRINCE DEVID MOYO SITHOLE THE FIRST SON OF CHIEF DAN SITHOLE, WHOWAS RECENTLY MURDERED IN THE COURSE OF THE LANDDISPUTE IN ZIMBABWE. I GOT YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION FROM A DIRECTORY IN SOUTH AFRICAN TRADE AND INFORMATION IN JOHANNESBURG HENCE I DECIDED TO (blah blah blah...)

I did a double take, then a triple take, because I could have sworn I'd just gotten a spam from someone who's name was Shithole.

Uh oh

The following is from iowahawk.

Seething Midwest Explodes Over Lombardi Cartoons

Green Bay, WI - Like a pot of bratwurst left unattended at a Lambeau Field pregame party, simmering tensions in the strife-torn Midwest boiled over once again today as rioting mobs of green-and-gold clad youth and plump farm wives rampaged through Wisconsin Denny’s and IHOPs, burning Texas toast and demanding apologies and extra half-and-half.

The spark igniting the latest tailgate hibachi of unrest: a Texas newsletter's publication of caricatures of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi.

Protestors demonstrated against the images throughout the Badger State yesterday, with violent egging and cow-tipping incidents reported in Oconomowac, Pewaukee, Sheboygan, Ozaukee, Antigo, Oshkosh, Waubeno, Wauwautosa, Waunewoc, Wyocena, Waubeka, and Washawonamowackapeepee.

Some of the most dramatic skirmishes were centered around Kenosha, where a mob of masked snowmobilers invaded the Texas Roadhouse on I-94, briefly holding the margarita machine hostage. They were later seen storming the beverage department at Woodman's, where they purchased several cases of Point and a pack of Merit menthols, and later at the Brat Stop classic rock/sausage outlet, where they were reported angrily "boogie-ing out" on air guitar to featured entertainment Molly Hatchett.

But by far the fiercest demonstration took place in Green Bay's Lambeau Shrine parking lot where throngs of Packer faithful burned Texas flags and effigies of Roger Staubach as Lutheran pastors led them in chants of "Those who defame the Vince suck" and "Favre is Great." Many of the frenzied demonstrators were seen ritualistically beating themselves with mozzarella sticks.

The crowd eventually dispersed, lured away by local supper clubs and the nickel slots of nearby Oneida Bingo Casino, but Pastor Doug Schmidtke of Fond Du Lac's Grand Lutheran Temple threatened continued community unrest "until the infidels of Texas deliver an apology. And the head of Tom Landry in a paper bag."

While the curd-strewn streets of Green Bay remain calm for the moment, a startled Texas government official -- speaking on terms of anonymity -- said that they would work with other developed states to find a solution to tensions "before the situation erupts into a full-fledged clash of civilizations."

The rest of the article can be found here. Thanks to Rantburg for the tipoff.

Extreme Town Hall Flashback

And, speaking of Town Hall, here's what it looked like some sixty or seventy years ago.

This pic was given to me by one of TH's regular customers back when I was a bartender there in the mid to late eighties. He had a big stack of 8x10s of this classic pic and I was indeed fortunate to get one.

Gotta love it. A combination gas station, liquor store, and grill where you could "dine and dance" while you were getting some fine crank-case service done to the Chevy. DC Prices, too! Note also that Route 1 in College Park was a two lane road with a single stripe down the center.

If my memory's right, most of this building burnt down in 1949, but some remains to this day.

The ol' Town Hall

The article transcribed below is from the University of Maryland Diamondback dated December 9, 2003. Town Hall is pretty much unchanged since I worked there in the 1980s, except back then a Budweiser bottle cost $1.25, a draft was 65 cents, and a pitcher was $3.25. Someone describes Town Hall on clubplanet perfectly:

A drinking innovation unknown in the northeast is the combination liquor store/bar. Students from the nearby behemoth that is the University of Maryland file into the store section to stock up on kegger supplies, though I don’t think they sell white baseball caps.

The bar next door is much more a locals-only affair, and not a little depressing. It’s dirty, divey and bare bones. But maybe it’s a perfect antidote to the gigantic college boozeterias you find spread all over town. Remember to be respectful of the regulars and try not to roll in with your entire fraternity in tow.

Town Hall has been there for years and years. The building today shares at least some of it's core with the old Town Hall Shopping Center which mostly burned down in March 1949.

Townie tradition

Local bar keeps low profile to avoid infusion of student customers

By Dianna Parker Staff writer

Several blocks down Route 1 from College Park's main nightlife bar scene, Town Hall Liquors displays all the signs of a normal liquor store. Students frequent it, lured by banners pitching reduced keg prices and glowing signs discounting other kinds of alcohol.

But what many students don't know is inside Town Hall Liquors, adjacent to the bright, familiar liquor store, a rustic bar with cheap domestic beers and an "everybody knows your name" aura sits - untapped.

The bar is timeless, untouched by years of busy university life that surrounds it daily.

And for the most part, the bar is unknown to students and kept that way intentionally by the management.

"We're very tight-lipped about our bar," said James, the general manager who declined to give his last name. "We like to keep it small."

The Burdoo family, who has owned Town Hall Liquors for more than 30 years, deliberately keeps a low profile so the tradition of a small, casual bar with regular customers is maintained, James said.

And it is exactly that regularity that keeps the level of business constant throughout the year, particularly during the summer when other bar businesses are normally slow, James said.

To keep the bar's tradition, Town Hall Liquors does not advertise for its bar, and it does not try to appeal to the campus's students. Instead, it relies on word-of-mouth and reputation to attract an eclectic mix of locals, professors and graduate students, James said.

"We've got all the business we really need," James said. " We pride ourselves on not having changed."

Customers who find it enter a darkly lit barroom with a roadhouse decor. The room is lined with decades-old wooden booths, several blinking neon bar signs and a stuffed bird hangs unobtrusively in a corner.

On the outskirts of the room, customers play rounds of pool, foosball, pinball and electronic Keno. Other amenities include an Internet jukebox, a plasma television screen often featuring sports games and a smoke heater.

The food is kept simple with hamburgers and hot dogs priced anywhere from $4 to $6, and occasionally a live band or disc jockey is hired to play, James said.

The room's most prominent feature is its large veneer-finished oak bar, which sits in the center completely surrounded by wooden stools. It boasts 12 different draft beers, a full liquor shelf and various wines.

Bar specials run every night of the week except Saturday because the university asked the bar to help discourage heavy drinking during sporting events, James said. Happy hour is 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday at $3 per 22 oz. domestic draft.

And the bar has remained essentially unchanged since the late 1930s or early 1940s when it opened, James said. Each time it has been remodeled in the past, it is restored to look exactly the same to maintain the feeling of tradition.

And like the building, the clientele has remained virtually unchanged.

"Some of [the regulars] have been here longer than I've been alive," said James, who has been with the bar for about 15 years. But James said a younger crowd often mixes with the older regulars.

"You'll often see a 23-year-old grad student standing next to a city official," James said.

Bill Corrigan, a local College Park resident who lives across the street from Town Hall Liquors, said he likes the bar because of its low prices and location. He said he frequents the bar three nights a week.

"It's right across the street and it's cheap," Corrigan said.

Ethan Sapperstein, a senior economics major, said he has been to the Town Hall bar once but has not considered going back.

"It's mostly all the local people who live in College Park that go there," Sapperstein said. "It's not a college bar."

