Two Modest Suggestions

Apparently, some of the less hinged protesters who are already planning their disruption of the Democratic National Convention are terribly afraid of a completely nonexistent weapon being used against them. Actually, they are afraid of two weapons. No, not the Nikon dragonfly. It is much messier than that…..

Political activists planning protest rallies at the upcoming Democratic Convention in Denver have their stomachs in knots over a rumor about a crowd control weapon - known as the “crap cannon” - that might be unleashed against them.

Also called “Brown Note,” it is believed to be an infrasound frequency that debilitates a person by making them defecate involuntarily.

Mark Cohen, co-founder of Re-create 68, an alliance of local activists working for the protection of first amendment rights, said he believes this could be deployed at the convention in August to subdue crowds.

“We know this weapon and weapons like it have been used at other large protests before,” he said.

Cohen, who described Brown Note as a “sonic weapon used to disrupt people’s equilibrium,” cited eyewitness accounts of its use during free-trade agreement protests in Miami in 2003.

“I think these weapons were mostly intended for military use and so their use for dealing with innocent protesters seems highly inappropriate,” he said. “The idea that they might be field testing them on people who are doing nothing more than exercising their first amendment rights is disturbing.”

As the article points out, there is no evidence - whatsoever - that such a thing exists. Mythbusters debunked it. Snopes has not at this point as far as I can tell. But hey, it's early yet.

Oh, as to the suggestions mentioned in the title to this post: Brown trousers or a cork. Have fun, kiddies.

Club McMurdo

One of the very last things to be shipped into the McMurdo US Antarctic research station before the winter set in was a small, but apparently vital supply: 16,500 condoms. There are about 125 people stationed there during the winter months.

Bill Henriksen, the manager of the McMurdo base station, said nearly 16,500 condoms were delivered last month and would be made available, free of charge, to staff throughout the year to avoid the potential embarrassment of having to buy them.

The base only has a skeleton staff through the long winter.

"Since everybody knows everyone, it becomes a little bit uncomfortable," Henriksen told the Southland Times newspaper.

It would appear that McMurdo is a very friendly place. If the condoms are all gone in September when the shipments begin again some 135 condoms per day would have been used. For a staff of 125.

The mind boggles. Bonus question: what ARE they studying down there?

Bring Out Your Dead - Part Two

Last month, I noted the ethical problems associated with New York City's plan to have organ retrieval ambulances standing by to harvest (or keep ready to harvest) the organs of people who die in the city. Well, there's a reason for real concern. In France a man was being cut open to retrieve his organs.

Only he wasn't dead yet.

Doctors in Paris earlier this year called in transplant surgeons after failing to resuscitate a 45-year old man believed to have suffered a massive heart attack in the French capital.

According to a report by the Paris university hospital's ethics committee - seen by Le Monde newspaper - doctors continued providing a heart massage for an hour and a half while they waited for the surgeons to arrive.

When the surgeons began operating on the man to remove his organs, he began to breathe, his pupils became responsive and he reacted to a pain test.

France has an "opt out" law which is being pushed here in the US, too. That presumes you gave your consent unless you specifically refuse. In advance. And if you die with whatever paperwork the state requires to opt out.

And you may or may not be dead….

This really is an ethical problem, folks.

Will The Crickets Continue To Chirp?

Okay, the claim is made that the editors at Newsweek have libeled Joe Lieberman at the deliberate behest of the Obama campaign (see here and here.)  To this point, Newsweek has made no response.

Is it because:

1. The charge is baseless and beneath their contempt.
2. They haven't heard about it yet, as they are too busy following the Patrick Swayze saga.
3. They know that opening their mouth will only dig themselves in deeper.

If you answered 1, congratulations!  You have won a Barry Obama secret decoder ring which you can use to decipher your marching orders when subsequent "official communiques" are released.  Courage!

If you answered 2, you are a fool!  We all know Newsweek has really been busy with more important matters.

If you answered 3, you are probably just a bitter gun toting religious person (and most likely a racist), and thus irrelevant.

Thanks for playing!  And please remember to pick up Newsweek's election special issue "Is McCain really the spawn of Satan?" at news stands everywhere.

Severe Weather

The Midwest is bracing for still more rain while a hiker has died on Mount Ranier - after becoming stranded in a blizzard. In June.

Ranger Sandi Kinzer the three went on a day hike Monday and got caught in a blizzard on the Muir snowfield.

In a recorded message, park spokesman Kevin Bacher said rangers received a call at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday that the three hikers were trapped.

Weather prevented a rescue attempt at that time, but one of the hikers reached Camp Muir at 7:15 a.m. and directed rescuers to the other hikers near Anvil Rock, a large outcropping at the edge of the Muir snowfield. The surviving hiker was brought back to Camp Muir, a staging area for climbers, is at about 10,000 feet elevation on the 14,410-foot mountain.

On the flooding in the Midwest, meanwhile.

GAYS MILLS, Wis. - For nearly a year, this tiny southwestern Wisconsin village has struggled to survive after a devastating flood. A new deluge may have sealed its fate.
 
Flash floods inundated the town of 625 over the weekend, just 10 months after residents worked to rebuild their homes and businesses.

