Recent Blog Posts: Tehachapi News

Fun on Friday

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 09:37:57 PDT

So here's today's time waster...

You have been given the gift of authorship. You will be provided the money, the time, the access to sources and the skills to write a book about anything you desire.

What do you write about?

Where’s the Respect?

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:50:40 PDT

The Clinton campaign ad taking off on the “Sopranos” is a real winner. I would have said a real “hit” but that would have been trite. However, “swimming with the fishes” only applies as one pundit had it the Clintons are like fishes swimming in waters where politics is the life source flowing over their gills, the quintessential political animals, fish in this case. And the fact that politics is a dirty business and “politician” is a dirty word has no relevance to bottom feeders that thrive in muddy waters.

No one is going to be taken in by the ad knowing the Clintons will do and say anything including murder, as I and not a few others strongly suspect, for political power; however I take exception to those that think the ad is an attempt to “humanize” the Clintons, specifically Ms. Clinton. As per the Mafia the ad is about “Respect!”

Harking back to the Godfather Trilogy, the thing about “respect” was given such prominence it became a focus throughout. Even Gerry Trudeau was having a good time with this where he has Frank Sinatra being introduced to some mobsters in Las Vegas and told to show them “respect” because they were all “made” men, and Trudeau had Sinatra being childishly “Golly, gee, really?” impressed by this.

So, no matter the amount of spin the Clinton campaign ad is all about “respect” as per the Mafia and the Sopranos. But before anyone objects, I’ll repeat something I wrote some time ago. Michael chides Kay for her naiveté in believing the government operates any differently than the Mafia. My point at the time was that we could wish our government operated as efficiently as the Mafia. Both are involved in all the things made illegal to the Great Unwashed, things like drugs and prostitution, payoffs and kickbacks, blackmail, extortion, loan sharking, there is virtually nothing in organized crime, including murder in my opinion, you will not find among politicians those like the Clintons and Bush epitomize.

Many are the church-goers that will self-righteously say if the minister’s sermon did not “pinch their toes a little” he wasn’t doing his job. And just so with many that make a living seeming to try holding politicians accountable. But too many in this camp are also trying to maintain the status quo of keeping things like marijuana and prostitution illegal, all the while knowing those with wealth and power deny themselves nothing while jailing and imprisoning those without the wealth and power for doing the very same things.

What is the focus of those in power refusing to secure our borders for the sake of slave labor if not profit? The fact made so odiously obvious is that those in power are profiting from drugs and human smuggling, from the slave labor of illegal aliens otherwise our borders would be secured. That politicians and their companion criminals sometimes find themselves in competition is not surprising; so the occasional bloodletting as in the Mafia wars take place.

Law in America has become increasingly a matter of “interpretation.” Power and influence too often define “criminal” or “legitimate,” thereby making these a matter of interpretation as in “How much justice can you afford?” Elected office treated as a license to steal is no different than the way organized crime operates, but when it comes to trying to hold those like the Clintons, Rove, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush to account for their crimes they are the greased pigs escaping the laws we the Great Unwashed are forced to obey. Ten years in Iraq or ten years in litigation, both are crimes against We the People, crimes against humanity!

The great majority of people are good people who do not ask more of life than the chance to live honestly and peaceably. Then someone comes along to make their lives miserable for the sake of power and wealth. The result is a tyrant whether an individual or a tyrannical system like our government has become where virtually everyone becomes a “lawbreaker” in one sense or another, but those with the wealth and power escape the consequences of being lawbreakers. And while it is despicable for any to selfishly drive drunk unconscionably putting the lives of the innocent at risk, the obscenity of a pretense of law punishing a Paris Hilton while letting real criminals like politicians get a pass or spend years in litigation to avoid prison is obvious to all.

More than just fascination, what is the seemingly magnetic appeal of films like the Godfather Trilogy and shows like the Sopranos? We applaud the good guy with the fast gun that comes in, gets rid of the bullies and cleans up the town. We want to see some justice prevail somewhere, some honesty and adherence to civilized speech and behavior, we want to see fair play rather than privilege the criteria. But like the Clinton campaign ad, politicians like Bush and others, where is the “respect?” The fact they demand honor and respect without earning it, demanding honor and respect without personal risk to themselves proves them to be cowardly and not worthy of that one accords those being “made” as comparatively honest gangsters.

Another Friday option

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 11:42:29 PDT

If you didn't have to work tomorrow, what would you be doing?

For me, I'd be busy working out my dog. He's at that perfect age where he draws in information 9good and bad) like a sponge and has energy to burn. He and I would be dorking around in the backyard big-time.

Then we'd eat ice cream under the fan while watching trashy TV.