Muffin

We have officially adopted another animal here and saved it from certain euthanasia. The local SPCA's are all full because of the Mount Airy Cat Hoarder and also, believe it or not, rescues from Hurricane Katrina.

This little creature, who we've named Muffin, started hanging around here last month, and it didn't take too long before we realized it had nowhere else to go.

For those of you who've heard the voice of Rusty, our 21 year old cat, on our radio show, it is worth noting that Muffin has a voice very similar to Rusty's. Also, she bears a striking resemblance to Molly, my mon and dad's cat, who lost her battle with cancer just last week.

A Christmas Story

[The following was posted to the Crack The Sky bulletin board by Dr. Palumbo in 2001, and is reposted here for your amusement.]

A Christmas Story

(As told to JP by Tom Waits)

By John Palumbo

It was a nickle till midnight, and I was making my way through Pennsylvania in a 1971 refrigerator white 3 speed on-the-column Lark, Studebaker Lark complete with baby blue vivyl interior,resplendent with mono am single speaker Delco sound system mounted-on-the-dash 3 inch speaker to handle those midrange frequencies. George Jones was singing somethin about how his heart was playing bongos cause a girl named Collette ran of with his best friend, Earl. My eyes burned from the intermittent flash of white eyes comin at me like Indians of the rise back when men carried guns and anything that wore a skirt was fair game, unless of course, she was a China gal...ya kinda stayed away from them, cause you never knew if they were gonna start screamin that high pitch, Miles Davis, atonal crap of an excuse they called language.

I reached for my Chesterfield's and the pack was flatter than Stevie Nicks on a good day..empty. Road signs popped up over the hill...WELCOME TO NAZARETH, HOME OF MARIO AND MICHAEL ANDRETTI. I figured it was an Italian kinda place, but in amongst all that spaghetti and female facial hair they had to have smokes. The LARK rumbled into a place by the name of Ray's Gas and Go, and Ray limped out of the little shack he used to keep warm in between dr cars, wearin a red plaid jacket and WWI pilot cap that flapped in the icey December Pennsylvania wind. "Fill er up?" he rasped.

"Yeah...Ethyl for my sweetheart, and twenty of your finest Chesterfield's for myself," came my retort. "You here to see the child, I s'pose," said the old guy.

"You talkin to me, sport?" I meandered tryin to get my window to crank back up. "The miracle. Folks been comin for weeks now. Shit it's 'en when they have them damn races!" he offered.

"Well, uh, I was kinda just passin through on my way to Oblivion. You know..a pleasure trip?" I said. Ray came around to my side and leaned his frozen body on the LARK. "Watch the paint, pop," I warned. "You look like life has passed you some wooden nickles, son, " cracked Ray as I offered him one of the new Chesterfield's.

"I've had my share," I groaned. "Then maybe you need to see the baby," he puffed. "If you're talkin about the kid I read about in Playboy last month, no thanks. I never was much of a relgious man, if ya get my drift," I said with a smirk.

And just then, a mighty roar erupted, kinda like Oprah after a good meal. And Ray's head started to swell in a Donny Osmond/Donny Trump sort of way. I went for the gas pedal and startd to churn latex when what to my tiny eyes did appear, but the head of a snake in my rear view mirror.

The former Ray, it seems, had become an anaconda of a gas station tycoon, and his huge, terracotta skinned, green monster head was munching away at me and the LARK. HE caught the bumper with a nip and pulled it - along with my "Jim Morrison Live" sticker - clean off. I jammed the LARK into 2nd, swerved around a Mario Andretti-dressed-as-Santa stand up, caught some clean asphalt,and shot out of Ray's with more zest than a twelve year old takin his first peek at dad's stash of Hustlers. *

Well, now it's kinda roundin 3 in the cold am, and I quit checkin the rear view about 20 clicks back for any giant snakemen. Some guy named Judas Priest was screamin through the radio, so tried tunin in maybe a Dolly Parton Christmas specal or somethin akin, when around the next bend a sign rose up to say 'Hi'. WELCOME TO BETHLEHEM PENNSYLVANIA...A NICE PLACE TO LIVE AND WORK.

I checked the fuel and the smoke situation. Both were pretty slender, so I nosed the bumper-free LARK into a neon lit titty bar by the name of "Rose's Dolls and Drinks". Enough siicone in there to start my own Teflon cookware ensemble. "Hi cowboy, I'm Candy...buy me a drink?" said what looked like a 12 year old with cans the size of my ex-wife's famous holiday pork rolls.

"Na, darlin...just fill me up a glass with ice, coke, and Mr. John Walker, and hold the ice and the coke," I rambled. Candy shook back over to the other side of the bar when all of a sudden the place got Pallidan quiet. A hush fell like Jerry Ford gettin off AF1 in the snow. Lookin up, kinda ready ta see my old friend, Ray...I was surprised by the entrance of three Arab lookin characters standing akimbo at the door. "Can I help yous with somethin?" asked a sagging Rose. "You come now, " said one a the 7-11 jockeys.

"Not with you, Ace," smirked Rose. "You come now...you come now!!!" chimed in the other two. Rose snapped her fingers and out of nowhere chunked up two heafty lookin beef boys with a tatoo for every occasion and arms the size of my last alimony check. As the boys went for the wise men, a harp sounded out. I lit another smoke cause this sounded kinda serious, and didn't want ta end up in some no-smokin afterlife joint without one last good drag.

A white light filled the place which sent all the dancers runnin cause they don't take to bright lights,ya know...ruins the ambience', if you'll pardon my French. Anyway, the 3 Arabs are on their knees, Rose is grabbin all the cash out of the register, all the married customers are takin off just in case this gets TV time, and me...I'm waitin for what's next. Well, the white light and the harp go on for what seemed to be way too long, so I get up and am makin like a Canadian hockey player and gettin the puck outta there, when in walks a couple a street folk right from the bowels of Santa Monica. Movin my head out of the stench area, I manged a "pardon me", and tried to brush past the sorry pair, when the guy opens his pie hole and asks me if I knew of anyplace in town where him and his old lady could get a room for the night.

"Sorry, Chuck, I'm new in town, but you could ask old Rose over there, she looks like she's made a few trips around the block," I said. Just then Rose yells out..."Not in my place, you bum...get the hell out of here!" Now, I'm not what ya would call a sensitive guy or, you know, in touch with my feminine side. Hell last time I tried that my feminine side slapped me in the face and called a cab! But I was feelin low for Chuck and his gal, and...well ta make a long story short, I told them they could spend the night in the LARK. I know, I know, keep your nose outta other folks messes, my old man used to say. Course he got shot by a way-overreactive-jealous husband on one of his milk runs.

Anyhow...they thank me and intro themselves and start yappin about this or that, and I finally hve ta tell both of em to pipe down or the deal is off! Well, Chuck who's name turns out to be Joe, and his gal are all snuggled up in the back seat. I'm finishin off another smoke, and listening to Loretta Lynn sing about being a woman who needs a good man, when Joe's chick let's out a sceam that brought back memories of the time I lit my cousin Francis' pet cat on fire.

