Pine beetles have been destroying the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Of course, they didn’t just recently develop an appetite for pines: they are called pine beetles, after all. Unfortunately, our very love of trees is leading to their destruction. Fire is a natural friend of the forest — and it’s hard for us to imagine…
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Happy Thanksgiving. If you’re a cop, work in an electric power plant, run a radio station, drive a snowplow, work in a hospital, or do any other of the many, many jobs that require you to ignore the ups and downs of the calendar, take heart. Lots of folks will join you, working in WalMart,…
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It has long been my passion to listen to recorded music, especially that recorded between 1900 and 1941. Damn, but there were some good tunes penned then! It seems like everybody acknowledges this, too. Many an aging singer of the present day has contributed their interpretations of songs such as Over the Rainbow, Night and…
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September 14, 2013 Raymond F. Hessinger, Director, Freight & Passenger Rail Bureau, NYS Department of Transportation, 50 Wolf Road, POD 54, Albany, NY 12232. Dear Sir: I strongly support the maintenance of the rail system in the Lake Placid – Remsen travel corridor. The sudden and aggressive nature of the rails-to-trails folks has all the hallmarks of a…
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Fran Frey sang 26 sides for George Olsen’s band in the 1920s and early 30s. I got this obit from Ancestry.com; registration is required, so I signed in and downloaded this clip from the Los Angeles Times of December 8, 1962. Note: Fran’s is the second obit of the two.
It’s hard to break old habits. With all the fun things we can do just sitting around the house, it’s not an easy thing to tell yourself that you have to keep the weight off if you want to stay healthy. It’s not easy because there are no shortcuts. Eat less, move more. What motivates…
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When I was 5, my family went to West Virginia on vacation. We took a ride on the then-new Cass Scenic Railroad. I bought a 45rpm record and played it till the grooves were gray. It was lost probably in 1966 in the various moves of my life. You wouldn’t expect to find something so obscure…
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Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick My rating: 5 of 5 stars It is quite fashionable, here in 2013, to say of this novel that it is “rather uneven, with a messy plot.” Flow My Tears came out in 1974, just before he flipped his lid (in my opinion) and wrote…
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This is such a travesty of justice that it beggars words sufficient for description. Untold numbers of children cried out in prayer, some perhaps even to Pope John Paul II, hoping for some sort of companionship, even if only spiritual, to ease the sense of shame and self-loathing experienced by those who were abused by…
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I’m putting this here because, well, it’s MY blog and I love this music.