Bakersfield Drama News #4 (Weekend of June 24, 2007)

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:30:43 PDT

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This Week In Bakersfield Theatre - weekend of June 24th, 2007

Welcome to our fourth issue of the drama news, the emails that keep you in the know! I'm adding this opening commentary to create a space for more news & gossip about local theatre. For now I'll use it to fill in the details about upcoming and current shows, but in the future I think it would be great to include outside thoughts, opinions, links...so consider this a hint for you to send them in.

I am very excited to see two major summer shows opening this weekend and next. HAIR opens at the Empty Space on Friday. It's a major undertaking for the cast & crew at the Empty Space, so I am really excited and hopeful that it will come together and reach it's full potential. I will have a video for you on TheatreAddict TV next week, so stay tuned.

The History of Rock & Roll Goes to the Movies is the next major show that I'm referring to, and that opens next weekend. Last year's HR&R was a blast, and I can't wait to see what they do for the new show. I already know that Stevie Wonder is coming back, and that's all I need to know... lol

In other news, BCT's 20th annual One Act Play Festival debuted last weekend and promptly received TWO write-ups. Bakersfield.com columnist David Burger wrote a nice article, and local artist Jen Raven blogged her own experience as well. The Californian article is shut in the pay-only archives, but you can read the Raven's article on clicking here. And make sure to catch the One Acts closing weekend...it's always a fun experience featuring local authors and many directorial debuts. Says producer Julie Jordan-Scott: "This is going to be the most diverse One Act Festival ever...I am so proud to be a part of this project. We have plays that will make you laugh out loud, we have plays that will make you cry, we have plays that will make you think, we have plays that may make you want to write poetry. People are leaving the One Act Festival in a different frame of mind than when they arrived - and that is a good thing. We've done our job, then."

Lastly, Space: The Musical is continuing at the Gaslight Melodrama and I highly recommend it for curing the summer doldrums. It's the best show I have seen at the Gaslight, a fun musical spoof of many familiar space movies...even features several reworked Queen songs that bring the house. For a free preview of Space, check out the video on youtube. Oh yeah, it's also musical director Warren Dobson's last show before leaving Bako! Sniff.

That's it for this week.

-Aaron Mauldin
Editor

Contents:

Shows

Hair Empty Space
BCT 20th Annual One Act Festival Bakersfield Community Theatre
Lewd Mechanicals (Sketch Comedy) Empty Space
World Goes Round Stars
SPACE: The Musical Gaslight Melodrama

Auditions

(None)

Misc.

(Nada)

Shows:

Hair

Opening Weekend!

THE EMPTY SPACE

Friday & Saturday at 8PM

The Empty Space is excited to present Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical! Hair was a significant part of the drug, music and peace-love culture of the 1960's putting rock music and the culture that went with it on stage. The show has a strong effect on everyone, and acts as a bridge between generations and viewpoints. Phenomenal musical numbers include Aquarius, Good Morning Starshine, Hair, and many more. The lyrics show more depth than noticed at first glance, borrowing anything from the drug culture to Shakespeare.

This show has a vitality, a timelessness and a meaning that outlives the late 1960's and early 1970's in America. "...be free, no guilt, be whoever you are, do whatever you want, just as long as you don't hurt anyone." This Utopian philosophy incorporates many concepts which supply lyrics for a show comprised almost exclusively of rock musical numbers. As a social commentary of our times, Hair provides an insight into the philosophy of the flower children of the 1960's. Come see the first and most successful of the rock musicals this June and July at The Empty Space. Opening June 22 and running through July 14, Hair promises to be THE event of the summer!

The Empty Space
706 Oak Street
Bakersfield, CA 93304

http://www.esonline.org

(661) 327-PLAY

Bakersfield Community Theatre 20th Annual One Act Festival

The Canvases

CLOSING WEEKEND

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AT BAKERSFIELD COMMUNITY THEATRE

Friday & Saturday at 8PM, Sunday at 2PM

"Wordplay"
by Carol-Baker Willey and Terry Willey
Directed by Jody Lowry

"Cup of Apple Cider Tea"
Written by Kathryn Jordan
Directed by Enrique Acosta

"Old Friends"
by Carol-Baker Willey and Terry Willey
Directed by Althea Williams

"The Script"
Written by Robert Schmid
Directed by Michael Pawloski

"I Wait for Sleep"
Written by Laura Maxwell
Directed by Julie Jordan Scott

The Phone Monster
Written by Vicki Kyker-Jameson
Directed by Helen Acosta

BCT is located at 2400 South Chester Avenue

Call 831-8114 for reservations

Lewd Mechanicals: Sketch Comedy

One Weekend Only

AT THE EMPTY SPACE

Friday & Saturday at 11PM

More sketch/improv comedy? Why not?! The Lewd Mechanicals have been seen at other venues and we are glad to offer them a home this June 22 and 23 at 11 PM. See them in their special one weekend engagement.

The Empty Space
706 Oak Street
Bakersfield, CA 93304

http://www.esonline.org

(661) 327-PLAY

World Goes Round

Closing Weekend!