"What the hell is she on?" I yelled back to Joe, when he held up a beautiful baby boy, all bloody and stinkin the sit out of the LARK. "Behold the King of Kings," said Joe as he went to hand me the kid. "I'll pass, but you can ask him if he knows of a carwash close by," I smiled. And that night, there musta been a couple hundred folks lined up outside the LARK just to get a look at this kid. Well, I dropped Joe and his chick and their kid off back in Nazareth. I figured if the little guy was special as all the networks were sayin, that maybe he could clean up what havoc Ray had reaped on the citezenry there. Me? well, I caught me a fresh pack a Chesterfield's and made my way south to Miami. Fell in with a Cuban gal named Rita, butwent by Cher and rode out that winter in style.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT...JP

Tree, 1930?-2005

One of the biggest and oldest trees on our property crashed down and died sometime in the early morning hours of Monday, August 8, 2005. The tree had been sick for a long time, and we expected it would fall sooner or later. When we first moved here five years ago, the big tree was obviously in trouble, because it had a large part of it's base completely dead around about half of it's base, extending some twenty or thirty feet up. But it looked stable enough, and we didn't give any more thought to it. Then, a couple of years ago, a very large branch about ten feet up ripped itself out of the side of the tree during a thunderstorm and left a huge ugly gash. Then we realized how much trouble the tree was in. The decay and disease was much deeper into the trunk than we expected, and we were surprised that this event didn't finish it off.

But the tree perservered somehow. Each spring it would come back, filling in mostly green, although you could tell that it was very sick. The tree tried it's best to fill out into a nice summer shade, but it's leaves were distributed kind of unevenly and it lost a few right after the big spring rains. Earlier this year a large crack developed in the rotton side of the tree, and the crack got bigger and wider for a few days until it was around fifteen feet long, starting about four feet from the ground and extending up. We could knock on the dead part of the tree and hear the insides creak and rattle around. Jane started to get a little nervous when I'd be mowing the lawn under the old tree.

Now we realized what was going to happen. It leans towards the old orchard woods behind our place, and so if it fell it wasn't going to damage any real estate or valuable property. It's companion tree, a smaller, scraggier tree of the same species, was directly in it's projected fall path. The big tree's scraggly brother was also tilted over and bent, having grown away from it's companion to get all the sun it could.

Sometime last night, on a calm humid August evening, the tree could no longer hold itself up against the force of gravity and it's sickened state, and it fell over just as we predicted. It smashed it's companion tree as well, fully breaking it off about three feet off the ground. The big tree fell into the woods and did no other damage except for knocking over some of the stupid weed-like sumac trees, which actually saved me the trouble of snipping them off with the branch clipper.

It's always sad to see such a majestic living thing go down like this. I have always hated watching greedy developers bulldoze old growth woods near here to put up million dollar houses for some yuppies. We feel a little more for this old tree because it was part of our shade garden for a long while. The old tree also served to hold up a long wire or two to improve our shortwave listening experience.

Now it's time for the summer of the chain saw to begin.

Quote of the month for July 2005

I am telling my friends and coworkers this lately, based on personal experience. This is inspired by a posting I saw on bash.org a while back.

The most secure computer is one that is not connected to the internet.

That is why I recommend Comcast Digital Cable Internet.

Our sleeping bags travelled much further than we did

When we arrived at BWI at the end of our Boston/Monticello voyage, our sleeping bags were nowhere to be found. Jane was quite distraught, as she has an emotional attachment of sorts to her two vintage Army-issue sleeping bags. We packed them in her Navy sea bag, and it looks like because of this they ended up in Germany instead of Baltimore.

Fortunately it only took US Airways a couple of days to drop off our gear at home. I wonder why Frankfurt? Maybe there was a military transport happening at the time, and Jane's sea bag definitely looks military.

We miss you Lopez. Thanks.

Yesterday morning, my friend Lopez died. I never got to meet him in person, but I was fortunate enough to communicate with him on occasion over the past few years. It's hard for me to imagine anyone in the radio biz with whom I identify more. In the ever changing world of what we hear on the airwaves, Lopez was always there, outlasting dozens of morning lineups on Baltimore's 98 Rock since he joined them in 1978. I remember Lopez appearing on Sunday night and irreverently playing oddball music on the radio. I remember Lopez sharing our anguish when John Lennon was killed.

Heh, my portable radio just went silent right at the end of a sad rock song on 98 Rock. I thought maybe they'd decided to play some open carrier, until I saw the radio flash "battery check."

Radio goes on, but radio will never be the same. At least, not for me.

Terri Schiavo's Blog

Terri's blog is at http://durrrrr.blogspot.com and shows her personal insights into the recent national debate.

This will affect your performance appraisal!

INDIVIDUAL COMPETENCIES

For each competency place a check mark in the appropriate box or boxes

QUALITY OF WORK RESULTS: Ability to meet work standards for accuracy, completeness, reliability, and consistency.

1 Outstanding [x]
2 Above Average [ ]
3 Effective [ ]
4 Inconsistent [ ]
5 Needs Improvement [ ]
6 Unacceptable [ ]
7 Not Applicable [ ]

Comments

Although Scott prefers lower grade strong "ice" style beer, his work products are consistently of the highest caliber. His "hollow leg" characteristics fit well within the Company's mission and goals.

Philosophy Corner

Here's the attributed quote from our experimental "Kierkegaard on shortwave" exercise from yesterday's show.

The Scriptures teach: "Judge not, that ye be not judged." This is expressed in the form of a warning, an admonition, but it is at the same time an impossibility. One human being cannot judge another ethically, because he cannot understand him except as a possibility. When therefore anyone attempts to judge another, the expression for his impotence is that he merely judges himself.

Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), in Bretal's Kierkegaard, Princeton, 1947, p. 227.

Next week we may try "Kierkegaard on Cats."

We're goin' head first

I have always believed that Radio Timtron Worldwide is the finest show on shortwave. Now Jane agrees after hearing one of her faves, The Babys' "Head First" at 0315 on the webcast, and every bit of the show afterwards. No signal at all on 7415, sadly, but booming in here on the internet. A classic RTTW this evening.

The state of the personal computer industry, December 2004

I noticed this at the end of a New York Times article about the greyline dealings of some entrepenureal internet marketeers. This poor guy has the same problems as just about everyone else who owns a windoze computer. I liked the way the NYT website capitalized `random' with effect.

John Morgan, 51, owner of a truck brokerage service in Columbia, S.C., said the onslaught of e-mail messages that he had received after filling out forms related to a Consumer Research offering overwhelmed the computer he used to run his business.

Maybe you shouldn't give your e-mail address out to anyone unless you have a legitimate reason to do so? I suppose the "consumer research site" has no problem selling your e-mail address to spammers. Didn't you read the fine print? At the very least use a throwaway e-mail address that has off-site storage instead of your business computer.

RANDOM spam filled the in-box he relies on for orders, and legitimate e-mail messages got lost, he said. The situation worsened when he tried to use the "unsubscribe" option on a spam note. He said his computer locked up, and after it was restarted, files began opening 50 to 60 times in row and the computer ran at a crawl.

Don't use Internet Exploder. Don't use Outlook Express. Don't click on unsubscribe requests. You have been 0wn3d by the spammers. Don't blame "consumer research" for your stupidity, unless their web site says explicitly that their website will not give or sell your e-mail address to spammers.

Of course, it could be another spammer from another place where you dropped your business e-mail address on the internet who is ultimately responsible for making all that malware appear in your inbox and your web browser.

