This blog may contain Fair Use copyright material per Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, miscellany, and research on various topics of historical and current events interest. Includes international broadcasting and shortwave radio. Google Plus has disabled Comments for anyone who doesn't have a Google Plus account, so please email your comments to clistensprechen@yahoo.com with the title of the blog entry in your Subject line.
I don't initiate Hangouts, but will attend if invited.
I always get a charge out of the 4H exhibits every year, being a former 4Her myself, but there's been a new 4H category added: robots. As a former robotic technician as well (nothing fancy--just yer average industrial "peanut picker" type), I was interested in seeing whatever might have been entered in this category. As I went in the door of the Expo Center, I was greeted by a very long floor display of the map of the Chisholm Trail across Oklahoma counties up into Kansas.
There were some old photos of previous Garfield County fairs, too...
The order of the photos here are from this sign, which was on the right-most side, progressing to the left...
There were displays of antiques among their Collections category, and by golly I think I might enter that one myself. Coffee pots, perhaps, or early electric appliances. One coffee pot I know would be of interest would be the coffee pot model that got the first patent as a percolator.
It's a stove-top percolator, and yes, it's top-heavy and unstable in use. It has a small, shallow dent on the other side that doesn't surprise me. The patent information is stamped in the grounds basket...
And I'm sure any of my antique radios/Heathkits would qualify. I don't think I would trust anything as fragile as my antique recordings collection which not only encompass my epoxy platters and cylinders but also a wire recording.
I'm sure these antique fans would qualify, and they do still work...BUT!...the variable speed arrangement on both are a big safety risk because of the earliness of electricity use. They both use voltage drops (tapped resistance strip in the base) instead of armature winding taps used today. In operation, the base gets very very hot (temperature) and could cause burns. I deliberately disconnected the motor's windings from the switch with the intention of isolating the voltage drop better; I also reconditioned the oscillator gear box.
Those blades are made of rubber, by the way.
The next one is smaller but more dangerous to operate, which is why the bottom half of the base is missing and sitting in the Mañana Project box at the moment. The voltage divider resistance strip in this one was fragile, isolated only by a thin strip of mica, a natural rock in common use back then, but not now, so replacement parts in that respect are extremely difficult. The wiring sheath was also an issue until I found out that the insulation wrapping was actually silk. Still, natural rubber was used for wire insulation and was likely cracked and unsafe.
Anybody interested in viewing my other antiques can view two albums on Pinterest: Retroblast and My T.A.R.D.I.S. Same is true on Facebook, although one more album exists on Pinterest: Antique Technology, in which may be found re-pins related to steampunk. Items designated as "My T.A.R.D.I.S." are in actual time travel use (except for the fish fingers and custard, of course).
It's not the usual "international radio" we think of when we think of the "world bands" on shortwave, but the Zurich International Radio Festival, mainly FM type radio, is de facto international insofar as it does have global inclusion.
Came to my attention via Yahoo Group DXLD (short for DX Listening Digest), as posted by Mike Terry.
In other news, sometimes a lot of different things worthy of blogging about take place all at once, and this is such a case. Some time ago, the Enid Symphony series "Summer Wine" wrapped up and I had a bunch of videos to post on that, but it took a back seat to other more national events, and just yesterday I attended a meeting of Garfield County Democrats only to discover that one of the reasons I had to be cagey about exactly what I posted regarding a particular City Council meeting also showed up at this meeting. Considering how this particular wardsperson previously voted in favor of cutting the funding to PEGASYS, I was surprised to find her giving a speech as a Democrat. Dog in the manger, if you ask ME. She voted in PEGASYS' favor this last time, but not previously.
The U.S. Constitution is the law of the land, right? Well, sort of. The actual law of the land, according to the U.S. Constitution, is a combination of its own text, the precedents set by Supreme Court decisions, and what treaties we make, and our national alliances are the result of treaties, which are to be treated, per the Constitution, as equally the law of the land as the Constitution itself.
And then there's the War Powers Act. Per the U.S. Constitution, is unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court didn't make a rule on that, which means that it and all its subsequent versions are still law of the land. Where the error occurs in this li'l gem is where it deems that the President had inherent powers rather than sticking to the Constitution's enumerated powers, and it's thereby that the Congress, by statute, abdicates its enumerated power to declare war. Still, in 1973 the War Powers Act was supposed to be a limit on presidential power, but as long as it contains language about some ephemeral concept as "inherent powers" rather than refer to the Constitution's enumerated powers, it'll never do that.
And now Congress wants it back again. Sorry, guys, but until the Supremes rule otherwise, you're stuck with the abdication.
Israel and Turkey are allies by treaty, and the Constitution recognize the President as the BMOC for that, nevermind the abdication created by the War Powers Act. The President does indeed have the authority to act without Congress not only because of obligation to our allies, but also because the Congress signed off on that with the War Powers Act. Deal with it.
