A lot of water under the bridge...

since I last made it here!

Literally...figuratively...

I spent June working 5 day weeks, picking up an extra day to cover someone who was out injured. I thought I was putting money ahead for our 4th of July party; instead I ended replacing a hot water tank. We still had the party and dinner (fireworks are still legal here); though things are "tight" I'm glad to be back to a 4 day week! Though I'm down 40 pounds and a lot of inches since I rejoined the work force, it takes one to feel like doing anything after 4 and 5 left me still aching when I went back after 2 off, lol.

There is much to do around here still before fall finds its way to the Plains as well, though with the current heat wave I'll be doing it in early mornings and back in by noon. Right now it's 100F. (37C.) on the north side of the house in the shade...the humidity adds about 10 to that right now and I don't deal with it like I used to! (There was a time I'd have gone out and fished all day when it was like this and not even noticed...of course, that time was about 100 pounds ago!)

So for this afternoon it's inside projects...there are always enough of them as well!

I hope life is being kind to each of you!

alan

The months fly by...

and the whirlwind keeps on spinning.

Since I was here last, my son and his family sold one house after a lightning round of repairs after the inspection; moved into temporary "digs" with my sister, splitting all their belongings out into 3 storage facilities; then bought a house. That latter meant that spare time was moving their stuff a pickup or vanload at a time for 3 weeks, followed by a final 26 foot U-Haul truck to clear the last of the storage places.

My work weeks take a lot out of me; juggling the rest of my life is about all I've had time for of late. I never intended to let 6 months slip by without finding a few moments here; the only reason I made it today is I had to get up early to take care of a few other things that went more quickly than usual.

I hope that life and the world are being kind to each of you...

alan

Keeping my nose to the grindstone...

has paid off; I was asked to become "permanent part-time" instead of being a "seasonal" employee the other day.

I'd have never thought working 4 days a week could shoot such a hole in my life (with some 5's thrown in through the holidays)! Dottie and I finally had our first day off together between our schedules since before Christmas this last Sunday!

That said, we got through the holidays, managed to make all the family parties and survived both our birthdays, along with a couple of seasonal bugs and rounds of anti-biotics. The 5 year Delco battery in her Malibu died on schedule, replaced of course, by a Die Hard Gold...we've shoveled as much snow so far this winter as we got all last winter...

Life is pretty much keeping on keeping on!

One nice thing about the holidays being over is I have to take hour lunches now instead of 1/2 hours, so I'm taking books to work to read. I put away a history of Chicago Jazz from 1904-1930, a book that didn't just deal with King Oliver going up the river and Louis following him, but the socio-political-financial stew that made it take hold and grow before it migrated off East to New York as the "social reformers" and gangsters battled it out for control of the city.

That led me into a well written biography of Glenn Miller, because Miller, along with the Dorseys, Benny Goodman and others all played there in the days before Swing became King. I'm 2/3 done with it, and my Amazon list is growing accordingly...

Now it's time to put together some potato/bacon soup for dinner. Sorry I let things here sit for so long before I found my way back...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

That "Day of Infamy"...

is always a hard one for me.

In early December of '73 I stood on the flight deck of the Kittyhawk as we pulled into Pearl Harbor; the ghosts dancing in my head as I tried to envision that terrible morning. Hundreds of photos, newsreels and all of the movies from then and now have only added to the spectres, but not like one piece I read a few years ago. An interview with an "Arizona" survivor.

A man who, luckily enough, was below deck and aft when hell was unleashed. Though shaken and deafened, he made his way topside and was trying to help others off the ship as he made his own escape.

He saw a shipmate he knew who seemed completely dazed and in trying to guide him, grasped his elbow.

The arm crumbled beneath his fingers, the skin and muscle flash-charred to ash...his shipmate dead but still walking.

Nothing will ever lessen our loss that morning! The passage of time; the loss of those who lived through it; the refusal of our modern corporate media to discuss it; the number of supposedly educated who have no idea what the date was, where Pearl Harbor is, or the living breathing ship pictured above that became an instant tomb for so very many that horrible day.

The movie "Pearl Harbor" from a few years ago shows them using cargo nets to retrieve the bodies from the harbor...it wasn't something they made up!

The years and the dwindling numbers of those who lived through that hell on Earth have done nothing to lessen their sacrifice. With the 70th anniversary of that attack and our entry into WW2 approaching, please look around you at anyone you see who is in their mid-80's and thank them! Whether military or civilian, all gave something to the effort that allowed us to be here, whether it was an active military role; the industrial outpouring that supported them; the scrap and food drives and rationing that supported all!