AT STARS THEATRE RESTAURANT

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8PM

Dinner is served 1 hour & 30 minutes before showtime

"Sometimes you're happy and sometimes you're sad – but the world goes 'round." Life – with its glories, indignities, hopes and quiet dreams – is the subject of this stunning revue of the beloved songs of John Kander and Fred Ebb.

The vast range of human experience is explored in song after impeccable song by one of Broadway's most daring and successful teams and masters of the heart-grabbing Broadway showstopper. This glittering revue features unforgettable gems from throughout their incredible career in theatre, film and television, spotlighting songs from "Cabaret;" "Chicago;" "New York, New York;" "Funny Lady;" "Kiss Of The Spiderwoman" and more.

1931 Chester Avenue
Downtown Bakersfield

(661) 325-6100

SPACE: The Musical

Playing through June 30th

AT THE GASLIGHT MELODRAMA & MUSIC HALL

Friday & Saturday at 7PM, Sunday at 2PM

Watch the video preview on YouTube

Written by James Mongold and Michael Prince
Directed by Michael Prince

To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the release of the first "Star Wars" movie, the Gaslight Melodrama Theatre and Music Hall is paying tribute with their latest production, which opens exactly thirty years to the day of the original "Star Wars" motion picture. Come on down dressed as your favorite "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" character and experience the most fun you'll have all summer.

Join the crew of the USS Rent-A-Ship as their fearless leader, Captain James B. Jerk, leads them in a battle against the evil Flingons in a fight to save the Galaxy from intergalactic war. With the help of young Duke Flyswatter and the old, but wise Master Won Ton Kenobi, there's no way this adventure could be anything short of fun. This comedic parody, which lampoons everything from Star Wars to Star Trek, is sure to be a show every techie, trekkie and family will enjoy.

Followed by a brand new Vaudville Revue:

"Whatever Happened To Broadway"
written & directed by Warren Dobson

A comedic, musical tribute to all things "Broadway".

Both shows starring: Garrett Marshall, Greg Ramsdell, Ken Burdick, Jay Stodder, Christie Maturo, Michael Prince, Coryn McBride, Kate Jeffrey, Andy Jeffery and Matt Thompson

Where: The Gaslight Melodrama Theatre & Music Hall
12748 Jomani Dr.
Bakersfield, CA 93312
(661) 587-3377

When: May 25th – June 30th 2007
Friday 7:00pm
Saturday 7:00pm
Sunday 2:00pm

Prices: General Admission $17.00 Matinee Prices: General $15.00
Seniors $15.00 Student $7.50
Child (12 & under) $7.50 Child $7.50

The Gaslight Melodrama & Music Hall is owned and operated by Arnie Carlos and Linda Larma (Producers).

Auditions:

There are none this weekend that we are aware of

Miscellaneous:

Yabba dabba doo.

Kids, they think they know everything!

Thu, 21 Jun 2007 09:29:39 PDT

Kids are great. Kids are fun. They challenge us, they push us, they humiliate us and then they amaze us! Us, is not to be perceived only as the parents, but any person within a shrieks range.

My point here, yes I have one, is that the power behind one kid is enough to put an entire room on edge and when you get swarms of them...watch out! Thankfully, or more appropriately regrettably, kids are not aware of their power! Their power to influence, power to change, power to create, power to destroy, (ok, they are very aware of that one!). One of my boys shot out some comment on America loosing the war in Iraq. No matter your opinion or mine, I wanted him to explain his point of view. On edge and ready to define my side of the discussion, I listened. His point, we are losing too many soldiers because of our regulations, procedures and laws in hostile situations. Wow, how insightful!

He is being shipped out of this country immediately as there is no room for this type of thinking in the United Sates of America! Whew, and in California, might as well give him a steak and call it dinner. The audacity, I tell ya!

Cat calls? Dogs gone wild?

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:23:37 PDT

Here kitty, kitty, kitty...woof-woof...meeeyow!

To forsake our great literary heritage is to invite barbarism

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 13:05:24 PDT

“And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship? Then all things go to decay. Genius leaves the temple, to haunt the senate or the market. Literature becomes frivolous. Science is cold. The eye of youth is not lighted by the hope of other worlds, and age is without honor. Society lives to trifles, and when men die we do not mention them.”

Emerson was damned by many of the clergy of his time because of his transcendental views, his perceived departure from the faith. Yet, in his address to prospective ministers he called attention, as did Benjamin Franklin before him, to the need of worship in a civilized society. And both were far closer to the actual history of America from which they spoke and had better access to primary sources than any “cherry-picking” detractors of such a thing today. However, both Franklin and Emerson recognized the need of freedom for such worship taking many forms, even Tom Paine giving credence to this. The best minds throughout history have devoted themselves to the support of religious sentiment in various forms, but invariably with a cautionary word that such sentiment not be given the power of the sword. And as we watch and listen to reports of so much Muslim religious barbarism in the world we should be grateful America had a founding in the great literature of Western Civilization, especially the Bible rather than the Koran.