Although ultimately the company assisted him in efforts to eradicate the spam, he said, it has remained a problem. "Once it gets put into all these systems, there's nothing on God's green earth that will stop it," he said.

I guess I've been too hard on you. No problem, I'll reformat yer hard disk. I strongly suggest that you change yer e-mail address and take greater care protecting yerself in the future. Did you wanna save any files before I give this computer a frontal lobotomy?

Magic mushrooms

Tonight on the Secular Bible Study on WBCQ, the host referenced a book with a strange title that instantly lends itself to googling: The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross.

In a series of articles called Mushrooms and Mankind, The Shaman Shop reveals a review of this work, including the following:

"John Marco Allegro, one of the worlds leading philologists, an original translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls, head of the official Jordanian translation team, put his neck on the line when he wrote his book, The Sacred Mushroom And The Cross, which made numerous connections from sacred doctrinal enigmas and sacraments to the Amanita muscaria. He fearlessly attempted to expose the reality of the mushroom symbolism throughout the Bible, Apocryphal writings, and The Dead Sea Scrolls. He was fully aware of the criticism his book would draw, yet as a true scholar, knowing the importance of the information, he put self aside for the good of all."

Heh, a little critical analysis to ponder on.

And the Radio Legion show on 5PM Sundays on WBCQ played National Lampoon's Deteriorata and a Tom Petty song called Last Dance With Mary Jane. There's the remaining conceptual continuity bits that tie this article back to Saturday's show.

radio Obscura 2 loses it's way

The original radio Obscura machine has suffered a hardware fault and is offline. This private webcast machine is somewhat notorious as having originated the wbcq.com "after hours" webcast reliabily every day for at least two years. Today the machine was sitting at one of those ominous boot prompts that said something like "press F1 to continue or press F2 to specify boot device" where no hard disk drives were recognized by the system's BIOS. Bummer.

I had anticipated this system's imminent failure, as it's boot disk has been making strange sounds for some time, although Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server was not able to detect the ominous sounds or any errors of any kind originating from the soon-to-crap-out hard disk drive. I figured I'd just let it run 'til it was done and see what happened.

A cold boot brought back the operating system, so the system is not quite failed. However I thought it was prudent to power down the machine and let it rest for the extended weekend while we tried to find a replacement drive. After all, we migrated the bulk of radio Obscura to a new machine back in the summer, and this system was doing beta tests for the new version of SAM and relaying a nice random feed of Hour of Slack episodes and the occasional Radio Free Euphoria show -- so we didn't lose any data at all, just this server's webcast.

I sometimes get nostalgic when long running servers start to die, especially those that have faithfully served their mission reliably for a long time. Two years of constant service is not too bad for your typical souped up desktop Dell machine, but under conditioned power and safe corporate surroundings, I am a bit disappointed that the disk drive wasn't reliable enough to go for some real uptime records.

Holiday preparations

What would the holiday be without lots and lots of food? Here is a great dip to start us out.

Kim's Hot Bacon Cheddar Spread

Note: This recipe can be cut in half for a smaller portion – use this recipe for parties.

2 – 8 oz. Pkg. Cream Cheese, softed
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp. Crushed thyme
salt and pepper to taste
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
½ cup sliced scallions
1 lb. Bacon, cooked crisp and crumbled
1 cup crushed Ritz crackers

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350°. Mix together the cream cheese, mayonnaise, and spices until well mixed. Add the cheddar cheese and scallions. Place in shallow baking dish. Sprinkle with cooked bacon crumbles, and then the crushed Ritz crackers. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown on top and heated throughout. This recipe can be put together ahead of time and put in the refrigerator overnight if needed – I would probably cook refrigerated recipe a little longer to ensure that it is heated throughout.

Smilky Thanksgiving!

This just in from my friend Captain Ganja. This was so hilarious I expectorated my beverage! I need to go and clean off my monitor now.

The Koontz Letter

I discovered this letter in a very old book I found in my dear Aunt Audrey's stuff at the family reunion in August. I'm a bookworm and grabbed a lot of interesting books from Audrey's collection, including a c. 1867 "Primer Dictionary" where I found this old letter in the front cover. Digital scans of the letter are hyperlinked with my transcription. Verbage in the letter I couldn't positively decipher is contained in [brackets]. Please e-mail me if you notice any obvious flaws or can provide corrections or clarifications. (I've shut down the comments feature on my blog for the time being because I was tired of dealing with the spammers. I wonder what S.C. would have thought of them.)

I surmise from the author, Ms. S. C. Jennings, that she was born on or before 1874, which would make her about the same age as my great grandparents. I hope I do her memory well by transcribing her letter and posting it here. She seems to be happy in her new life in Ohio, but at the same time I feel she's a little nostalgic for the down-to-earth life in Broadway, Virginia, in the spring of 1919.

envelope
Mrs. P. M. Koontz.
Broadway.
Virginia.

Route 1.

1
New Carlisle, Ohio.
March 1, 1919.

Dear Mrs. Koontz,

March sure came in
like a lion in the country. Cold and windy
here, believe me. Received your welcome
letter in due time, always glad to hear from
my Va. neighbors and friends. The wind is
blowing a hurricane to night it is penetrating
this room, and I have the gas turned on full,
but can feel the cold coming in all the same.
Why Mrs. Koontz, if I remember correctly
you told me last summer, you was going
out of the turkey business. Now you write you
think your turkeys will lay early. Raising turkeys
has become second nature to you. You can
not quit it. You don't have to bother with
turkeys. You have done your share of such
work. Moi I have no plants of any kind. I
have ceased to bother with such things, in
the flower line. I have one [nu calla lily]

2
that has been doing fine, has had four bloom
since I brought it here. A lily is drying up now
on it. I love to attend to it. Iska only has
one window for flowers, and she has a large
fern. The lily and fern fills the window.
Preparing something for the table does not
concern me any more. I help Iska some
time to get a meal , after the [plans] what to
get. I always find something to do. Can't
be idle, not my nature to be. When there
is nothing more to do as Iska's, I come
around here to Willie's. (Where I am tonight)
Can always find something to do here. Where
there is three children. I attend to all
Willie's [darning] and [patehing].
So C. H. is improving Bina's house. Does he
expect to make that his future home? [Meaning]
after buying our place, he would go to to the
expense of building some where else,
and where is Ella? Some changes in that neighborhood

3
since I left. C. H. is not carrying on as big
as he once thought he would, when he bought our
place. Alice had a letter from her Lawyer
last week. Saying the place would not be
resold for some months yet. C. H. cut off his
nose to spite his face. When he sued Alice.
Alice could also employ a Lawyer, seems so
strange to me that house is vacant. I can not
realize all the changes that have taken place
in the last year. You said Mrs. Thomas
payed you all a visit, or a call. Did she go
to see Bina? If so, I thought she had no
use for C. H. and wife. She is a peculiar
woman. She asked me to write to her. I
did so last Oct. She replied to my letter. I
sent an answer, and that is the last I have
heard from her! Yes, I read of Luther
Striekler being operated on. Have not seen
anything in the paper lately. Therefore presume
he is getting along alright. I hope so.
Sunday night. Just came back from Church.
Been to church twice today. Have been to

4
Church often since I have been in Ohio.
than I was in ten years, while I was in Va. I have
joined a Sunday shcool class of Women from
45 to 70 years of age. 25 in our class to day.
They have class meeting once a month at
someone's home. I have been to three, one
of my neighbors always comes around for
me. am going again tomorrow night. They
read some in the Bible. Gossip some. Some
dainty refreshments. Such as ice cream
and cake. And a dime or so out of your
pocket book. I enjoy it all. All the women
in out class are so friendly and nice.
Iska and I went to Springfield two weeks
ago to buy myself a coat. It is a long broad
cloth coat. Gave $25 for it. It ought to be
nice at that price. Will send you a sample
of my silk dress. Don't say I am getting
proud in my old days. When one is with
the Romans, they have to do as the Romans
do. The woman of my class wear silk and
satin and fine coats, and I have to be in style.