And as you listen to the voices of today proclaiming "me" and "mine", wonder along with me if that effort would ever be possible again!

"Remember Pearl Harbor" is a cry that needs to never be allowed to die!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Photo is from the Navy Archives; the USS Arizona in the late 1930's, blue toned by me.

The clusters of teachers huddled in the hallways as we came in from recess were nothing new. That they stayed there so very long after the bell had rung had happened before as well. Last time they had whispered to each other; the words inaudible but the tone of worry obvious.

But the stifled sobs were something we hadn't heard before...the wiped tears as our teacher came into the classroom and dismissed us for the afternoon. There was no doubt for any of us that something was wrong.

Last time I had walked to our babysitter's house to find her husband there, slightly snockered, telling her how we were all going to die from the radioactive fallout of the missiles that were going to hit the SAC base at Omaha, Nebraska and the Air Force base at Topeka, Kansas. I didn't really understand the Cuban Missile Crisis at 6 going on 7, but the fear of every adult in my life was palpable.

This time I didn't know what to expect...

But the last thing I expected was to walk in the front door of the babysitter's to see Walter Cronkite removing his glasses as he announced the death of John F. Kennedy. The lump still rises in my throat these many years later, and the tears still well in my now old eyes.

I told someone not long ago that sometimes I think I've lived through too many events like this. Too many times the vise has gripped my heart and extracted its price. Still, though you'd think I'd be smart enough to steel my heart against the horrors wrought by human against human, I've never been able to.

Not so many years later, I was invited to attend a summer band camp at the University of Kansas. My first extended trip away from home, my mother lectured me all the way there about do's and don'ts and not "disappointing" my parents. As we arrived she finally stopped and I turned on the radio.

The announcers were discussing the death of Robert Kennedy, early that morning. In my luggage was his book "To Seek a Newer World", my first "venture" into modern political thinking. Fueled by all I was seeing on television of the Vietnam War and the protests; the race riots both on television and at home in Kansas City following the murder of Martin Luther King, I had heard Kennedy reading a bit of one piece of it and was spellbound by not just his voice, but by the words he spoke; by the heart that spoke through them.

I've written before of that feeling of a bright burning flame that was dimmed to a flicker that day. Of the spirit of "can" and "can do" drowned out by the voices of selfishness; of greed; of dividends and tax-cuts.

I've seen the America I grew up believing in reduced from a country that was "ours" to "mine". A place for "everyone", to a place for "us".

I've watched as those I served with gave their all off the coast of Vietnam; I've mourned as they died in their barracks in Lebanon, on rescue missions in the desert of Iran, or while in peaceful harbor aboard the USS Cole. Never "ours to question why", history will judge some of those who spilled their blood much more harshly than they could ever dream.

I've watched as the nation that (justly) pursued, prosecuted and executed war criminals for waterboarding civilians turned her back on history; on all that was good and just about her self, and did the very same thing to others...

On this sad anniversary, I look back and wonder how different things could have been...

And I wish, sometimes, I could close my eyes, for just a little while...

I'm tired of seeing train wrecks!

May the week be kind to each of you!

And on Thursday, whether you celebrate the holiday or not, I'll be giving thanks for each who find their way here!

alan

Discovery...

of so many things has occurred since my last entry here...

Discovery that having given up the assembly line in 1999 and gone to a mostly forklift job at GM left me very unprepared for spending 12 or 13 hours on my feet, climbing steps, climbing ladders and constantly walking, most of it "with a sense of urgency".

My job is much the same as it was at GM those last years; unload it, or put it away; find it and deliver it; find it and schedule it's delivery. The forklift has been replaced by my legs, along with dollies and pallet jacks; the RF monitor that was on the forklift the last few years replaced by a "gun" that has at least 7 or 8 screens I've found or been told of so far, only 3 of which can you be "logged into" at any one time.

I've filled part of a little notebook with how to make "the gun" do this or that; each day it seems I learn one more thing, especially when I work with someone I haven't worked with before. None of the hours of training I went through dealt with any of this; that was all about dealing with customers, or benefits, or some of the paperwork for shipping things...mostly things I never deal with.

I do deal with customers sometimes when I deliver a "rush" to it's intended department or the front of the store to await the customer's checkout. Usually it's a "can you tell me how much this is" or "where can I find...". I know how to get the price out of my RF gun now, and some things I can give a vague idea of location, though usually I try to use the "walkie" on my belt and get someone who works in the department to help them.