It was while living on the mining claim as a boy I built a platform high in the branches of an old digger pine. When the weather was nice, I would often take a book or a National Geographic, climb up to my aerie and there with the wide vista of the Sequoia National Forest surrounding me unspoiled by fences or rooftops, I would lose myself in the world of literature and far off exotic lands of adventure and excitement.

So, no I did not spend all my time in this forest fastness hunting and fishing; as important as these were. I was raised to the great literature of Western Civilization, and great books became great friends. Some of you may recall times as a child, reading by flashlight under the covers at night. Where the heritage of such great books that fire the imagination of children in like fashion today? Where the families that make such great literature of such importance to children today?

There is an indelible picture in my mind of my great-grandmother reading a book late at night by the light of a kerosene lamp; and no one could read the stories from books, from The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers and make them come so alive to my brother and me like our great-grandmother.

And what of those great old radio shows that required so much exercise of the imagination, rather than the passive form of TV making no such like demand. You do not “explain” to anyone without like experience, the inanity of things today like TV and video games. But this does not prevent someone like me with such experience from attempting explanation, though it amounts to “spitting into the wind.”

From his interview as to why she never wrote again after To Kill A Mockingbird Roy Newquist concluded in part: “Harper Lee having told the truth about the deplorable state of writing in America, the failure of the universities to truly educate and pass on the heritage of great literature that has blessed Western Civilization, England and America, perhaps she may have realized she would be spitting into the wind to attempt any further attempts.”

Jesus said, “No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.” But when it comes to things like the great books and literature of Western Civilization, there is this admonition in Scripture as well: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”

For any who are interested my three books presently in print can be viewed at iUniverse.com. The novel about two twelve year old children growing up during WWII in Bakersfield, in which the Padre Hotel gets a mention, and being mostly autobiographical draws heavily from the actual history of the area during that time. Four years in the writing my small cottage here in the Kern River Valley became my “storyboard,” the photos and artifacts I had spread all over the place of that time long ago helping me to relive the time and people of that bygone era. Visitors were few during those four years since I became a virtual recluse, the necessity for which any writer compelled to write will affirm.

But the old saying “life is stranger than fiction,” and the caution concerning the difference between fiction and non-fiction is that fiction has to make sense was ever before me in the writing of the novel. But much of what made life stranger than fiction for those of us who lived the era of WWII can only be understood fully by those of us left to tell the stories of what America was like back then; and in many ways it was stranger than fiction. Part of this was due to the fact children of that era were raised with the idea honesty was the best policy, and crime did not pay. These concepts were encouraged by the stories and fairytales with which we were raised, most of them having a sound moral basis.

Without TV, children were very much given to making up their own stories and games much as Harper Lee describes of the children in TKM. And notwithstanding raising my own children to be readers and encouraging them to use their imagination, sometimes I was taken by surprise. While living in Lancaster my daughter Karen (Karrie), who was six at the time, came to me and said, “Daddy, I just saw a bear outside.”

Now there had been a dearth of bears in the Antelope Valley for quite some time. Being desert, it is doubtful there had ever been much of a bear population even before hoards of people began to move to this desert environment and start building cities. But Karrie, while having at least as active an imagination as any healthy six year old was not given to telling “stories.” So what was I to make of this revelation about a bear in the neighborhood?

Rather than immediately reaching for my bear gun, I fearlessly went outside in search of this bear, and danged if I didn’t find it! It was only a few houses away; in a cage mounted on a flatbed trailer parked in front of a home. As it turned out, a friend of this neighbor was a government trapper. He had caught the troublesome bear in Tehachapi where it had wandered down from the hills and was posing a threat to the community, and had stopped by his friend’s house in our neighborhood on the way to relocate the animal elsewhere.

My first response to Karrie’s telling me of seeing the bear could have been to explain to her how unlikely it was that a bear would be anywhere in our neighborhood, that we lived in the desert where bears simply did not exist, let alone a well developed city like Lancaster far removed from any bear habitat. After all, I was the adult and Karrie was only a small child. I surely knew more about bears than Karrie, as the adult I knew how implausible it was that she could possibly have seen a bear in our neighborhood.

But I had the advantage of knowing the source of the story of a bear in the neighborhood. I knew my little girl; I knew she was not given to fabrications and would never lie or make up such a story. Further, how likely would it be for any six year old telling of something as exciting as seeing a bear to have explained all the circumstances of such a thing, that they saw the bear in a cage on a trailer? No, a small child tells only the most relevant fact of what they see; in this case the only relevant fact was “Daddy, I just saw a bear outside.”