Related article--Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Syria Deeply website Related question on Yahoo Answers Next day update: no other country is coming on board, not even Britain, and it is the case that (at least) 2 years of atrocity has occurred in Syria til now. Has Obama proven himself to be no world leader? Judging from the debates in Britain, I'd say it's more the case that Dubya/Cheney gave the globe more reasons to NOT follow U.S. leadership than Obama gave reasons to follow. The hole that the previous administration dug us into was both financial and globally political and it's going to have to take something bigger than Syria to get us out of that hole, financial collapse aside. Aug 4 Update:
A lot of talking-head chatter about how the ghost of the war on Iraq hangs over the Syria matter; so far, none of the chatter I've heard today mentioned how the Viet Nam war hung over the Iraq matter. From this perspective, from the Korean war til present, the U.S. now has an unbroken record of being snake-bit where any war is concerned. Peace, anybody?
Yeah, the old argument about how pacifism gave Hitler his license, but there's the other old argument of that era, the one of "never again". Well, after Rwanda and Darfur, so much for "never again"...and here we are, at yet another atrocity. Never again for atrocities, or never again for wars? Something's gotta give somewhere, and what already gave way were Rwanda and Darfur. It looks like the choice has already been made, and all that's happening now is just running the clock out.
So--when did we run out of drones?
Yemen seems to have been forgotten as a hotspot where all the drones have gone, too.
Sept. 8 Sunday talking heads update:
I was especially surprised at Fareed Zacharia's inability to notice that his guest, regarding presidential powers in view of Syria, side-stepped the legality of treaties as being one reason why a president could have the power to send in troops without consulting congress. The current president has been urged to set that "red line" based on standing treaties, after all, and at the urging of allies party to those treaties.
By the way, Fareed's question of the day is misleading, bigtime. FDR was the first president to visit the U.S.S.R. on official World War II business in official capacity, but it was in the Ukraine, not Russia, and in Nixon's time, Russia as a country didn't exist except as part of the same U.S.S.R. that FDR visited. Confining the question to "first to visit Russia" is intellectually dishonest, and I'm calling SHENANIGANS!
States, therefore members of Congress, are specifically prohibited from treaties individually by Article I Section 10. Only the Senate can advise and consent to treaties entered into by the president--Article II Section 2. Treaties that are currently binding have *already* been agreed to by advice and consent of the Senate, or they wouldn't be existing treaties, so going to congress AGAIN would be unnecessary even when you look at it that way. The executive branch is sworn to faithfully execute that which congress passes, and treaties, having already been passed by Senate advice and consent, simply remain to be executed by the Commander in Chief, NATO notwithstanding.
The North Atlantic Treaty, though, could pit treaty vs treaty, and it does remain one of the elephants in the room with Turkey and Israel being two others. From Israel's perspective, it's being thrown under the bus not just in regards to Iran but also to Syria. AIPAC can't be happy.
UPDATE--Google has disabled my ability to even select Adult Content, let alone any other G+ settings, so it appears that the linkage between this blog and Google Plus remains permanent. If you do not have a Google Plus account and still want to comment on a blog entry, please email your comment, with the title of the entry you want to comment on in the Subject line, to clistensprechen@yahoo.com and I'll have to post that comment for you, if you request reposting.
I do have friends who were boycotting Google since G+ was launched, and respect their preference for not having anything of theirs posted on anything Google, so reposting of a comment is dependent on a request for me to do so.
Google sucks.
Up til today I thought that all I had to do was moderate comments in order to get them posted, but since I linked this blog to my Google Plus audience, it has come to pass than only Google Plus account holders are able to post comments.
That audience is primarily Asian, not entirely English-fluent, and so I've decided to try to break that Google Plus tie-in...except I can't find the controls to do so in my admin panel. The only apparent way to do that is to designate this blog as having adult content, and so I'm going to try to designate this blog that way just to break that linkage.
Thanks to the Spanish speaking activists I follow on Facebook, I got a heads up on the pact that Venezuela signed with the Palestinian Authority to sell petroleum products to Palestine at what's been described as a reasonable price.
And in order to Google an English language article about it, I got directed to Malaysia. Domestic media not covering this? Not surprised. But after the bruhaha Turkey encountered from Israel when they sent a supplies #flotilla to Palestine, I'm wondering if Venezuela is pretending to be naive with an intention of evoking an Israeli attack, or just what that deal is actually involving.
Even though U.S. media is apparently asleep at the switch on this one, it's worth watching for whatever developments may come of it.
From my earliest elementary school days, I never could get a grasp on what the deal with race discrimination was all about, and I credit my years in Catholic parochial school for that mainly because my playmates were of different races and nationalities. In junior high, I had a best friend who was Haitian and she was just as much to blame as my dad for my involvement in shortwave radio. Before my dad introduced me to Civil Defense and ham radio, she had a Zenith Transoceanic by which she'd catch (at least) 4VEH as a means of staying in touch with the home country. The fact that we had two languages in common was a plus, too--English and French (I don't know if Latin counts). Latino or Creole, what counted was that the kids were Catholics and nothing else. Nobody told me there was anything wrong with that, and as I got older and other people tried to tell me what was right and wrong about who to associate with, I found the whole thing harder to understand.