I'm being a bit vague because given the "conservative" bent of my employers and the knowledge that I'm not (in most things, anyway) I don't want to identify them or them to identify me here.

Between training, then following people in the warehouse around for 3 days on half-shift, then pulling three 8's in a row, it took 3 days for my legs to stop aching the first week. The 2nd it was two; last week I did 4 and the 3rd night was miserable. That last day I remembered something from the body building magazines and added a teaspoon of Glutamine to a glass of Quik and 3 hours later my legs hurt less than they did that morning when I got up to go to work...I'm hoping I'm onto something here!

My weight is dropping rapidly; about 15 pounds in a month; I've punched 3 holes in my belt in that time...

All in all, I think this is going to work out.

Sorry about the lack of time to update of late, let alone for Facebook or Twitter...'til I hit on that Glutamine, it was several days before I felt like doing anything but sitting (or lying) and by the time I recovered I either had things to do at home, or it was time to go to work again.

Time to go buy an oil filter for my truck...running it on Mobil 1, it's been 18 months since I changed it, though barely 4,000 miles. The Silverado has some kind of sensing system in it that decides when you should change it, and the other night as I left it said "it's time". Funny, it still looks almost new, though I know it's probably the moisture it's picked up from the short trips it usually is driven. In the manual it says it might come on at 3,000 or at 15,000...had it been anything but synthetic I'd have changed it at 12 months even though the mileage wasn't there yet.

I'll be here more often now, given exceptions for Dottie having some vacation days coming up and the Holidays...

Not sure how I'm going to like my first "Black Friday" in "retail" since 1972...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Back to the future...

Among the many irons in the fire of late, I've been rekindling my knowledge of trumpet related things. I lent my grandson one of mine, and having not been able to play for the last 20 some years because of my teeth, I'm amazed at some of what's changed in two decades...

First was the band book he came home from school with...including DVD.

This week I've learned there are no truly "full line" music stores here! They can all order this or that and have it in 3 days, but don't expect to walk in and get a mouthpiece today unless it's the very basest average of beginner models. Not to mention that the prices out of New York have doubled, but locally they've tripled or quadrupled if you call around.

You used to be able to go buy 2 or 3 to try and return the ones that didn't work for you. You still can out of New York; up to 15 of them...if you have the credit card balance to cover them all.

Not locally!

When I lent my grandson a beginner trumpet (more a matter of smaller bore than quality) I lent him the shallowest mouthpiece I could dig up to go with it. My own, the jewel it took me years to find "back in the day" is much deeper and has a wider rim because of the lips my Dad used to refer to with an ethnic slur that still bothers me.

Dillon doesn't have that problem and what I lent him is a bit much to make it easy on him...

I finally came up with the Bach 7C last night, the one I should have sent with him the first day, 3 weeks later, stuck somewhere it shouldn't have been (like many things around here). If I could find one locally I'd also have him try a "10 1/2C" (even shallower, makes higher notes easier, better for "thinner" lips and smaller lungs).

In my on-line explorations and reading I've found out that some of the idols of my youth used a mouthpiece I'd never heard of, a "Parduba 'double-cup'" that has a shallow cup for upper register, but at the bottom of it is a 2nd deeper cup to allow more air to fill in the tone throughout the range. Louis Armstrong used one through the 40's and later. It also turns out that Dad's idol, Harry James used one from '35 on. James had grown up playing in his father's circus orchestras and the legend had it is that all the playing and practice were what had built his range and tone...

My hope (fingers crossed) is that I can try a pair of those and find one that will let me pick up the horn again and play enough to satisfy "the urge" without putting so much pressure on the porcelain bridge I've already blown up once ($2500 in 1989) that I have to replace it again! (Both times I begged the dentist for a full plate I could "glue" in, knowing many of the old-timers had made that work and was told that this was so much better an option. For eating, yes, it has been, but there is more to life sometimes...)

Even better is that, pending background screen and such, I have a job starting in a few weeks, so I should be able to order those and not have to feel guilty about it! Part-time, 3 days a week...I had hoped for 4 but we'll see how it plays out. They said if I survive the holidays I'll become a "part time" employee instead of "seasonal"...I plan on surviving!

Other things I'm finding that amaze me are the forums available on "the net" that cover instruments, technique and such, along with fully written out transcriptions of some of the solos I spent hours taking apart spinning 33 and 78 rpm recordings of...Dad would have really been upset had he figured out how many times I spun some of his old shellac discs before I got my first cassette recorder and wired it into an old turntable so I only had to spin them once and could then wear out the tape I made!