As trite as it sounds, adults would do well to listen to children. As Henry Thoreau pointed out, children play at life with more wisdom than adults live it. And one of the reasons for this is that adults too soon forsake the wisdom of childhood, and give in to the “wisdom” of adults continuing to make war on one another and make life a living hell on earth.

There is a time for the fairy tales and legends as children are growing up, because the best of these encourage the concept of doing what is right. If you were among the fortunate you were raised among people that taught children the legends and fairy tales that inspired hope and imagination, the kind that led Francis Church to respond to little Virginia with his marvelous defense of fairies and Santa Claus.

In Little Oklahoma, my brother Ronnie and I were surrounded by the kind of people that were a treasure trove of stories, fairy tales and legends, many brought from far away and exotic lands like Texas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. One such story, and one I have often used by way of illustration, was told my brother and I by an Indian. He claimed he had once owned a pistol that had been used to commit a murder. He slept with this gun under his pillow, and every morning when he awakened the pistol would have blood on it. He would wipe it clean, but each time he awoke the blood would be there once more.

Ronnie and I were raised with the kind of good manners and courtesy that taught children did not “talk back” or show disrespect to our elders. Therefore, it never crossed our minds to express disbelief at the Indian’s story. Besides, he was a fount of such stories and we accepted them as we did the fanciful legends and fairy tales of our books, the funny papers, and radio shows like Inner Sanctum and so many others.

In much the same way, the marvelous stories of the Bible, stories like the baby Moses found in the bulrushes, of Samson, David and Goliath and so many others were the things of “theater” that inspired imagination when preached by grandad in our grandparents' little church.

A lie is told with the intent to do harm or take advantage. Stories like that of the Indian’s were not lies, so it never crossed our minds to consider them such; they were simply stories, not unlike the healing power of a mother’s kiss. And what child would discount the efficacy of such healing power?

It is only when stories are told to do harm or take advantage that they fall into the realm of lies. So it is that I distinguish between stories like those of Francis Church defending Santa, the stories by those like the Indian, and those being told by so many politicians. Listening to politicians jockeying for position and power brought an appropriate episode to mind from my life as a boy living on the mining claim.

It was summer time and I had been out hunting. It was nearly dark when I got back to the cabin, and my grandparents were away so the lamps had not been lit. I was barefoot as usual, and upon entering the cabin my bare right foot came right smack down on a snake! All I remember is the feel of the poor reptile’s sudden, muscular jerking coiling under my foot. I don’t remember leaving the cabin, let alone how I went through the door. All I know is I was magically outside the cabin instantly.

Once my heart started up again, I gathered my wits and courage and very cautiously and carefully stepped back inside the cabin once more. There was no sign of the snake, so, lighting a coal oil lamp, I made a careful survey of the place. Looking back, I know the snake had to have been at least as surprised as I was. But the serpent probably didn’t have the propensity for heart failure. This world is full of “snakes” and it behooves us to tread through the often darkness properly shod and light in hand.

Paying it forward, backward or sideways

Tue, 19 Jun 2007 11:39:00 PDT

Lately I've seen more and more stories about anonymous people paying for things for strangers. The Californian recently ran a letter from someone who had her coffee paid for by the person in line in front of her at the drive-thru, people write about strangers paying the tab on a restaurant meal, or folks who have had items purchased in stores by someone they don't know.

So I started wondering, do you do things like this for others? Would you do pay for a coffee (or a meal) for a stranger?

City of Tehachapi Contract with KCFD

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:46:02 PDT

This evening the City of Tehachapi agreed to a 5 year contract with the Kern County Fire Department. The cost will be $0 this year, $60k next year, and about a 5% increase of cost per year for each remaining year of the contract. The staffing at KCFD station 12 will remain at 3 on duty personnel. The city's fire department will be dissolving as of 7/1/07. How does everyone feel about this reduction of fire protection vs. the cost savings?

Tehachapi City Council and the demise of Fire Protection in the city

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 21:33:53 PDT

Tonight, the Tehachapi City Council voted to approve a contract with Kern County for fire protection. The council proved what many of us feared all along- They don't care about the safety of the citizens of Tehachapi. Because they voted to contract with Kern County? No because they don't want to spend any money on fire protection. They will not follow the recommendations of the costly study that they paid for. They will not even pay for an additional firefighter. As I believe it was Mrs. Schmidt who stood up and stated that this will be the lowest number of firefighters that this city has seen in 50 years or more. They were willing to spend up to a million plus or more each year to start up a fire department, but now they will not even spend a third of that to follow the recommendations of the study. What can we do now? Let the council members know how we feel about this new situation. The Chief of the Kern County Fire Department said he could easily staff a 2nd engine in the city and promise to keep it here for about half of what the city was proposing to pay for their own fire department.