The swollen Kickapoo River engulfed nearly the entire town Monday morning, forcing about 150 people to evacuate. By evening, the village was a grid of canals with cars submerged up to their windows and parking lots looking like lakes, just as it was in August.

The flooding was caused by violent, drenching weekend thunderstorms that displaced thousands of Indiana residents and were blamed for 15 deaths in the Midwest and elsewhere.

The downpours in states like Iowa, Illinois and Indiana flooded corn fields and made it difficult for farmers to plant, pushing corn prices to record highs on commodities exchanges this week.

The corn situation is very bad out my way. Many fields are flooded outright. In those that are not, the corn is yellow - not green. It is also only a few inches high, not thriving at all. It has been a very cold, wet spring and the corn does not respond favorably to those conditions. Here’s a map that shows the current flood warnings in the Midwest. The warnings roughly correspond to much of the corn belt. (Map link may not last.)

“Hey Mom, I’m Going To The Record Shop.”

Turns out we might see more actual "records" in our music retailers soon: Retailers giving vinyl records another spin

It was a fortuitous typo for the Fred Meyer retail chain.

This spring, an employee intending to order a special CD-DVD edition of R.E.M.'s latest release "Accelerate" inadvertently entered the "LP" code instead. Soon boxes of the big, vinyl discs showed up at several stores.

Some sent them back. But a handful put them on the shelves, and 20 LPs sold the first day.

The Portland-based company, owned by The Kroger Co., realized the error might not be so bad after all. Fred Meyer is now testing vinyl sales at 60 of its stores in Oregon, Washington and Alaska. The company says, based on the response so far, it plans to roll out vinyl in July in all its stores that sell music.

Other mainstream retailers are giving vinyl a spin too. Best Buy is testing sales at some stores. And online music giant Amazon.com, which has sold vinyl for most of the 13 years it has been in business online, created a special vinyl-only section last fall.

The best-seller so far at Fred Meyer is The Beatles album "Abbey Road." But musicians from the White Stripes and the Foo Fighters to Metallica and Pink Floyd are selling well, the company says.

"It's not just a nostalgia thing," said Melinda Merrill, spokeswoman for Fred Meyer. "The response from customers has just been that they like it, they feel like it has a better sound."

While I am a devoted music lover, I've never considered myself a geeky audiophile by any stretch of the imagination, but even I can hear a difference between vinyl and digital.  It definitely sounds different, and sometimes those differences equal up "better" sounds.  I always think of a track on the first Bill Bruford's Earthworks album, "Up North."  I got the LP of that first and the bass used to rattle the furniture in my bedroom at even modest volume.  It resonated so much you could feel it.  It was beautiful.

When I got the album on CD I was disheartened to find the bass on "Up North" no longer loosened my fillings.  It sounded clear, but it didn't feel the same.  Others have claimed that analog LP's sound "warmer" when compared to digital formats, and I have to say they have a point.  For much of the music I listen to it wouldn't matter very much - Marshall Crenshaw sounds like Marshall Crenshaw no matter the format - but my classical LP's sound better than my classical CD's.

Like many people I have also picked up a turntable for the first time in years recently.  It has been a joy to rescue my 500+ albums from the cold and dank of my parents basement and hear them again after so long.  (This is true even if the wife isn't happy about the heavy cardboard boxes filled with records lying in the middle of the office floor.  LP storage is still a problem without an obvious solution.)  It is true that part of the enjoyment is the tactile feel of putting the needle down on a groove, or opening a gatefold sleeve to see the large format graphics.  I had forgotten how artistic a great album sleeve could be.  The art direction on The Alan Parsons Project's Eye In The Sky album is spectacular, though you would never know it if you only experienced it on CD.  (The flip side of this is also true.  Yes's Tormato is unworldly ugly at LP size.)      

Audiophiles say they also want the format's overall experience — the sensory experience of putting the needle on the record, the feeling of side A and side B and the joy of lingering over the liner notes.

"I think music products should be more than just music," said Isaac Hudson, a 28-year-old vinyl fan standing outside one of Portland's larger independent music stores.

The interest seems to be catching on. Turntable sales are picking up, and the few remaining record pressers say business is booming.

But the LP isn't going to muscle out CDs or iPod soon.

Nearly 450 million CDs were sold last year, versus just under 1 million LPs, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Based on the first three months of this year, Nielsen says vinyl album sales could reach 1.6 million in 2008.

"I don't think vinyl is for everyone; it's for the die-hard music consumer," said Jay Millar, director of marketing at United Record Pressing, a Nashville based company that is the nation's largest record pressing plant.

It has been awhile since I've picked up a new LP, although I've been eying a couple oldies on Ebay to replace product that has gone missing from my collection over the years.  Now that my snazzy looking Crossley (an art deco styled console no less) is upstairs at my beck and call, I think I will soon enjoy the childhood pleasure of putting on a new record while I flip the sleeve around in my hands to take it all in.  Hell, for old times sake I may even call up my mother to inform her of my trip to the record shop.  Now, if I can only find a late night record shop I'll be in nostalgia heaven.