In the mid 80's, when I had that first "bridge" and started playing again I was still spinning 33's to play with because so much was unavailable on CD. I'm looking forward to playing with some of those now, as 33's changed pitch as they played, starting out flat as the needle rode the outside edge of the disc and slowly going sharp as they spun faster when it moved inward on the album. (Sadly, during that stint in the late 80's, I used enough pressure as I worked into the upper register that I snapped the steel posts out of the root-canaled teeth supporting that porcelain bridge and not only had to have it rebuilt, but now it has even less support than it did then.)

If I get my desktop running again (driver issue) I'll fire up Deezer and see what mp3's are like as well...

Having that outlet was always a means of expression that came easily...so many times it was much easier to "bend a blue note" than to find the words for whatever was bottled up inside me.

Through all these years, I've never stopped "hearing" the music "in my head"...hearing what I'd have played to solo or counterpoint any given thing at any given time. My fingers still run through the fingerings as my mind flies...

Perhaps letting some of that loose will make way for more practical things!

May the weekend be lovely and kind for each of you!

alan

Watching the wheels go 'round...

So many posts I've written in my empty head these last weeks, though never getting them transcribed...

My son's house is on the market finally- for what it is and it's price I'm confidant it will sell quickly, though there are a few odds and ends that still need doing. The sign went up in his yard a week ago, and after a day to recover I spent the next one taking care of the lawn and gutters I'd neglected during all the other chaos going on in my life. Today I'm glad as the rain from Tropical Storm Hermine is just south of me now and we're supposed to get up to a foot of it in the next 36 hours or so.

What spare time I've had, snatches of a few minutes here and there I've been reading a memoir. "Last Night I Dreamed of Peace" I heard about in an NPR interview before I retired and bought it last holiday season with a gift card I received. Transcribed from diaries saved by the intelligence officer told to burn them, it is the diaries of a lady doctor serving her country in the combat zones of Vietnam in the late 60's until her death in 1970. I can't help but think of the doctor killed in Afghanistan, Karen Woo. In reading her blog (reference is a link to the story, her name is a link to her blog) I feel guilty sitting here in the relative comfort of my living room...

Dang Thuy Tram's memoir is especially poignant for me as a few years later I was off the Vietnam coast on the Kittyhawk, serving with pilots who probably overflew her and that she refers to in her writing; most certainly with aircraft that did. Her references to "us" have a lot of the same rhetoric I hear being used to describe others by many of "us" today...less than human terms...terms that not only imply a lack of understanding, but a lack of intent to ever understand.

I am always awed by the intolerance of this world...be it by one religion for another...one race for another...awed and sickened!

A beautiful artist I know through this blog world has recently been asked to leave a venue she loved because of someone else's intolerance for her. She has a knack with brush that touches my soul, yet someone can't see the beauty in her work and has decided that she has no right to show it.

I see the news of religious intolerance in New York and Florida...

Churches burning in other states...

Tea Party people asking for instruction manuals for "Wyoming displays" ...

The "enlightenment" I thought was beginning two years ago...a great age of tolerance and understanding that would lead us to great things is being overshadowed by those who fear losing their grip on power, be it the power of money or the power of "control". Those who would rather drag us kicking and screaming back to the 19th century instead of entering the one we are in.

Finally bringing me to my own point of intolerance!

Because I refuse to let them do that...to me, to you; to my grandkids or yours!

"Over the last three years, most victims of terrorism have been Muslim. So there’s not a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, but between extremists and moderates of all the religions. ... What is important is not to live in fear. The most dangerous [thing to do] is to give up and lose hope. The main enemy is not terrorism or extremism, but ignorance"

Queen Rania of Jordan

That applies to so much in this world!

Or, in the words of someone wise beyond his age:

"We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others."

Will Rogers-1924

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Re-education...

seems to be confronting me from all directions at the moment. Skills I've let lie dormant are being called forth to do battle with things left behind by others who either didn't have them or didn't care...so far, mostly, with good results.

My son is getting his house ready to market, on a fairly short timeline and there has been much to do to get it ready. I'm lucky he operates well on less sleep than I without falling apart mentally or physically. I'm also very lucky that he learned sheet-rocking from my brother-in-law, as I didn't really learn it from anyone and it's always turned into more of something along the lines of auto-body work for me!

His wife has been busy painting anything that stands still long enough; over the weekend my wife even got in on that part of things as we were fitting and hanging doors. Today has been an "off" day for me as he has my truck so he could pick up plywood to take to someone else to make cabinet doors for him. I voted this morning, then took a nap (I've come to look forward to those of late) then spent some time in my little gym.