SPEAK UP NOW AND DON'T WAIT FOR THAT 2ND ENGINE FROM KEENE WHEN YOUR HOUSE CATCHES FIRE!

Where does it really come from?

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 16:32:58 PDT

So, after hearing all the tragedies and frightfulness regarding products manufactured in China, I began taking a look in my own medicine cabinet. Being an over-50 female, I take LOTS of vitamins and supplements. I discovered that I have approximately 10 different brands of such in my possession. After reading that up to 90% of these items are actually manufactured in China, after reading how Chinese manufacturers are little policed as to practices, after reading how Chinese manufacturers regularly exchange a healthy ingredient for a cheap, toxic substitute, and realizing that we found how separate brands makes very little difference when the ingredients come from China (re; dog food), I embarked on my quest. NONE of my vites list a country of manufacture on their websites. None of the companies I have written to have answered my question re; country of manufacture. What are we supposed to do? Now false brand toothpaste is making kids sick?? How are we to be aware consumers when no one will give the information? There has to be that 10% NOT made in China, can't we at least find that info out and begin buying from them? When these dangers are now becoming prevalent, why aren't the American-based companies themselves refusing to deal with China - and I don't want to hear how it is all about the dollar. Of course it is! But many of us would rather invest the higher dollar amount to safeguard the health of our loved ones and ourselves!

Witches and other night fears

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:02:41 PDT

There is a needed dimension of magic in order for children to exercise a healthy imagination, and few things inspire such imagination as fairy tales. Fortunate is the child raised in an environment of books and reading. How well I recall those earliest stories of Mother Goose, Hans Brinker, Black Beauty, Snow White and so many more. Even Henry Thoreau mentions Cinderella.

A couple of years ago a headline read, “The age of Potter VI officially dawned today as millions of fans from sweaty New York to chilly Australia got their hands on ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince’ and began the darkest of J.K. Rowling’s fantasy novels.”

I believe J.K. Rowling is to be greatly commended for bringing a world of imagination and fantasy to children, for the great encouragement she is giving to children causing them to want to read, and while I have not heard I would not be surprised to learn she owes a debt to the Bible and early Sunday School lessons for Harry Potter. Apart from the history and lessons clearly intended for adult readers, the Bible is replete with the stories of demons and witches, conjurors and sorcerers, of enough magic and fantasy to fire and encourage any child’s imagination.

Having been born into the age of radio long before TV in homes, children of my era had the benefit of all those great radio shows that required and inspired imagination. Reading and radio— a magical combination that gave free rein to our imagination. To read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn is to involve yourself in the world of imagination the peculiar domain of children Sam Clemens so well understood, and had the rare genius to communicate. Harper Lee certainly understood the importance of books, and emphasized this in To Kill A Mockingbird.

The old radio programs like Let’s Pretend along with Terry and the Pirates and a host of others had most of us children tuned in. But there were also programs like I Love a Mystery, Inner Sanctum, and The Whistler that drew children into a darker world of imagination.

Admittedly, many fairy tales, radio programs, and children’s books of my time included a large degree of violence, of murder and mayhem. But the visual element made so graphic in films and TV were, apart from some illustrations, lacking, which left us largely to our imagination, and it was the stimulation of imagination required that among other things made my generation the last of the real readers and writers in America, primarily because TV being a passive medium simply cannot compete with books and those old radio programs when it comes to stirring the imagination.

But when it comes to the power of graphics, however, this is a double edged sword. Charles Lamb in his essay Witches, And Other Night-Fears writes of a book in his father’s library History of the Bible in which there were several woodcuts. One of these depicted the conjuring forth of the last judge of Israel, the prophet Samuel, by the Witch of Endor. Of this picture Lamb writes, “I wish that I had never seen.” With the keen perception peculiar to his genius Lamb concludes, “Credulity is the man’s weakness, but the child’s strength.”

However, as Lamb continues to point out in his essay that woodcut haunted him all his life due to the strength of his “child’s credulity,” requiring his need of a night light from childhood on, of his words of admonition to parents not to leave their children alone in the dark “where there be monsters.” The child’s strength of credulity lends itself, as Lamb recognized, to both beauty and monsters. The harm of it in adulthood is to subscribe to harmful fantasies, to be gullible and easily taken in by the “fairy tales” of charlatans and scoundrels, and one can only wonder what Lamb would have to say of the monsters children face today, the graphic and all pervasive violence and perversion children are being made to endure today.

In a world seeming gone mad and intent on nuclear annihilation unless sanity is restored, there is a lot of comfort to be found in the old hymn that goes “Farther along we’ll know all about it, farther along we’ll understand why; cheer up my brother, walk in the sunshine, we’ll understand it, all by and by.”

