Hammond

I left the house yesterday at 5 am and didn't get back until about 8 p.m., a long day. Instead of driving they had me walking in some scenes. No excitement in this production but it was shot in Hammond, Louisiana. Hammond is one of those small cities in Louisiana with nice charm and old buildings.

We shot the scenes in which I participated in the old historic district of Hammond, a curious thing given the film is supposed to be set in Oklahoma, which looks nothing like Hammond. But that is the way Hollywood works sometimes. It reconstructs the city of the film to fit the locale when entertainment value is upped or the economy of the shoot makes it advantageous to do so.Hammond has about 20,000 residents an increase since the great Hurricane of 2005 chased so many of the citizens of the New Orleans area northward to Hammond and other places that are safe from future flooding.

It's biggest industry is Southeastern University (with a famed research department on mosquitoes and other insects). During the Civil War the southern army got many of its shoes from Hammond, which was the leading manufacturer of shoes for the Confederate army. That was also the time when Hammond became famous for producing sweet strawberries. it no bills itself as the strawberry capital of the U.S.That is essentially the a story of Hammond, a similar one to many other cites across the country.

I like to drink in the ambiance of a place I do not know and when there I did that, noticing the atavistic nature of the city. I saw signs of businesses that once were once bade in and New Orleans staples but no long gone. Whether they are related to those today or new ones who kept only the name I do not know, but seeing the signs made me flash back to when I remembered those same ones here in New Orleans. Small cities like this one hold a historical treasure for us, keeping alive and even idealizing things we have forgotten but are reminded again when visiting those places.

But you may ask, "What is there to do in a small city like Hammond?" The same thing there is in a large city. There are the same books, the same movies, the same sports, and for the most part the same social activities.

Hammond is really just a microcosm of New Orleans and a reminder that little or big most cities are more alike than dissimilar

Frozen To Death

Here's a weird case for the modern age. A 14-year-old girl in the Britain. who was dying of cancer and since has passed on, won the right to be cryogenically frozen after her death. Yep! A juvenile has decided to be put on ice.  in a case that's the first of its kind. The girl's identity is being kept a secret. She wanted to have her body preserved in the hopes that scientists someday would be able to bring her back to life and cure her illness. I suspect she has been watching too many bad Hollywood science fiction movies.

So what does a court do when a kid wants to make the decision about her body after death? Mom and dad are called in.  The Ice Maiden's wishes were initially supported by her mother but not her father, which led the girl to seek a judge's intervention to ensure that her mother would decide what would happen to her body. The judge granted her request  because, we all known that in domestic matters men lose.  The good news is that  her father changed his mind and agreed to support his daughter's last wish.

During the last months of her life, the teenager, who had a rare form of cancer, used the internet to investigate cryonics, and when convinced she did not want to be buried she sent a letter to the court the following: "I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I'm only 14 years old and I don't want to die, but I know I am going to. I think being cryo‐preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years' time. I don't want to be buried underground. I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish."

But can a14 year old make that kind of decision? Cryogenic body freezing is still just a bad movie plot, not science. Even if more than just at theoretical possibility, preserving and reconstructing a human brain, for instance, is not remotely possible now, and it's not at all clear whether it's even possible at all, ever. But the Ice Maiden believed that future science may make it feasible.

I wonder if that child would find being thawed 200 or 300 years from now, the ideal she thought it to be prior to her death. She would awaken in a strange world, perhaps a hostile one. There may be no relatives and certainly no familiar faces nor a familiar culture relative. She might not remember things and be left in a desperate situation. Even the most comfortable of us today is often uncomfortable in this world we know well. But alas! Blame mom for a bad thaw if the Ice maiden is ever brought back.

The girl was too young to make a legally binding will, so she asked the court to intervene to guarantee that her mother would be solely responsible for determining how her remains would be handled. The judge visited the teenager in the hospital and said he was impressed by the "valiant way" she faced her death, and that he had no doubt she had the mental capacity to file a lawsuit. The girl died with the knowledge that she would be frozen, and her body has been sent to the United States for long term cryogenic storage at a cost of $46,000.

Even if cryogenics were possible, would someone from 2016 think the world is better that what she once knew?  Too, organisms die. It's what life is about. Are we selfish to want to cheat or delay death?

More Drivel From Pope Francis

Pope Francis delivered another speech to the world and his own Catholic Church to reject "the virus of polarization and animosity" and the growing temptation to "demonize" those who are different. He made the remarks during a ceremony in St. Peter's Basilica to elevate 17 new cardinals from six continents. Did he say not to "demonize those who are different". If so, he needs to direct his statement to the progressive left, for they are the ones who do not tolerate anyone straying from left-wing propaganda about "diversity" (for the left this means "do only what I approve as acceptable or be called a "racist"). Most of the intolerance I see in the world is by the left toward those not in line with their orthodoxy.