5
This has been a pleasant day, after the
storm of Tuesday and yesterday. Many
such days as to day has been. You people
in Va. will be thinking of making garden.
I have nothing of that kind to think of
any more. I am surprised at myself that
I am as well satisfied as I am living this
kind of life. So different from what I have
always been used to. Every day or so, it is dress
up to go calling, and down town. I let Iska
go by herself sometimes, and I stay and
keep Virginia. I get tired dressing and undressing.
Mrs. Koontz, please tell me the
number of the Route D. B. Reid lives on.
Tell Mr. Koontz there is a man here in
this town the very image of him. Looks
and walks just like he does. Maybe a few
years younger. Will not detain you

6
any longer. When you feel like replying
do so. Always anxious to hear from Va.
and the news of the neighborhood.
Hope this finds you all well.

Good night.

From your friend,

S. C. Jennings.

Thought for the day

"The whole secret lies in arbitrariness. People usually think it easy to be arbitrary, but it requires much study to succeed in being arbitrary so as not to lose oneself in it, but as to derive satisfaction from it. One does not enjoy the immediate, but rather something which he can arbitrarily control. You go to see the middle of a play, you read the third part of a book. By this means you insure yourself a very different kind of enjoyment from that which the author has been so kind as to plan for you. You enjoy something entirely accidental; you consider the whole of existance from this standpoint; let its reality be stranded thereon. I will cite an example. There was a man whose chatter certain circumstances made it necessary for me to listen to. At every opportunity he was ready with a little philosophical lecture, a very tiresome harangue. Almost in despair, I discovered that he perspired copiously while talking. I saw the pearls of sweat gather on his brow, unite to form a stream, glide down his nose, and hang at the extreme point of his nose in a drop-shaped body. From the moment of making this discovery, all was changed. I even took pleasure in inciting him to begin his philosophical instruction, merely to observe the perspiration on his brow and at the end of his nose."

-- Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or (1843) in Bretal's 1947 Kierkegaard anthology.

Back when MTV didn't suck

I found this in my local used record store today. It looks like it dates back to the early eighties and the beginning of MTV

"Have you 'stereo-ized' your TV? Hear MTV: Music Television in stereo on your FM receiver. For details call your local cable company.

"You'll Never Look At Music The Same Way Again."

CNN ESPN ABC TNT FOX but mostly BS

A nice theme, reflecting our current mood, from Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Gil-Scott Heron. Read on, or listen to our webcast. These tunes are now bumped up in the queue in our playlist.

Television, The Drug Of The Nation
by Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy
from the album Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury

MP3 available here

One Nation under God
has turned into
One Nation under the influence
of one drug

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

TV, it satellite links
our United States of unconciousness
Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
the methadone metronome pumping out
a 150 channels 24 hours a day
you can flip through all of them
and still there's nothing worth watching

TV is the reason why less than ten percent of our
Nation reads books daily
Why most people think Central America
means Kansas
Socialism means unamerican
and Apartheid is a new headache remedy

Absorbed in it's world it's so hard to find us
It shapes our minds the most
maybe the mother of our Nation
should remind us
that we're sitting to close to. . .

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

TV is
the stomping ground for political candidates
Where bears in the woods
are chased by Grecian Formula'd
bald eagles

TV is mechanized politic's
remote control over the masses
co-sponsered by environmentally safe gases
watch for the PBS special

It's the perpetuation of the two party system
where image takes precedence over wisdom
Where sound bite politics are served to
the fastfood culture

Where straight teeth in your mouth
are more important than the words
that come out of it
Race baiting is the way to get selected
Willie Horton or
Will he not get elected on . . .

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

TV is it the reflector or the director?
Does it imitate us or do we imitate it
Because a child watches 1500 murders before he's
twelve years old and we wonder how we've created
a Jason generation that learns to laugh
rather than abhor the horror

TV is the place where
armchair generals and quarterbacks can
experience first hand
the excitement of video warfare
as the theme song is sung in the background

Sugar sweet sitcoms
that leave us with a bad actor taste while
pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars
You saw the video
You heard the soundtrack
Well now go buy the soft drink
Well, the only cola that I support
would be a union C.O.L.A. (Cost of Living Allowance)
On Television.

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

Back again, "New and Improved",
we return to our irregularly programmed schedule
hidden cleverly between heavy breasted
beer and car commericals

CNN ESPN ABC TNT but mostly BS
Where oxymoronic language like
"virtually spotless" "fresh frozen"
"light yet filling" and "military intelligence"
have become standard

TV is the place where phrases are redefined
like "recession" to "necessary downturn"
"crude oil" on a beach to "mousse"
"Civilian death" to "collateral damages"
and being killed by your own Army
is now called "friendly fire"

TV is the place where the pursuit
of happiness has become the pursuit of trivia
Where toothpaste and cars have become sex objects
Where imagination is sucked out of children
by a cathode ray nipple
TV is the only wet nurse
that would create a cripple

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
On Television . . .

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
Gil-Scott Heron

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally got down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
about a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.

A sure cure for the winter weather

Prepare, mix and heat:

2 28 ounce cans crushed tomatoes
6 carrots
1 large white onion
3 potatoes
6 celery stalks
1 can lima beans
1 quart water
2 cayenne peppers
Old Bay seasoning to taste

Cook 20 to 30 minutes until veggies soften up, then add

1 pound crab meat.

Lenny Bruce Pardoned by New York State

From the New York Times, relased about 4PM ET on December 23, 2003:

Lenny Bruce, the pioneering, ribald comedian who died of a drug overdose in 1966, was given a posthumous gubernatorial pardon today for the obscenity conviction that some supporters believe hastened his demise.

Gov. George A. Pataki of New York said his decision to pardon Bruce nearly four decades after the fact was "a declaration of New York's commitment to upholding the First Amendment."

On December 21, 1964, Lenny Bruce was convicted of delivering an "obscene perfomance" in New York. Today's posthumous pardon corrects a wrong committed forty years ago.

Grateful Zappa

A strange coincidence this evening on our radio Obscura ~ the frop in Bob's pipe ~ Maharishi Charms ~ Happy Girl Cigarettes ~ Wake and Bake audio stream. We're entertained by eight straight selections alternating between Frank Zappa and the Grateful Dead, quite algorithmically random, in reverse order:

1. Grateful Dead - Scarlet Begonias [June 26, 1974, Dick's Picks 12]
2. Frank Zappa - Dead Girls of London [original L Shankar version from the "Leaterette" bootleg]
3. Grateful Dead - Viola Lee Blues [from the "live dead" quasi-bootleg, c. 1966]
4. Frank Zappa - How Could I Be Such A Fool [from vinyl]
5. Grateful Dead - Me and My Uncle [super-hyper-fast version, 12/1/66]
6. Frank Zappa - Stuff Up the Cracks [woiiftm outtakes 07]
7. Grateful Dead - Stealin' [original single version]
8. Frank Zappa - I Ain't Got No Heart

This is an awesome start for the holiday weekend.