As a child, singing that hymn in my grandparent’s small church in Little Oklahoma brought me a lot of comfort in the very uncertain and dangerous world of WWII, one in which children needed all the help and encouragement, all the comfort and escape from reality they could find. I believe J.K. Rowling is offering children something that is not only stirring their imagination and encouraging them to read, but offering a source of escape and comfort to children in a world adults seem intent on making increasingly unfriendly and dangerous to them. But when people ask what’s wrong with kids today, the immediate answer that comes to my mind is most don’t have my maternal great-grandmother Mary Wright Hammond Smith.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

If you were among the fortunate like me, you were raised in the instruction, “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Ephesians 6:4

No, not admonition meant to frighten; but such that you feared doing wrong for all the right reasons, the kind of admonition that taught lying, cheating, stealing were wrong, the kind of fear of being disobedient and doing anything of which to be ashamed and hurting a parent or other loved ones because of their love and trust.

Among my most precious of possessions is a New Testament with Psalms. Grandma paid a dollar for it from the Jewel Tea salesman that made regular stops in Little Oklahoma. But that dollar was real money in the 30s, when a penny had real value and a dollar in your pocket was real wealth.

It is little short of miraculous that over these several decades of life and moving around the country as much as I have, through so much turmoil and upheaval in my life this New Testament is still in my possession while so many other things have disappeared in one manner or another. However, that I still have it is proof of its extraordinary value to me.

What makes this New Testament so valuable to me, actually priceless beyond any amount of money is what my great-grandmother did with it. Quite elderly, the years weighing hard and heavily upon her and with failing eyes and hands painfully crippled by arthritis she laboriously went through the whole book from cover to cover marking specific passages that were meaningful to her, passages of Scripture she marked for my benefit, passages she hoped and prayed would be of benefit to me as I grew and began to read the Bible for myself.

In the flyleaf of the book, my great-grandmother wrote: Darling, grandma has read and marked passages she loves to think you will read someday when she is gone. But dear, grandma will love you even if she is not here and will always know if you are a good boy and serve and love God and His son Jesus. God guide and keep you always honest and truthful. A world of love my precious boy. Grandma.

I don’t believe any child so blessed with anyone like my great-grandmother in their life can possibly turn away from such love, can possibly do anything to betray the memory of such love. And here these many years later, as I hold and turn the pages of this precious book, made so by Grandma’s love still speaking to me through all the many passages she marked for me, I know how very blessed I am. There is a hymn Precious Memories, and grandma’s gift of love, its pages like me showing the passage of time, causes the hymn to come alive in my soul.

While books about angels proliferate, I choose to think of grandma along with other loved ones now passed as angels, those who loved and sacrificed for me, who did their best to raise me properly “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,” and made the Bible more than just a book to me by their lives.

Among too many things lost to children today is the heritage passed on to me by my great-grandmother and grandparents, the heritage of America being founded on the precepts of the Bible. This was the early textbook of America, of the Founding Fathers, the families and children, the earliest universities and schools of America. It was to be expected a Bible would be found in the homes of even those in the most humble of circumstances throughout America in a bygone era.

Yet it is correctly noted that none can consider themselves properly educated that do not have knowledge of the Bible, who have not read it in its entirety and know somewhat of its history and influence on the world, most especially its primary influence on the rise and progress of Western Civilization. And who can legitimately argue nations like America would have been better off with the Koran rather than the Bible as their basic textbook.

The separation of Church and State were intended to serve a noble purpose, but casting away our religious heritage and the Bible cannot but do grave damage and invite grave harm to the most important things that made us the greatest and freest nation in history, something grandma clearly understood and hoped someday I would as well.

While Jews are commonly known as People of the Book, Americans are no less but in fact even more People of the Book, even as grandma was. The ongoing attacks by those that would remove God and the Bible from all public institutions, most especially from our schools, do so in the face of the fact that America was founded a Christian nation on Christian principles, and much of the very language of our Declaration of Independence, our Constitution and Bill of Rights, the very writings of the Founding Fathers throughout is grounded in the Bible and Christian principles.

Religious extremism, not God, was the thing the Founding Fathers attempted to avoid. As we view the situation today one might get the impression from some of the media and pundits there is fear of Christians getting the upper hand in politics. But as we hear “moderate” Muslims claiming the murderers among them are not the “true believers” while at the same time refusing to denounce the crimes against humanity committed by their fellow Muslims it is nothing less than intentional obfuscation of the facts for any to claim they have a like fear of Christians in America. Considering those like my great-grandmother, it is impossible for me to believe the claims of those like Bush that they are Christians. No doubt the president of Iran believes himself to be a good Muslim, but that makes him no less a tyrant. Whether Bible or Koran, it is the claims by fanatics that the words of men are the words of gods that makes for the organization of hatreds, but good people will not be persuaded their books or gods approve cruelty and murder in the name of some deity.