The pope's sermon was viewed as an indictment of the populist and nationalist anger seen in countries around the world who are fighting for their national identity and for their right to regulate who enters and lives in their countries. Of course, this liberal pope is also referring to the election of Donald Trump as president of the U.S., because, well, the liberal left says that Trump is not one of them and therefore is a heretic. "In God's heart there are no enemies," Pope Francis told thousands of religious, political and civic leaders gathered for the formal induction of the churchmen into the cardinals' ranks. No enemies? I thought the "devil" was the enemy of the church. Isn't that the line we have heard and read in scripture since the beginning of the church?

Francis also lamented the tendency to "demonize" one's opponents, "so as to have a 'sacred' justification for dismissing them." Hmmmm It seems to me that the people most demonizing their opponent are on the left.  In the U.S. presidential race, for example, the left made it their whole campaign to do so, and even after their defeat continue it on a regular basis today. The also disagreeable Trump has become the new devil figure of the left and of pope Francis.

Hey Francis, how about sticking up for Christians being persecuted around the globe? You know, those Christians killed or maimed by non Christian extremists. Oh, I forgot, the 11th commandment of the left is "Thou shalt not criticize or defend against any from the left or any Islamics who threaten. "Perhaps the pope should take a look at where the extreme reactions are being emitted. It's not from traditional Christians in his church. It's largely from the secular progressives who own intolerance and practice it in the form of political correctness.

Until institutions come to terms with who are the actual offenders in this intolerance dispute we'll only continue to live in an us against them world. The reality is both the left and right are intolerant of each other these days, but the left is about 20 meters ahead in the race to the 100 meter finish line to being insufferable. The pope might be better off just letting the intolerant crowds slug it out. Preaching to them to stop is futile.

The Fate Of The Turkey

Thanksgiving is done so I thought it would be nice for my annual turkey report.  Since turkey is the standard Thanksgiving meat and the big turkey eating season is from Thanksgiving to Christmas it might be interesting to see how that turkey on the dinner table has changed through the years. But first, an oddity about the Thanksgiving holiday that few if any ever noticed. That is, why is there no (ok, maybe there might be a few bad ones no one has heard) Thanksgiving music? There's none. not a single Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer equivalent. Halloween has songs, Christmas does, Easter, even St. Patrick's Day. I think the turkeys would appreciate a song or two about their fate as they are slaughtered for the dinner table.

Anyway, turkeys in the United States have fallen on hard times recently.  Many commercially raised turkeys on industrial farms cannot even mate properly, leaving the turkey industry almost completely dependent on artificial insemination.  Consumer demand and technological innovation have made sex obsolete for the dinner table turkey. I guess there aren't any cruise bars for turkey's either.

Turkeys with large breast and thigh muscles are prized by farmers because they're the most valuable parts of the bird at sale. So turkeys that naturally had those traits were selected to breed by farmers, increasing their size through generations. Technological advances in artificial insemination before W.W. II allowed for turkey semen to be distributed. This and the almighty steroid have made for giant turkeys today.

The European settlers  in North America would have seen the turkey as a common North American bird. Like wild turkeys today, the wild turkey was dark in color, sporting barred white feathers with a green and bronze iridescent sheen. But the color of turkeys have changed. The old natural dark colored pin feathers is out and the more desirable looking clean pink skin is in.

The wild turkey of the easily days of America were sleek and quick, and could fly short distances when they needed to. But as they became breed birds that changed.  In 1960 the average wild turkey matured in 36 weeks and weighed 15 pounds. Today's commercially bred turkey takes 18 weeks to mature and weighs on average at 31 pounds. Their breasts are now so big they can no longer fly. Wow! Turkey on steroids.

Having said all of that, maybe the perfect Thanksgiving song would be one to document the sad decline of the once glorious bird into a sex deprived, overly breast laden, steroid freak. Gobble, gobble to that.

Listening To Christmas Music, Already

I know it's early, even for a Christmas music fan, but I already have my favorite Christmas music station on lock and load. About five days ago I click the bookmark on the computer and listen. It invigorates me and after a few sappy tunes I forget about the horrid world in which we live. In short, for a few weeks during the Christmas season those songs make me feel better. But is that why I listen to Christmas music on my computer every year at this time? Is it because of tradition and rote or is hearing I'll Be Home For Christmas by Perry Como ingrained in my DNA?

Computers are anew technology. They were not around when I was a kid, yet I suspect my affection for Christmas music began in my childhood pre Christmas days when I listened to my mother play her Christmas records at home. She had one of those old console stereo record players and among her favorite albums were quite a few Christmas albums, recordings by the biggest recording stars both deceased and alive.

One ritual we had that started the Christmas music listening fest was to play the albums all Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving meal included not only fluffy white mashed potatoes, but also Bing Crosby's White Christmas. Post Thanksgiving to New Year's Day the residents or visitor to our home was likely to be assaulted with Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer or Nat King Cole's German language of  O'Tannenbaum.