Radio Cima

Thursday, November 20, 2003, 0150, 4960. Radio Cima from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic has been strong here the past couple of nights on both the R-75 and the portable. Last night I listened to a couple of hours of lively, upbeat and entertaining music somewhat reminiscent of Ecos del Torbes way past midnight on 4960. They're back tonight, at 0152 giving a nice 333 signal. I've verified them on air now between 0130 and 0530 on 4960 with a consistent stream of lively music.

Weather Underground reports that Santo Domingo's current temperature is 85 °F with a heat index of 97 °F. I suppose I'd be more in the mood for some lively music as well if I was there instead of the cold stormy downpour we've been subjected to today here in Maryland.

Also noted this evening in the tropical bands:

4939.65, presumed Radio Amazonas, Venezuela, with mellow music at 0205, signal 322.

4919.0, Radio Quito, Ecuador, with very loud and hyperactive announcer at 0207, signal 434 overpowering the Atlantic coastal sweeper.

4874.95 Rdif Roraima, Boa Vista, Brazil. News broadcast in Portuguese with F announcer, 323.

4845, Mauritania with seemingly endless talk in Arabic/African language. Disturbed but strong and steady signal this evening, 444.

4830, Radio Tachira, San Cristobal, Venezuela. Difficult copy, best on lower sideband, steady 322.

Politically Correct Internet Censorship

It appears that Time Magazine has removed a 1998 article written by George Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft describing why it was a bad idea to remove Saddam Hussein at the end of the first Gulf War. Thanks to The Memory Hole and Slashdot for bringing this to my attention. I am archiving the censored article here in the interest of anti-political correctness.

"Why We Didn't Remove Saddam"

George Bush [Sr.] and Brent Scowcroft
Time (2 March 1998)

The end of effective Iraqi resistance came with a rapidity which surprised us all, and we were perhaps psychologically unprepared for the sudden transition from fighting to peacemaking. True to the guidelines we had established, when we had achieved our strategic objectives (ejecting Iraqi forces from Kuwait and eroding Saddam's threat to the region) we stopped the fighting. But the necessary limitations placed on our objectives, the fog of war, and the lack of "battleship Missouri" surrender unfortunately left unresolved problems, and new ones arose.

We were disappointed that Saddam's defeat did not break his hold on power, as many of our Arab allies had predicted and we had come to expect. President Bush repeatedly declared that the fate of Saddam Hussein was up to the Iraqi people. Occasionally, he indicated that removal of Saddam would be welcome, but for very practical reasons there was never a promise to aid an uprising. While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome.

We discussed at length forcing Saddam himself to accept the terms of Iraqi defeat at Safwan--just north of the Kuwait-Iraq border--and thus the responsibility and political consequences for the humiliation of such a devastating defeat. In the end, we asked ourselves what we would do if he refused. We concluded that we would be left with two options: continue the conflict until he backed down, or retreat from our demands. The latter would have sent a disastrous signal. The former would have split our Arab colleagues from the coalition and, de facto, forced us to change our objectives. Given those unpalatable choices, we allowed Saddam to avoid personal surrender and permitted him to send one of his generals. Perhaps we could have devised a system of selected punishment, such as air strikes on different military units, which would have proved a viable third option, but we had fulfilled our well-defined mission; Safwan was waiting.

As the conflict wound down, we felt a sense of urgency on the part of the coalition Arabs to get it over with and return to normal. This meant quickly withdrawing U.S. forces to an absolute minimum. Earlier there had been some concern in Arab ranks that once they allowed U.S. forces into the Middle East, we would be there to stay. Saddam's propaganda machine fanned these worries. Our prompt withdrawal helped cement our position with our Arab allies, who now trusted us far more than they ever had. We had come to their assistance in their time of need, asked nothing for ourselves, and left again when the job was done. Despite some criticism of our conduct of the war, the Israelis too had their faith in us solidified. We had shown our ability--and willingness--to intervene in the Middle East in a decisive way when our interests were challenged. We had also crippled the military capability of one of their most bitter enemies in the region. Our new credibility (coupled with Yasser Arafat's need to redeem his image after backing the wrong side in the war) had a quick and substantial payoff in the form of a Middle East peace conference in Madrid.

The Gulf War had far greater significance to the emerging post-cold war world than simply reversing Iraqi aggression and restoring Kuwait. Its magnitude and significance impelled us from the outset to extend our strategic vision beyond the crisis to the kind of precedent we should lay down for the future. From an American foreign-policymaking perspective, we sought to respond in a manner which would win broad domestic support and which could be applied universally to other crises. In international terms, we tried to establish a model for the use of force. First and foremost was the principle that aggression cannot pay. If we dealt properly with Iraq, that should go a long way toward dissuading future would-be aggressors. We also believed that the U.S. should not go it alone, that a multilateral approach was better. This was, in part, a practical matter. Mounting an effective military counter to Iraq's invasion required the backing and bases of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states.

The key to the universe

I have documented the key to the universe, or at least how things are interrelated in this part of the universe. This graphic summarizes my findings nicely. Note that some of the references are arcane inside jokes that you probably don't want to know about anyway.

Isabel storm surge

This amazing image (thanks Mom!), taken a quarter mile from the Chester River Bridge on the Kingstown side of Chestertown, Maryland, shows how much of a storm surge hit the Chester River in the wake of Hurricane Isabel.

22 hours without power

Power just returned here at 6PM ET on Friday September 19, which coincidentally is Talk Like A Pirate Day. The middle atlantic region is flooded, washed out, and full of broken trees and downed power lines as I write this. We are so fortunate here that power came back on at 6, after being down since 8:15PM last night. We weathered the storm just fine, and all of our friends and family around the region are safe, albeit highly inconvienced, from the hurricane that swept through here over the last day.

243 days uptime, busted by a power failure

My intranet web server running OpenBSD 3.0 was up for 243 days bfore a power failure took it down this afternoon at about 3PM eastern time. The other OpenBSD boxes here had uptimes of 195, 93 and 51 days, and they survived the power failure on battery backup.

I was really bummed about the web server. The last time I encountered a server up for more than a year was a NetWare 4.11 box that did around 500 days before it needed a reboot.

That all seemed trivial when I watched, on tv, the failure of the northeastern power grid in the United States.

Last login: Thu Aug 14 15:48:59 2003 from 172.16.1.100
OpenBSD 3.3 (GENERIC) #44: Sat Mar 29 13:22:05 MST 2003

Welcome to OpenBSD: The proactively secure Unix-like operating system.

Simple Daemon

Got a gleam in

His one and only eye.

"Human users

Are system abusers."

He said, with a sigh.

"My only recourse is

All system resources

To daemons I shall tie."



http://www.multicians.org/multics-humor.html

Terminal type? [vt100]

uptime

11:24PM  up 51 days,  7:09, 1 user, load averages: 0.08, 0.08, 0.08

ssh 172.16.1.100

root@172.16.1.100's password:

Last login: Thu Aug 14 07:28:05 2003 from pumpkin.tst.tracor.com

OpenBSD 3.3 (GENERIC) #44: Sat Mar 29 13:22:05 MST 2003

"I have no fear of the future. Let us go forward into

its mysteries, let tear aside the veils which hide it

from our eyes and let move onward with confidence and

courage."