Yesterday I saw my doctor and was told that I'm good for another twelvemonth and that he'll see me then, something he's picked on me about in the past. (Only seeing him when I'm healthy...)

Last night we all took a night off to go watch my youngest nephew get his Eagle Scout award from the Boy Scouts. His older brother and their father having been Eagle Scouts makes it a very special rarity, from the way it was explained. Tomorrow he goes back to college, where along with working on his teaching degree he managed to adopt a Cub Scout troop last year and plans to continue with them this year as well. My oldest grandson is now in my nephew's "home" troop...I hope I'm around to see him get his Eagle award as well!

As I write it's 102F. (39C.) with a heat index of 110F. (43C.) on the shady side of my house. Our warmest day in 3 years according to the local weatherman. I'm glad I'm inside, listening to the window-unit air-conditioner cycle! When I think of the times I'd go fishing for 8-10 hours on afternoons like this I wonder what was wrong with me! I sure don't deal with it well now!

I've been spending minutes of my "slack time" as I find it reading a book of essays by Amy Tan...one that has really struck me discusses how our languages lock us into our viewpoints as well as our societies. I'd like to think us wise enough to see beyond that, but sadly know that has to be something we work at; something that doesn't come naturally.

It's primary day in Kansas and shark week on Discovery Channel...there's a correlation there that should be a warning to some of those with their names on the ballot! I've done the best I can for today and will have to wait for November now, with somewhat a sense of dread as our we haven't managed to elect a Democrat for a Senator since 1932...I'll be glad to see Sam Brownback go, but not sure I'll like his replacement any better!

On the national level I'm still astounded at the abundant hatred that finds its way into the rhetoric on every issue and on every level. It's as though it had been bottled up somewhere behind a dam for the last 40 years and now, given a chance to burst forth into the sunlight that should have made it wither in the light of understanding, it instead is being fueled by the bloodlust of intolerance.

A mongrel product of this nation and its melting pot; I can point out ancestors from most of Europe. I also know that others, from other places are mixed in as well, along with some who met their boats when they got here. I had ancestors on both sides of the "War Between the States", or as some would have called it "The War of Northern Aggression"; one of my grandfather's grandfathers died in his butternut wool (Confederate) uniform in the hills of Tennessee a very few years before a re-united Congress passed the 14th Amendment that seems to be the newest point of attack on the agenda of those who think that every person they hear speaking a foreign language is an illegal immigrant.

It's truly sad to see the "worst in us" encouraged instead of the best...

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Letting sleeping dogs lie...

Much like my old dog, though I haven't been doing more sleeping or lying about than usual (actually less), I have been lying low.

Dottie took two weeks off around the 4th of July, some to get ready for the family 4th we held here again this year (fireworks are still legal); we had planned on fishing some (thanks a lot for the 8" of rain in June and 3" so far in July) and getting the house exterior ready to paint (see note about rain above).

Instead, some things inside got done; my nephew came to visit for 3 days for the first time since before he left for college and we went out to 3 movies in 2 days, besides the ones we watched here. "Karate Kid" (Jackie Chan better get an Oscar); "A-Team" (not George Peppard's crew anymore, and though I remember them fondly, it was a nice update); and the newest "Twilight" (nicely done...wonder when Bryce Howard will be letting her kids watch it).

Nephew got history lessons in watching "Twelve O'Clock High" with my narrative and me pausing it each time he started texting...(I believe if you are going to watch a movie, watch the movie) and the sequel to "American Graffiti", "More American Graffiti". Of course, he wanted to re-watch the original first; the 2nd is actually a pretty good documentary of the "late" 60's...Scott Glenn and Candy Clark steal the show...yes, that Scott Glenn; the one from "Silverado".

My knee has finally, after 7 months, eased or healed enough I started walking on the treadmill again for the first time since I partially tore the quad and bruised my femur last December. After 10 days of slowly building my time, speed and incline, I finally started lifting weights again as well and already feel better than I have in months. We shall see if I can re-engineer myself into something I don't mind looking at in the mirror now...

The photo I led with was taken the night of the 4th; it was Angel's best 4th ever (she's pretty close to deaf now). With two intermissions for rain we had everything done but the sparklers when the 3rd deluge began about 11. We saved the sparklers for a week, John, Noel and the grandkids came back for dinner last Saturday and I cooked honey stir-fry, then we finally concluded the fireworks. In the 50 years I remember, this is the closest we've ever come to a "rain-out".

