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Rants May 3, 2009

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1. You know that many lives are controlled by the computer and email and my life is one of them. I admit that I am addicted to email. If you email me and don’t get back at least a “Thank you,” I probably didn’t get it and you should try again and then call me to find out what went wrong. Yes, I admit it. I am weak, I am addicted, and answering your email and commenting on what you and other friends send me, dictates what I think and what I do for a good part of my day. Yes. You knew I was going to give you an example. Because I’m 73 years old you can believe I opened this particular email with a great deal of eager anticipation because --- it said, “Boost your night experience.” I thought I was going to learn something that would help me get more sleep.

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2. You have heard me confess that I am addicted to email. And although email does not direct the course of my life, I very often get something in my email that warrants our attention. Here's an email I got about the swine flu last week that said, "Read my ten page special report on this vital topic so you can avoid deception and manipulation by the conventional media." Of course, what the sender of that email might well mean is, "Read my ten page special report on this vital topic so you can avoid deception and manipulation by the conventional media and be deceived and manipulated by me instead." Do you think that after going through all the bother of writing up a ten page report that this person is simply going to tell us to thoroughly wash our hands with hot, soapy water? Wouldn't you sooner suspect that this person is going to try to sell us a pill or some kind of body-building food supplement?

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3. Can you believe that when I googled cold fusion, I turned up an ad for a tempering valve? The computer gremlins knew that I was out there on the Internet pricing tempering valves last week. And, no, save yourself the time of sending me an email --- I was not planning to attach a tempering valve to my wife.

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4. Bev, who is a long time radio friend in Belfast, sent me a You Tube link to Britain’s version of American Idyll which introduced me to the great voice and personality of Susan Boyle. Susan’s singing was so good it made me cry. While drying my tears, I listened to Susan over and over, and while fumbling around I also found the opera singer Paul Potts who was discovered on the same show. I was raised on Paul's kind of music, and tears came to my eyes when I first heard Paul Potts sing. And it still happens. It has to do with --- I guess you would call it soul, rather than technical mastery. Only a few greats can make me cry with their music. Dick Cash was one. Dick Cash died in 1988 with ALS. My sister Marta can make me cry with her singing. Over 50 years ago Dick's sister, Rita Cash, could raise the hair on the back of my neck with her singing. If Rita Cash had sung professionally in clubs, she would have needed several bodyguards to get home. Although I am not a fan of American Idyll, I applaud the caustic Simon for discovering great talent --- the likes of Susan Boyle and Paul Potts --- that would otherwise never be heard.

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5. May I quote for you a ditty that you will immediately recognize from the writings of Mark Twain?

Conductor, when you receive a fare,

Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,

A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,

A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare,

Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

CHORUS

Punch, brothers! punch with care!

Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

You will remember from Mark Twain’s story that once anyone got that insipid rhyme in their heads, it stayed there. Punch, brothers! punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare! No matter what you did --- eat, socialize, try to sleep --- the Punch, brothers! punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare kept running through your head. It was maddening, and the only way to free oneself from the grip of the rhyme, was to teach it to someone else. What brought this poem to mind? Susan Boyle on You Tube. My radio friend Bev in Belfast told me to listen to Susan Boyle on You Tube and I did. There was something about Susan Boyle that made me listen to her over a dozen times. She was singing a song I’d never heard before and now I can’t get it out of my head. I hear it morning, noon and night. Would you mind if I sang it for you?

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6. Here’s your humble Farmer question of the week. Are you ready? If I have heard of Susan Boyle and the singing contest in England you certainly have. Now you have heard that Susan Boyle might have some competition from a male singer named Shaheen Jafargholi. No matter who wins the singing contest in England can there be any doubt in your mind but what within a year both Susan and Shaheen will be able to pay off the mortgages on their homes? You and I have followed the careers of enough singing stars to know that a lot of money is going to immediately pour in upon both of them. So, your humble Farmer question for this week is --- which one do you think is most likely to die from a drug overdose before the age of 22?