Even at age 10 or so I was a conspirator to this house Christmas music. My mother would hand me money to pay for the latest Goodrich Tire annual Christmas album that I bought for her after a short bike ride to the nearest Goodrich store. The Goodrich  business is long gone but those albums live on. I see them at thrift stores even today when I sift through the records area of the store. It was the biggest music promotion of the holiday season and millions awaited it like a child awaits opening Christmas day presents.

That Goodrich album memory is still pushing me to the Christmas music station bookmark I like. And amazingly, I recognize many of the cuts played on my computer as being from the famed Goodrich albums. Those albums had every sort of Christmas music possible. There is the religious Christmas tune, 'Ave Maria', for instance. And there is the light "modern" Christmas song written and sang in the heyday of Christmas music from post W.W.II to the late 60s', tunes like Johnny Mathis (the greatest singer of all of Christmas music, the man with the Christmas voice) singing 'We Need A Little Christmas'. The novelty Christmas song like Jimmy Durante's version of 'Frosty the Snowman' turns up as well.  And the sappy Christmas tunes that teach the old values of love and respect, so foreign today in our cold and sterile world, are played there as well. The Percy Faith Orchestra's O Come, All Ye Faithful is one example that sappy at Christmas isn't crappy. It's just music for our frustrated souls.

Why there is even a familiar New Orleans selection that I still hear on that Christmas station for which I thank from Goodrich and the other imitators who also put out those Christmas albums. Louis Armstrong's 'Christmas in New Orleans' makes me both delighted and a bit maudlin in reminding me of the great and exceptional old city that I often miss here in  ordinary Portland.

 My love for Christmas music has been transformed from the old LP albums of my mom's Christmas world to the digital version of it on line that guide my own. Tradition is a good thing.

Which One Is The Dope?

Kids today seem less possessed in useful knowledge than ever before. Schools are dumbing them down rather than challenging them. But the ultimate in patronizing students with pabulum happened the other day in suburban New Orleans. A former teacher at Catholic Archbishop Hannan High School has pleaded guilty to giving marijuana laced brownies to two students. Camille Brennan, 31, is scheduled to be sentenced, but after hearing her reason for getting the kiddies high I suspect she east a few brownies herself.

Brownie Brennan told authorities she provided the brownies to make the students happy. Wow! With teachers like that maybe the kids will start paying attention in class. She pleaded guilty to two counts of distribution of marijuana to a student and two counts of obstruction of justice, prosecutors said. Under her plea bargaining agreement, she is expected to receive a 10 year prison sentence, with seven years suspended. She will be ordered to undergo substance abuse and mental health evaluations and have no unsupervised contact with minors.

But in a small a way can we be surprised that teachers are passing out dope to the little dopes? After all, more and more U.S. states have legalized pot. Marijuana is already believed by many to be harmless and less addictive and a better alternative than cigarette tobacco. In this somewhat ignorant society marijuana is considered a healthy drug, while fluoride in water is considered dangerous. Parents refuse to vaccinate their kids for a variety of diseases because "vaccinations cause autism". And then there are those who swear that sugar is more dangerous for kids than is narcotics. It's weird.

What teachers must do today to make learning fun. Well, at least teachers have graduated from merely giving their sexiest students VD.

11 Billion An d Counting

I have written many times that the only serious environmental problem is not the so-called climate change, but instead the every real and undeniable overpopulation of the earth. Just think. The world's population has grown from a handful of people in eastern Africa around the year 100,000 B.C. to more than 7 billion today.  It's incredible to me also that the world population in my own lifetime has more than doubled. Doesn't anyone out there know what birth control is?

Here's some stats about the growing population.
-For the first 100,000 years, the population did not reach 1 million, according to the post. At 1 A.D., it was only 170 million.
-It took 200,000 years for the number of people on earth to reach 1 billion. But in the next 200 years, the population exploded to 7 billion.
-Only once in history was a significant population decline noted. That was during the Bubonic Plague epidemic, which killed an estimated 50 million people, mostly in Europe between 1346 and 1353.
-The world population will peak around 2100 at 11 billion. That's because fertility rates around the globe are falling.
-Worldwide, approximately one million people die every week. In that same week, two and half million people are born.  That's a 250% birth rate.
-For the past fifty years, between 70 and 80 million new people have been added to our planet each year . That's equivalent of adding a new Canada to the world each year.

How will the earth feed and furnish enough water for 11 million people? It doesn't appear the many people care. Instead, they imagine climate change scenarios based on guesses. The growth of our human population will eventually end somehow, whether we want it to or not. But how will it happen? We can stop growing deliberately, of our own accord. But humans just seem to be unwilling to stop breeding excessively.

 So what will do it? Will the population decline because of war, or famine, disease? You tell me.