I hope life is being kind to each of you!

alan

As the losses mount...

for all of us, but especially those who live along the Gulf, this clip speaks to the ones that haven't been thought of yet:

The reports keep coming in of workers not being allowed protective gear; not being allowed to seek outside medical attention without being cut from the payroll...

I worked with a lot of dangerous chemicals for part of the time I was at GM, running the phosphate coating system for the bare metal between the body and paint shops. There were known carcinogens you weren't supposed to breathe; there were other chemicals that would be immediately absorbed through your skin before you could wipe it off if you weren't wearing rubber gloves. Most of the time I was very careful about taking every precaution advised as I did my job.

I am grateful I was allowed to!

Between the EPA, OSHA and our President, you'd think someone could make sure these workers are allowed the same opportunity!

Just recently there was a huge settlement to pay the rescue worker from September 11 who were poisoned by the collapse of the buildings that terrible day. The military, far too late for far too many, is finally owning up to it's poisoning of our soldiers in Vietnam with Agents Orange and Blue.

How long before these workers, trying to save an eco-system from a modern day "robber-baron" the likes of which the world has never seen, are fighting to have their needs taken care of while their poisoner returns to paying dividends?

July 4th approaches, along with our annual celebration of our independence. Perhaps we need to declare our independence once again, from corporate tyranny!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

A bit of credit...too little too late!

Information Pioneers: Hedy Lamarr from Information Pioneers on Vimeo.

I had read mention of this years ago, but this is a better explanation of the technology. Like so many things through the years, she deserved better at the hands of our government.

I remember reading of the government refusing to pay Nicola Tesla royalties for his patents, saying they were in dispute by Marconi; then when Tesla died in '43 they told Marconi that Tesla's patents were in order and he had no claim...

It would be nice to think they wouldn't do things like that now, but I have my doubts!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Time for a break!

I've been so caught up in the world's tragedies of late, both current and past, that it's time for a mental break! Besides the Gulf and reading up on Minamata disease I've been studying a lot of WW1 documentaries; suffice to say it's amazing how many of our current problems in the world can be traced back to "The Great War" and it's ending. I always knew that the lines drawn on the maps back then had come back to haunt us; I didn't realize how much politicking had gone on behind the scenes to create them.

A man of the time observed that "the United States had never lost a war nor won a conference"!

Seems old Will (Rogers) was right again!

3 weeks ago my wife went on vacation for 2 weeks; we did some things here, some planned some not, and finally got the boat out for the first time this year, to the delight of the grandkids who got to ride and take turns driving.

When she went back to work my daughter-in-law left for a concert jamboree and my son decided that was a good time to tear out their one bathroom, to the subfloor and the studs. When I didn't have the grandkids Dottie did and I went to help him; it's back together now and in much better shape than it began.

Since then it's been catching things up around here, trying not to float away in the rain and watching far too much news.

A photo of Jean Harlow on a friend's blog today made me realize it's time for an escape, so wen I sign off here I'm digging out "Red Dust" or "Bombshell" and slipping away for a while...

May the world be kind to each of you!

alan

The Black Lagoon...

sadly, one no creature could live in!

British Petroleum's oil was 9 miles from Pensacola, Florida when I got up yesterday...

Last night it was in a wildlife refuge just a few miles outside New Orleans, 2/3 of the way through the wetlands lying between the city and the ocean.

When those wetlands die (and they will die from this poisoning) that means the next hurricane the sets her sights on the city that Katrina couldn't kill will have miles of a head start.

And like that iceberg that sunk the Titanic, what we can see is only an "nth" of what lies beneath...though British Petroleum would like to deny that their dispersant agents are causing the oil to "suspend" beneath the surface, the Jean-Michel Cousteau has posted footage of it and much more since.

If you'd like to read more or see more footage, here is a link.

I've mentioned before my Grandmother passing along the belief she learned from the Native Americans when she and my Grandfather were on the reservations; the one that says before you decide anything you should consider how it will affect not just your generation, or your children's, but the next 7 generations who will live with the consequences of what you decide right now.

I fear more than 7 generations will be dealing with the decisions that led to this and the ones being made in their wake! This afternoon I was watching footage as a reporter turned over the rocks at Prince William Sound, Alaska and the tarred rock still lying there was exposed so many years later...Exxon has plowed right on, but they sank the lives of an entire ecosystem as they fed their greed. I don't believe, in the end, British Petroleum will be any different.

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

W. Eugene Smith

A few weeks ago someone on Twitter asked how much sushi they could eat without worrying about mercury. My reply was to ask if they'd ever heard of Minimata Disease.

