Music of the Day: Bill Sharpe, Hypnotique

It was down the mountain and back yesterday to retrieve My Lovely Bride (MLB) from our airport after her extended travels around many western portions of our great nation. From all reports she had a good time visiting with assorted members of her family; also on the positive side, our frequent phone calls to and from one another disclosed no coughing or hacking or respiratory difficulties on her part. Given the scope of her travel, the hours in various vehicles, and the exposure to who-knows-what sort of bizarre pathogens in the ether in airplanes, restaurants, hotels, etcetera, this is excellent news.

For me, the road trip portion was about 4.5 hours in the car, contending with big-city traffic, truly mad drivers in gigantic souped-up trucks, brain-sizzling heat, and an airport layout that was designed, I believe, by a one-eyed schizophrenic with sadistic tendencies. Getting into and out of our closest major airport requires the patience of Job, the right foot of Richard Petty, the alertness of a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs, and a head full of Prozac or some other mood-altering substance. The signage is nearly incomprehensible, pedestrians seem to be completely oblivious to vehicular traffic, the police appear to ignore all but the bloodiest and most egregious of crimes, and the cost of parking for an hour or two requires a co-signer for a loan. On the positive side, it’s always nice to drive back up the mountain, to the cooler air, and to a place where many people drive at, or slightly below, the speed limit (although this can make one crazy if one follows eight or nine of these people around town for more than a few blocks).

On the most positive side, it is nice to have MLB back home—Max the Wonder Dog has grown tired of my constant mutterings to myself and he misses his “Mom” when she’s gone. That makes two of us. . . .

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Special EFX, Jazz Lambada

Just when you thought things were as bad as they could get, things seem to be getting worse! And worse! And worse! How much worse will things get? Really bad! There’s going to be an actor’s strike! Actors! On strike!

Oh sure, gasoline prices are up to your eyeballs and the economy is in the toilet and it won’t be long before the Iranians have some nukes and don’t eat the tomatoes, they’re poisoned, and health care in this country sucks, and we’re losing the war on terrorism, and the war in Iraq was lost last year, and the only thing we can really hope for now is hope and change and change and hope. But even that won’t save us from the horror of an actor’s strike! It’s coming! Actors! On strike!

No new Adam Sandler movies! No new Oliver Stone movies! No new movies! What will we do? How will we get through the long, hot summer without movies to take our minds off our truly crummy lives here in the United States? Actors! On strike!

The only good news is that the writer’s strike is over—we couldn’t possibly survive a strike that included writers and actors! And, ohmygod, what would happen if the camera-people and sound people and grip-people and stunt-people and caterers and drivers and lighting-people all went on strike along with the actors?!? Why the movie business and the entertainment business and the TeeVee business would all grind to a halt and we’d have to watch re-runs and old movies from way back in 2004 and we’d run out of the good stuff in a day or two, so then what would we do? We might have to read books or engage in conversations or take part in something that wasn’t really all that entertaining! Actors! On strike!

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Anahata, Vishnu

A couple of times in the not-too-distant past I made refererence here to a body known as the California Coastal Commission and its desire to keep the U.S. Navy from SONAR training so as not to "disorient" the sea creatures in the area. There have been a couple of court cases on the matter; here's what I learned today from the Navy News Service:

WASHINGTON (NNS) -- Today, June 23, 2008, the Supreme Court accepted a request by the Navy that the Court review a series of lower court rulings that restrict the Navy's use of sonar in training exercises off the coast of Southern California.

The original injunction, handed down in August 2007 by a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and later amended, was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in February.

In March, the Navy requested the review that the Supreme Court has now accepted.

"My primary job is to ensure that Navy ships in the Pacific are prepared to fight and win in combat," said Vice Adm. Samuel J. Locklear, Commander, U.S. Third Fleet. "These restrictions make it very difficult to conduct the kind of realistic, integrated training exercises that ensure the combat effectiveness of our force."

The court-imposed mid-frequency active (MFA) sonar training restrictions include a requirement to shut down sonar altogether when marine mammals are within 2,200 yards of any sonar source and to reduce sonar power by 75 percent when the Navy detects significant surface ducting conditions, whether or not a marine mammal is present.

The 2,200-yard shutdown zone is eleven times greater than the existing shutdown distance that the Navy developed in consultation with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The requirement to reduce sonar power by 75 percent during significant surface ducting conditions, whether or not a marine mammal is present, will prevent Navy strike groups from conducting training to detect submarines in the same conditions in which submarines seek to hide.

The Navy is trying to strike a balance between the need for an effective combat force and protecting the environment.