-- Winston S. Churchill

Terminal type? [vt100]

uptime

 3:08PM  up 93 days,  5:01, 1 user, load averages: 0.20, 0.11, 0.09

MOTD

Blimp sighting

Jane sighted the Goodyear Blimp over Mount Airy on Wednesday morning, May 21, around 10:00am. Pictures coming soon.

Wonderful Wino

Bringing in the sheaves...

Late in the summer of '69,
I went downtown, and bought me some wine.
I've wasted my head on three quarts of juice,
And now the grapes won't cut me loose.
I'm a wino man, don't you know I am?

36, 24, hips about 30.
I seen some wench and I start talkin' dirty.
She looked at me, and raised her thumb.
and said "Jam on down the road, you funky ass bum!"
'cause I'm a wino man, don't you know I am?

I went to the country,
and while I was gone,
A roller headed lady
Caught me wheedlin' on her lawn.
I'm so ashamed, but I'm a wino man, and I can't help myself.

Well, my drug indulgence
And my wino career are in a slump,
And I found myself now living
In a cardboard refrigerator box down by the Houston Dome

I'm so ashamed.

drinkin' all night an' my eyes are all red.
i left my father jones and i don't know which way to go
gimme five bucks and a hot meal
gimme five bucks and a hot meal

-- Frank Zappa.

Spring has arrived!

Tonight, on the eve of a terrible war, we are blessed here with a reminder of the change of the seasons. Last night, a couple of our local pond frogs woke up from their long winter's sleep and began peeping. Tonight, the remaining several hundred or so awoke and are giving us a fantastic show. They sound particularly energetic this year, perhaps because of the still melting remnants of the blizzard of 2003, which happened one short month ago.

Twenty six inches of snow

That's the final count, measured a couple of places in the yard. We are still snowed in here this afternoon after this weekend's blizzard. We have the fifteen feet of driveway left to shovel out, and it's the hard part next to the highway with all that packed down, mushy stuff.

• It's scary waking up to finding three feet of snow drifted onto the roof outside the bedroom on the second floor.
• Today's major task, cleaning out the driveway. Whew.
• Cool drift on top of Shed #1's roof.
• View from the road.
• How long will the garage roof hold up with two feet of snow on it?
• The driveway. Whew, again.
• There are shrubs underneath those huges piles of snow next to the Famous Shed.
• There's only a couple of feet to go before the grape vine is completely covered.

The story of Jo

This morning we took Jo the cat to the vet to get spayed. That in itself isn't such a remarkable event, but Jo is a feral cat we captured a couple of months ago. Tonight, if all goes well, she'll be spending her first evening in our home, after being in a cage in the shed for a while.

I've been torn between the idea of keeping a wild cat in a cage for so long, as opposed to simply getting her medical attention and releasing her back into the wild. Re-releasing her here where we live is not an option. We live on the state highway, and there is no other feral cat group around here -- she'd be quite literally on her own facing an unhappy future if we released her here. Our only humane option was to try and get her warmed up to human contact, and possibly prepare her for adoption through our local SPCA organization.

She was incredibly wild when we enticed her into a humane trap using tuna fish. She got loose in the garage and climbed the wall up to the rafters in about two seconds. However, we persisted and have given her attention and care over the past couple of months since she's lived in a big cage in one of our out-buildings. I now firmly believe that, for a cat, being kept warm, fed twice a day, and coaxed and treated kindly, even in a cage, is far preferable to trying it on your own in the cold winter, with nothing to help you and plenty to go against you. I am filled with the strongest possible revulsion at someone who would abandon an animal in such a way.

Today, Jo is still rather wild. Jane has been working with her every day, starting with a feather on a stick to get her used to human contact. We haven't even been able to touch her, but she's slowly becoming more and more relaxed at us being around. She was surprisingly calm when we moved her into a small cat carrier and drove her to the vet. This time she didn't escape, freak out, climb the walls and hide.

Now, as things go, we've gotten attached to Jo, so we will be trying the next big step starting this evening -- adopting her as our own. As long as we can help it, this animal will never have to fend for herself outside again. Even if she only warms up to two human beings over the rest of her life, it's better than dying alone and unloved on the highway.

Ode to vacation

Key West rocked! It was a bit of a shock leaving a sunny, cloudless 80 degree setting with a nice warm gulf coast breeze blowing for 20 degrees four hours later here at home. We are nostalgic already, so we're presenting a couple of live web cams to keep us wishing we were still there..

Environmental Circus, 518 Duval Street

Hogs Breath Saloon, 400 Front Street

A bit late, but we planted our Christmas tree

Going on four years, now, our early January tradition has been to plant the Christmas tree on New Year's Day. We finally got around to planting our little white pine tree from Christmas 2002 today. We were a couple of days late because it's been raining non-stop here since New Year's Eve, and no one wants to get sick hanging around in the rain right before vacation starts.

For Christmas 1999, we got an extra tree as a gift---a beautiful blue spruce from Jane's brother Mark---one of our two 'millenium trees.' Both of our millenium trees survived last year's drought, and with any luck, they will keep growing big and tall for years to come.

Pine trees are very cool. In addition to giving the birds a home, they give us a privacy and noise shield from the state highway in front of our house. And the bigger they get, the less grass there is to mow.

A sign..

Over the weekend we visited Lynch, Maryland for the first of two Christmas celebrations with our family. At my parents place, way out in the back yards in the orchard, our old friend Sylvester the cat is buried. During an early morning walk, Jane stopped by and talked to Sylvester for a while, and asked him to give her a sign saying he was okay.

Later that morning my mom told Jane she heard a cat meowing in the back yard. Jane got her sign; Sylvester's doing okay.

Happy holidays to all!

Goodbye, Capital Centre

The Washington Post is reporting today that the Capital Centre was destroyed today in a ceremonial explosion.

Looking up at my collection of ticket stubs framed on the wall, I'm reminded of the time I spent at the Capital Centre. I had floor seats for Yes on February 12, 1984, on their 90125 tour. Their stage setup included a big flying-saucer disc shaped like the drawing on the album cover. I remember the cool humidity seeping from the plywood covering the hockey rink's ice.

I saw ZZ Top there on May 27, 1986, way up in the nosebleeds in section 204. I saw the revived Lynyrd Skynyrd there twice, in 1987 and 1988, as their fading tribute band was winding down before being revived again and again in later years.

I remember seeing Iron Maiden at the Cap Centre on a cold evening in January, 1985. Maiden's pyrotechnics and music were top notch.

I saw the Grateful Dead twice at the Cap Centre. For some reason I don't remember very much from the show on September 12, 1987. However on September 5, 1988, I happened to be visiting Town Hall in College Park when I was given a pair of tickets to the Dead show in the Budweiser sky box. That was surreal, watching the throng of Deadheads in a suite twenty feet above the crowd. I have several recordings of Dead shows at the Cap Centre, including one I had a chance to go to but declined -- September 27, 1981. I now regret passing up this show to study for a Chemistry exam.

Robert Plant did a Honeydrippers set when I saw him there on July 30, 1985.