I spent a lot of time when I had my first computer looking up people I had admired through the years; I still do as new information pops up all the time.

When my Dad and I first started playing with photography around 1967, we knew someone who was a member of a black and white "salon print" club, started attending meetings and then joined. Among the many names of the photographers they all admired I kept hearing of W. Eugene Smith. If you've seen WW2 photographs from "Life" magazine, you've most likely seen some of the work that made him famous.

In the early 70's he and his wife moved to Minimata, Japan as he worked on a photo essay about the effects of the Chisso Corporation's dumping of mercury in their wastewater from 1937-1968. The disease named for the city, first diagnosed in 1956, was the result of the mercury accumulation in the fish and shellfish that those surrounding the bay lived on. Though the deaths had gone on for more than 30 years the government nor the company did much to halt them.

Smith tried to use the power of the photo essay to make the world take notice of the plight of the villagers. His reward was a beating at the hands of company employees on January 7, 1972 that was so terrible that his sight in one eye deteriorated, his health was permanently damaged and slowly worsened until his fatal stroke in 1978. Their attempt to stop his work, however, failed as he still finished his essay, including a photo called "Tomoko Uemura in her Bath"; the most famous of the series, showing a mother bathing her crippled daughter. Though withdrawn from circulation by Smith's widow Aileen at the request of the girl's family after her death (she gave the copyright to them so they could decide when and where it could be used) a Google search will still find it. Barack Obama has cited seeing it in a textbook as part of what has influenced his view of environmental issues.

The photo I'm going to include here is "Tomoko's Hand", from Wikipedia and credited to the Aileen Archive. Smith's widow Aileen has continued his fight to bring the attention to Minimata disease. His prints are yet again on display at a museum on the East Coast right now; his wife was just in Japan for a commemoration of the anniversary of the date the disease was tied to the mercury discharge from Chrisso's plant.



Chisso had paid small settlements even before WW2 began for other chemicals they had released into the fishery; as this began they deployed water treatment systems that didn't really treat the water; legal maneuvering; minimal financial settlements...their tactics seem to have been a blueprint for other companies all over the world, ones we've become all to familiar with.

They continue to this day; there are still lawsuits, still "spin" going on (one of the newest is referring to "Mad Hatter's Disease" instead of calling it "Minimata Disease" to disassociate themselves from it).

As I look out into the Gulf of Mexico and see all that is transpiring there; as I think of the $500,000 acoustic shut-off valve that would have shut the well down immediately when the "blow-out preventer" the company had "altered" from it's original design and left with dead batteries in it (the acoustic shut-off that is required elsewhere in the world but exempted for all wells in the Gulf by Mssr's Bush and Cheney); as I see the almost million gallons of a dispersant that's been illegal to use in Britain for 10 years because of it's toxicity; as I see those who had their hands on the throttle as the train left the tracks allowed to say what can and can't be done towards clean-up and mitigation...

I sometimes wonder if we ever truly learn from anything!

May the weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

Who will be next?

Not what I was planning for my next post, but when the link popped into my Twitter stream this morning, I had to share. Something I wasn't taught in high school and didn't learn of 'til I'd come home from serving in the Navy; something that led to a lot of examination of other aspects of "our" history (and others) that continues through today.

Something that convinces me that no matter how high we hold our "torch of freedom" it can be gone as quickly as "a candle in the wind"!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

So many irons in the fire...

and all of them gnawing at my innards!

Watching BP deny that no matter who they hired to set their rig up, it's their lease that's ruining the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico...

Watching more and more come out about the "Magdalene Laundries" and their victims, along with the other abuses of "organized religion" that rate higher in the news; those who abuse alter boys; those who hire rent-boys...

Watching those who would like to re-write our history try and alter our textbooks to censor the things they'd rather not know...

For days these have all spun and whirled in my mind; half-mentally-written blog posts flood my thoughts. Today I found a link that reminds me that even in the darkest of moments we have to cling to hope...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126557553

I wish I could embed that so you got the first photo instead of just a link! It's an NPR story about the art that was created by the American citizens we locked in detention camps at the beginning of World War 2.

Were I still working, I'd have heard that story on my radio as I was an "NPRaholic". Today it turned up in a Twitter link from a Japanese writer I've been following as I catch up on Minimata disease and other news from beyond our borders. I'm thinking of trying to write about Minimata as I stumbled into it through photography and what happened to one of those I idolized as he covered it.