When I started hearing stuff about Martin Luther King Jr. and the race riots, protests and marches, I also heard about lynchings and dogs, hydrants and fire hoses, and thought that was worse. And as long as I hung around Catholics I found myself among, I wasn't alone in that view. Going to public school was when I got a different sort of education on the matter--we're talking southern part of Illinois, where the Civil War gets re-enacted and it's the rebels that get the cheers.
Fortunately, I also learned early on how to test for the validity of statements made by asking questions. Well--it was fortunate back then, at least...and thus I learned the fine points of segregationist propriety and exactly what it meant to precariously ride that line between what was and what wasn't proper. It's from this that I also have a considerable admiration for Follies artist Bert Williams, who succeeded in being a hit with all races quite in spite of that.
Graduated grade school, going into college, registered for a new class in a new department called Black American Studies, which is where I first became enamored of buried history. Right out of the gate I learned stuff never covered in grade school and it's where I first acquired an appetite to find out more stuff about what's never usually taught, and launched myself on a quest for more of that. Forget historians--I wanted to get into time travel, along the lines of the first Doctor Who as portrayed by William Hartnell even though, at the time, the Doctor was portrayed by Tom Baker (another favorite). History that isn't in any book was what I was looking for.
I've said in an earlier entry that I've lived in black neighborhoods, owned a house in one, lived in housing projects and such, and read a book titled "Black Like Me"--a book that should be on every school's mandatory reading list, IMHO. Whitefolk like me can maybe use a coloring agent to change the color of their skins for temporary, but blackfolk are black all their lives--and knowing this also makes me realize that the charge that I'll never know what being black is like may be true in principle, but I have to say that living as one white person in a black community can be very similar in a number of respects.
First of all, when you're the only white person in a sea of black faces, it's a profound feeling of being different and obvious that you never forget. Recognizing that a black kid in a sea of white faces in a white school right after desegregation is enforced can't be different than that is akin to walking a mile in that kid's shoes. Living in a black neighborhood will also give you a whole different perspective on the police, too. How they deal with policing a white neighborhood compared to a black neighborhood is irrefutable as well, so when whitefolk hear complaints about cops from blackfolk, they're inclined to pass the complaints off as nonsense because that's not been their experience.
Not their experience. Recognize that the experiences are indeed different, and in the interest of justice, shouldn't be. We may have seen clear to elect (and re-elect) a black president, but we still have differences in experiences due to segregation. The March on Washington had among its ranks some white folk, and were I old enough at the time, I would have been one of 'em. There are more whitefolk now that would happily join the blackfolk in the strife for actual equality than there used to be, but we still have a long way to go before all whitefolk come to realize that the way they live is NOT the way everybody else lives, and it really IS their business to care about that. It's in the interest of justice.
Black American history isn't pretty, no matter how much the aforementioned certain somebody works hard to pretty it up and tries to pretend that Bert Williams never happened, and that what he achieved wasn't noteworthy. When Black American history is prettied up like that, the March on Washington loses both its purpose and its significance.
A few more things I know about Black American history that is living history, as it's ongoing: too often the "break" that a black person gets into big money is either sports or comic type entertainment, and just because a black person earns bread & butter as, say, a minstrel, it doesn't mean that he/she has no talent in other departments. I can't stand boxing, but I'm a big fan of one particular black boxer. That's because he took what started out as a family sit-com and morphed it into an outstanding drama. I'm talking about Roc. He'll always be known as a boxer, no doubt, but a stellar dramatist? I'm sure he'd suffer the same fate as Bert Williams on that count.
What I also know for a fact is that even though the Wayans brothers made their big money on the TV show In Living Color via spoofery and tomfoolery, they printed up tee shirts to donate to college science clubs for black scientists. It's from the black engineers at Arizona State that I picked up my highly prized Homey D. Clown tee shirt. Pretty up black history pretending stuff didn't happen? I don't think so. This homey don't play that.
(...and I STILL think Damon Wayans is hot.)
September Update: Bill Cosby about why we should remember the Birmingham church bombing. It's pertinent to why we shouldn't pretty up black history.
And another reason has cropped up: Dr. Shiping Bao, who got fired after testifying at Zimmerman's trial for killing Trayvon Martin. He's filing a wrongful termination case against his former employer, but I'm afraid he's going to get a rude awakening about Right To Work states. Even if Florida isn't a Right To Work state, it's still an Employment At Will Doctrine state. All traditionally conservative-run states are.
In my first post about the Martin-Zimmerman matter, I did observe how astonishing how Dr. Shiping Bao, an expert and expected to be dispassionate, turned into something of a hostile witness--hostile to the defense--and I was wondering what the backstory on that phenomenon might be. The truth of that is now out via The Grio, it appears.