The last show I saw at the Capital Centre was Fleetwood Mac, on Sunday, November 30, 1997. The outrageous $75 ticket was probably the most I've ever paid for a concert, but since Jane really, really likes Fleetwood Mac, it was $150 well spent. By then, they'd renamed the Cap Centre "US Air Arena," as was the trendy thing to do in the 1990s.

By the time I write this, the arena with the sloping top that looked like a Pringles potato chip will be history, to be replaced by a mall. That's just what Prince George's County needs. If it were up to me I'd return the Cap Centre parcel to parkland, like it was thirty years ago.

Chain saws and random wire antennas

The ice storm we experienced here earlier this week trashed my long wire antenna, so the first thing to do this weekend was to restring the antenna. I had great luck with the setup destroyed by falling limbs during the storm, and the only lingering problem with this antenna has been that it picks up a lot of A/C noise I traced to a noisy flourescent light ballast or two in the basement. It's only a minor annoyance to turn off some lights to get rid of the noise, but I thought I could do better since I had to restring the antenna anyway.

There are a couple of great antenna backgrounders at the Boston Area DXers page and they've helped me a lot. Basically, the problem gets down to proper grounding and shielding. For my new antenna I ran coax from in the house to the antenna connection on the outside of the foundation where the little antenna wire hole is. I'd run coax up to the second floor where the antenna's long element takes off, but Jane and I both have this thing about unnecessary coax running on the outside of the house.

This worked great. The only remaining fifty foot section of antenna that wasn't snapped by falling pine and mulberry tree limbs, combined with the coax feed line, gave satisfactory reception throughout the band with very little noise.

Then I decided to string another fifty to sixty feet of wire past tree number one back to a huge tree in the woods behind my back yard. Reception is great for strong stations, but A/C noise is back in the region between 4MHz and 8MHz. This noise doesn't seem to be dependent on the flourescents or anything inside.

The new antenna is oriented differently than the old one. If I remember my long wire hacking from last summer, I had noise problems with this patricular config as well. I have no idea why; there are no A/C sources, lights or anything near by. The only noise source is large overhead power lines thast are a half mile away. Perhaps the longer wire (>100 feet) exhibits directional tendencies that are picking up the noise from the overhead power lines?

I will have to re-orient the wire and see if the noise problems go away. The noise really messes with DXing the tropical and pirate bands!

But while the sunlight was still with us, I had to warm up the chain saw and cut up the results of the ice storm that ended up in my yard. This is turning into a pattern, as it's the second or third time this year I've had to cut up a bunch of wood that's fallen out of our old trees and is unfit for fireplaces or wood stoves (huge half-rotten mulberry branches and pine). At least we have an outdoor fireplace on loan for the winter, so here in a couple of months this junk wood will make for a nice controlled bonfire.

Ice storms suck

It's been four years or so since we saw an ice storm as nasty as what hit us here yesterday. The power's been out at home since 20 minutes after 1 PM on Wednesday, and this morning it looked to me like the entire town of Mount Airy was dark, including all the shopping centers and traffic lights. And to make matters worse, falling branches took down about two thirds of my shortwave antenna and have created a huge mess in our back yard.

On the other hand, it isn't that incredibly cold here and we can get by on carry out food for a bit longer. And as long as there are Triple-A batteries, there is radio. And the sun's out today and all that nasty ice is turning into more much-needed food for all of the the plants and trees around here that have seen several very dry months.

A breath of hope on the radio

I have to admit, I don't listen to FM radio at all anymore, unless I'm in my vehicle. But, like most of my peers, I'm in traffic on the way to and driving away from work every weekday -- at least seven and a half hours a week. I try to keep calm from the ever persistent road rage tendencies by listening to music. There's nothing like a crufty Dead show from 1969 in rush hour traffic.

But sometimes I don't have a disc to spin, so I try and spin the dial to see what's on.

Kirk, Mark and Lopez are okay in the morning. I've been listening to Lopez doing news on the morning ride for at least twenty five years. Larry the Cable Guy's call-ins are almost always hilarious.

But these guys don't play any music, and worse, they're so popular with the "young adult male" demographic that they play, like, six or seven minutes of the most annoying commercials ever heard, in blocks two or three times an hour. I've heard that stupid Microsoft certification training commercial so many times, that even now the people making the commercial are saying "you've heard this commercial a thousand times, but..."

And as interesting as KML often is, they unfortunately have really stupid and annoying sidetracks into topics like wrestling and nascar, with commentary from classic people-who-need-to-get-a-life.

As the father Owl said in the classic cartoon I Love to Singa, "Enough is too much!"

So, what do we have left to listen to? I have de-programmed all Clear Channel-owned stations off my car radio (like DC-101 in Washington and B-104 in Baltimore), not just because Clear Channel has, in many ways, contributed to the destruction of American commercial radio, but because the Clear Channel-owned stations play a continously sterile playlist of highly programmed shit you've heard a thousand times before, and/or shit they'd like to cram down your throat because the record company that owns the music has paid them a lot of money to do so.

What's left to listen to?

The Greaseman is back; even though he's only on AM, his home-studio-produced show via WGOP is strong and steady on my commute to work, and he never fails to entertain.

Then I heard that Towson University's FM station was dropping their new-age jazz format for "adult album alternative".

I couldn't make WTMD's transition, because I was in-transit to Orlando and Melbourne to learn about some cool secure wireless networking technology. But on my first commute back to work after the snow day last week, I tuned to FM 89.7.

Wow.

I have a new favorite on my dial, even though their signal's right on the border here in Montgomery County. WTMD is doing an all-music format, liberally mixed with local music. Way cool. They're public radio, and not feeding from the slop mindlessly programmed by the commercial radio clones.

HFS is a far away memory, now -- there's not a personality on that station that's not an annoying boob. I zapped 99.1 for 89.7 on my car radio in a heartbeat, and I will send WTMD a couple of bux for the holidays. In fact, I will send them some bux every time they ask for contributions from now on, as long as they continue the format they're playing today -- the format they're basing their future on -- the format that I optimistically hope knocks the Clear Channels off the air. WTMD's rebirth is truly a breath of fresh air and hope for the FM band.

It was thirty nine years ago today

This evening, on the drive home from work, our local NPR outlet was playing a retrospective narrated by Walter Cronkite, where he shared his insights into President Kennedy's assassination, and his unique position at the televison news desk on that day. What was most interesting was the interpolation of ground-to-air tapes of communicatons between government aircraft and Washington in the time immediately following the tragic events in Dallas (not to mention Mr. Cronkite's always compelling presence--almost forty years later he is as sharp as ever).

This is another fine bit of radio journalism from All Things Considered. I'm still a little pissed at WAMU for cutting bluegrass in favor of news/talk, but at least the news/talk is of the highest caliber.

Cosmic debris

Once in a while I'm really envious of my friends and relatives who live on Maryland's eastern shore. Early this morning is one of those times. This year's Leonid meteor shower was a really spectacular show here, even with the city light pollution of Baltimore 30 miles due east and Washington 30 miles southeast.

Jane started counting meteors at around 5:10 AM EST (1005 UT) here. All sources said the peak viewing time here was between 5:23 and 5:47. Counting the streaks of light in the sky this time turned out to be like counting raindrops, though. Between then and about 5:50 we saw several hundred, ranging from the tiniest of streaks to golden trails all over the eastern sky.

Over on the shore, facing east towards the ocean and dark skies, I'm sure those who braved the early winter chill were able to see much more.