Thunder is shaking the house now and my weather alert radio is going off; I should shut this down now so I don't take a chance on a lightning strike!

May the week be kind to each of you!

alan

Don't it make my blue eyes red!

Watching as we yet again destroy a large portion of our food chain; the livelihoods of millions; and the worst part; the ecosystem that billions of lives depend on...hearing RFK, jr. on CNN explaining that the acoustic shut-off valve that would have plugged this well the minute the platform was no longer connected and is required everywhere else in the world was exempted on all platforms in the Gulf...

all I can hear echoing in my head are the words "when will we ever learn"?

That, pitted against the goings-on in Arizona; seeing racism and hatred legislated into law instead of out of it for one of the second time in less than a year... Though they backed off a bit this afternoon, re-writing a bit of it, I still wonder when they'll start pinning the little yellow stars on people; when they'll decide they don't like old bald guys with freckles...am I next?

Since I have little bits of everything in me, are we going to send my arms back to France and my legs back to Ireland? Does my nose get to stay for the bit of Indian blood in me?

I've been tired for a long time of those who assume every Latino/a they encounter must be an illegal...or every time they see an Vietnamese or Hmong that they must be a "boat people".

There's very damn few of us in this country who's origins are "from here"! Mine are from France, Ireland, England, with some Native American and probably some African mixed in. Each time I hear those words "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses" that are etched on that beautiful lady in the harbor who greeted some of those ancestors of mine, I'm grateful to the one who put them there; his neighbors probably wanted to lynch him!

I worked for someone once who was 2nd generation Polish-American. His grandparents had immigrated here just before the turn of the century to escape religious persecution in Poland. With children born both in the old country and the new one, the children were quick enough to pick up the new language, though Mom and Dad never learned enough to be fluent. They managed to pass their citizenship test, but my foreman told me no one spoke anything at home but Polish as he was growing up.

During WW1 they operated a bakery and grocery store; more than once the bigots in the small Kansas town they lived in broke the windows out and painted racial slurs on the front of their storefront, not realizing that Polish and German wasn't the same thing...

How far are we from that again?

How far are we from the interment camps we put American born Japanese in during WW2?

Shall we just start burning those we don't like, like we did at Salem?

When will they decide I'm next on their list?

May this beautiful spring weekend be kind to each of you!

alan

So much for that!

Cruise control didn't last long...I've just been ignoring it since it "kicked out"!

Mowed for the first time last weekend; after the terrace and the side-hill next to the driveway, on top of clearing gutters (lots of trips up and down the ladder and a fall when I missed a rung at one point) my knee was unhappy enough I had to ask Dottie to mow the "flat" parts of the lawn for the first time since she had her hip and knee replaced. Perhaps I'll be splitting all that into 2 days the next time it needs done, at least for a while! Perhaps next time I'll remember the sunscreen on my bald head as well; though it was only about 3 hours outside, I'm peeling...

That was after two days of wrestling with a clothes dryer; I'd never worked on one, didn't have a book, and though I managed to replace the belt and get it running again for just over $20, I spent a lot of time vacuuming lint out of places I'd never thought I'd find it, along with push pins, paper clips and other things the shouldn't be running around loose where I found them. I've cleaned french fries out of defroster ducts in cars before, and crayons out of seat belt reels, but didn't expect that!

This week has been spent filling out more job apps, getting things ready for a family birthday barbecue this weekend and finally, for the first time in ages, experimenting a bit in the kitchen. I hadn't really felt like it for a long time, but finally got out some of the books I'd bought before I retired and tried stuffing chicken breasts and grilling them on the George Foreman. The original recipe called for asparagus, tomato and fontina cheese, but not having fresh asparagus on hand, or the fontina, I subtituted Colby Jack and it turned out nicely!

The birthday barbecue mentioned above is the annual we usually hold for both sons; the younger, John, is 31 today. Last year it was so hard to get the family together that my sister had my nephew's birthday party late at the same time; this year, with him in college, he'll be sharing again. 

This will be the first time our older son, Bill has missed his birthday. At 32 I know we're lucky it's taken this long; I wasn't home for my 18th. Still, it won't quite be the same without him, though I understand that he can't slip home from DC for all the family events. So far his Mom isn't saying much, but I know it's weighing on her.

May the weekend be kind to each of you; may some unexpected joy find you along with a smile or two!

alan

Life is on cruise control...

and it's not that things aren't "going on" but after that last post, one of the nicest pieces of writing I may have ever done, it seems wrong to come back to the "mundane"...

May the days be kind to each of you; may your nights be filled with those you love!

alan