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7. Dear humble. I am at my aunts house in France, we came by way of a small town in Spain called Barcelona. On the way I met an older traveler, with a Slovakian girlfriend, in Tossa de Mar, an ancient village by the sea, we got to talking and it turns out he had been to Maine some twenty years ago. He told me of a great radio show he had heard while there, some Jazz and humorous wisdom, of course he was speaking of your show, in those days it wasn't even on at a reasonable hour! I told him you had been censored because of your brilliant war rant and he was amazed at such nonsense. The Slovak too shook her head in disgust. Anyway … My Aunt and her companion have fixed up a formerly abandoned 400 year old Manganerie, that is a big house they used to raise silk worms in, (Nations as old as these take a lot of maintenance) we'll be home soon, if your sailing past Green's Island stop in for a mussel salad sandwich bonne chance, Au revoir john. Thank you for this John. Isn’t that amazing? A man visits Maine and the thing he remembers about Maine 20 years later was a great radio show with jazz and humorous wisdom. Isn’t it nice that Maine excelled at something? I think there is a lesson to be learned here if you are young and thinking about entertaining your friends on the air. ---Make a good radio show --- only if you dare. Mediocrity is a lot safer.

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8. We are losing our enemies at an alarming rate and America’s washed up politicians who once ruled by fear are justly alarmed. Enemies are necessary if one wants to consolidate power by circumventing the US Constitution with overnight panic legislation --- which is why you now see on television these has-beens with their prognosis of doom, as the leaders of several countries approach a cheerful, intelligent man who is willing to listen. What do you think? Should the present administration have the option to choose its own enemies? You don’t need to be reminded that our enemies change about once every ten years, as dictated by economic/political expediency. In 1972 Nixon befriended communist China, and everyone now knows what an inundation of dirt cheap products have done to almost every American employer --- and their employees. The obvious goal: one step closer to our O. Henry economy of a century ago where hungry store clerks and scrub girls would gladly settle for $4 a week. Another president had a low tolerance level for any country with oil reserves. He tried to either blow them back to the stone age and put their economy and infrastructure in the hands of American corporations --- or put them in a position where a smile and shaking hands would be considered an act of aggression. Thanks to your vote, America is presently on the right track, and as long as our children are not deprived of a broad education America will continue to prosper: A child who reads science and technology will become respected and prosperous. A child who reads history will become a democrat.

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9. Here’s another letter, this one from Dave who says, “your show is great. whenever my lady or i hear a django tune now we both shout "DJANGO!" at the end. i like old four banger fords too. thanks for having ears, a heart and a spine. - dave & tricia, in somerville massachusetts

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10. You saw it on television. A polar bear attacked a woman at a Berlin Zoo after she climbed a fence and jumped into its pen at feeding time. No one seems to know why the woman jumped into a pen with a bear, but it might help explain why some people vote for republicans.

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11. You’ve seen the first lady holding President Obama’s hand when they get off an airplane. This worries me, because when my wife Marsha and I get off an airplane she always holds my hand. She’s afraid I’ll either get lost or fall down.

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12. I am going to talk about Compact Florescent light bulbs. Perhaps you know what I’m talking about. CFL bulbs look like a large white corkscrew and we are told they have mercury in them. When I heard that these bulbs would last a long, long time, I bought a bushel basket full of them and replaced all the old bulbs in my house. As I recall, a couple didn’t work when I first screwed them into the socket but I figured that was par for the course. Then I heard from several other sources that a few were duds and that they don’t last if you keep turning them on and off. What good is a light bulb if you can’t turn it off? Are we going to have the same problems with the presently touted LED’s?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kdvHUUDsJ0&NR=1

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http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread431043/pg1

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13. Did you see the 60 Minutes story on cold fusion and Martin Fleischmann? He is the man who was hounded out of science after introducing cold fusion to the world 20 years ago. The way I understand it, cold fusion is nuclear power without the unpleasant waste that will forever contaminate the planet. The crusty, old experts tell us that cold fusion must be junk science because neither its exponents nor anyone else can experimentally replicate the results. But I like the looks of what I’ve seen of cold fusion so far and I’ll tell you why. Although I know nothing about physics or science, one of my favorite bedside books --- that I have read and reread for years, is Dampier’s A History of Science. So --- although I know nothing about physics or science, I am more than passingly conversant with the history of physics and science. Hardly any great discovery has ever been eagerly accepted by the experts. You know that Ignatius Semmelweis not only lost his job for suggesting that doctors wash their hands, but also came to a bad end. Most scientists are just like everybody else in that they have to look around and see what their neighbors are doing before they’ll take a stand on anything. It might take learned scientists 20 years to finally accept something like Quantum Theory. Which really puts scientists on the cutting edge when you consider it might take society at least 40 years and the church over 400 years to finally do the same thing. Here’s an ancient quote I found which might apply to the cold fusion controversy today: the statistical theories hide a completely determined and ascertainable reality behind variables which elude our experimental techniques.

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