"We can protect our national security while simultaneously being good stewards of the environment," said the Honorable Donald C. Winter, Secretary of the Navy. "We are already taking extensive measures to protect marine mammals and we have had positive results from those measures. We are furthermore committed to an extensive data collection effort to help inform our future efforts in this regard."

When using MFA during major exercises or within established DoD ranges or operating areas, the Navy adheres to marine mammal protective measures approved by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the federal regulator responsible for marine mammal protection, issued under a National Defense Exemption in January 2007.

The Navy is also making a significant investment in the science, spending $26 million on marine mammal research this year.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM'S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: A. Ray Fuller, Free Spirit

While munching on this morning’s bowl of Special-K, I was watching the replay of the 1978 women’s final match at Wimbledon between Chris Evert (who lost) and Martina Navratilova and I was struck by a couple of things.

Most notable was the absolute quiet of the match—no grunting, no squealing, no shrieking during the points. None! Just shot-making, running, hitting, retrieving, putting away volleys, and knocking off winners. It sounded just like a tennis match, not a boxing match between heavyweights.

The second most notable thing was the speed of the points, games, and the match itself—not the speed at which the ball traveled, which compared to today’s tennis was pedestrian. The players today, both women and men, hit the ball so much harder, with so much more power, but the play today is so much slower. Actually, I should say that it take so much more time between points—the players dawdle, and towel off, and adjust their hair, and their clothes, and their earrings, and they take little bouncy-steps, and adjust their strings, and then they start the point. It takes for-freakin’-ever.

Right after the Evert-Navratilova match, the 2000 Wimbledon final between Pete Sampras and Pat Rafter was replayed on the tube. No grunting. No tugging at one’s pants before every point, no constant yanking on one’s socks or the re-tying of one’s shoes. And, most importantly, before the serve Sampras bounces the ball once and starts his swing; Rafter bounces the ball twice and starts his swing. Some of today’s players bounce the ball 15 or 20 twenty times before starting the service motion and, of course, now almost everyone grunts or makes a loud exhalation during every groundstroke or service or volley.

Eight years down the road from the Sampras-Rafter final, the pace and weight of shot might be faster and heavier, but the quality of the play isn’t necessarily better and certainly today’s game is noisier and slower. I wrote about this before in this fine space, way back in January of 2007, but all that really means is that I am still, pun intended, disgruntled about this. . . .

On the positive side, I spent about an hour on the court this afternoon against my toughest opponent, the Ball Machine; despite the 95 degree heat, it felt good to mash a few over the net and I even managed to hit the machine five or six times--once well enough that the ball got wedged in the opening where the rotors spin to spit the ball out, causing the machine to grind to a halt. Take that, technology!

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.

Music of the Day: Kim Waters, Got to Give It Up

I stopped at a local pizza joint today for a quick slice before heading back to the ranch. In between bites, and paragraphs from the book I had with me, I eyed my fellow pizza-consumers. Everyone looked happy and normal and, eventually, sated—except for the one guy at a corner table who was reading what appeared to be flash-cards of some kind. I know he was reading them because he was moving his lips. And he was wearing a Che’ Guevara t-shirt. ‘Nuff said.

Today, Friday June 20, was the first day of summer. It was hot today, about 95 degrees. I wanted to complain to someone, anyone, everyone, but then I thought back to the not-too-distant past when I complained to anyone and everyone, friend or stranger, about how cold it was. There’s just no pleasing some people. . . .

Some kind soul told Dear Old Mom about an assistance program for the blind, and the nearly-blind, in her state; she has been visited by some “very nice” bureaucrats who have explained the program to her and now she’s thrilled to be reading again. I’m thrilled, too—even if she is a regular reader of Newsweek, that scurrilous rag. Anyway, she has received three large-print books and some sort of device that helps her see regular print; what’s amazing is that she has some of the old zip and excitement in her voice again.

So, who was Che? He was a Marxist totalitarian of the pro-Soviet variety who established the firing squads that killed thousands after the successful revolution in Cuba and he also established the GULAG-like system in Cuba that housed, and still houses, dissidents, AIDS victims, homosexuals, and others. Why are people like this still revered by Americans on the Left?

I love an athletic or sporting contest as much as the next guy, but I have no intention of watching any, and I do mean ANY, of the Olympic games broadcast from China. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. The bozos who run the Olympics have again chosen a totalitarian society to host the 2008 summer games and this is one viewer who won’t view or support any Olympic sponsor in 2008.

AJ

TO LIVE IN FREEDOM’S LIGHT IS THE RIGHT OF MANKIND.