It was the love my great-grandmother expressed by her note to me, the verses she lovingly and laboriously underlined in this precious New Testament, made precious by her own hand and love that told the story, not the book. It was not the Bible that made grandma the loving person she was, but those things she believed of importance in the Bible continue to be important to me as further evidence of her love and the way she lived her life as a Christian.

Trapper

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 20:59:25 PDT

Trapper is a Canadian Lynx. If you come to see him in summer, he will have a brownish coat. Come see him in the winter and he will have a silver white coat, like in this photo.

Dad Says

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:52:17 PDT

Do any of these sound familiar? In honor of my Dad.........Happy Father's Day!

DAD SAYS...

Don't ask me, ask your mother.

Were you raised in a barn? Close the door.

You didn't beat me. I let you win.

Big boys don't cry.

Don't worry. It's only blood.

Don't you know any normal boys?

Now you listen to ME, Buster!

I'll play catch after I read the paper.

Coffee will stunt your growth.

A little dirt never hurt anyone--just wipe it off..

Get your elbows off the table.

I told you, keep your eye on the ball.

Who said life was supposed to be fair? The fair's in October.

Always say please and thank you.
That way, you get more.

If you forget,
you'll be grounded till the end of the world.

You call that a haircut?

"Hey" is for horses.

This will hurt me a lot more than it hurts you.

Turn off those lights.
Do you think I am made of money?

Don't give me any of your lip, young lady.

You call that noise "music"?

We're not lost.
I'm just not sure where we are.

No, we're not there yet.

Shake it off. It's only pain.

When I was your age ,
I treated MY father with respect.

As long as you live under my roof,
you'll live by my rules.

I'll tell you why. Because I said so. That's why.

Do what I say, not what I do.

Sit up straight, knucklehead!

So you think you're smart, do you?

What's so funny? Wipe that smile off your face.

Young ladies perspire, they do not sweat.

If I've told you once,
I've told you a thousand times

You want something to do?
I'll give you something to do.

You should visit more often.
Your mother worries.

This is your last warning.
.
I'm not sleeping, I was watching that channel.

What keeps those jeans of yours from falling off?

I'm not just talking to hear my own voice!

A little pain never hurt anybody.

I knew how to cook
when I was your age, young lady!

Don't take yourself so seriously,
take what you do seriously!

Laugh at yourself first,
you'll take the bite out of others doing so for you.

You're always a winner if you lose with a smile.

Go tell your mother she wants you.

Any fights, I win!

That's the best way I know to put out an eye!

You could drive a wooden man nuts!

In MY day......

Eat it! It will grow hair on your chest!

Don't forget to check your oil.

Four things come not back:
time past, the spoken word,
the sped arrow and a missed opportunity.

You can want in one hand and spit in the other
and see which one fills up first.

If your friend jumped off a bridge would you?

If I didn't love you so much I wouldn't punish you...
I would let you do whatever you wanted.

Stop crying or I'll give you a reason to cry.

You have things so easy!

When I was your age
I had to walk to school in 10 feet of snow
up hill both ways!

You're only young once.

You're gonna like it, whether you like it or not!

The early bird gets the worm. Rise and shine!

Don't take any wooden nickels!

Life is a journey
and you've just reached
one of many speed bumps to come.

Don't look at me in that tone of voice!

How many times
do I have to pound that into your head?

I'm not lost, it's just over the next hill!

If you want to do something,
do it because you want to.
Don't do it because someone else did.

As long as you tried your hardest,
that's all that matters.

What do you think this is, your birthday?

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts
then we'd all have a merry Christmas.

Don't believe anything you hear
and only half of what you see.

What do you think I am, a bank?

What part of NO don't you understand?

I don't care what other people are doing!
I'm not everybody elses father!

You're not leaving my house dressed like that!
What will other parents think?

Could those sleeves be any longer?

You look like a bag lady!

Headache remedy:
Put your head through the window
and the pain will be gone.

Worrying about things you can't change
is like a rocking chair...
it gives you something to do,
but it doesn't get you anywhere.

Hurt much? I didn't feel a thing.

I feel for you, but I can't reach you from here.

If you're gonna be dumb, you've gotta be tough.

Didn't your teacher learn you anything?!

You can marry a rich guy just as easily
as you can a poor guy.

It's hard to be good, and easy to be bad.

If you're going to steal a car,
at least make it a Cadillac
(but don't call me asking for bail.)

I got my tongue wrapped around my eye-tooth
and couldn't see what I was saying.

Men are like buses.
Just wait on the corner
and another one will come along.

Don't tell on anybody
unless you tell on yourself first.

Hey, did you hear me talking to you?

. I'm not watching television. I'm resting my eyes.

Don't use that tone with me!

Am I talking to a brick wall?

If I catch you doing that one more time, I'll...

Act your age.

Two wrongs do not make a right.

Wipe your feet!

Enough is enough!

Don't make me stop the car!

What did I just get finished telling you?

You know you're always
gonna to be Daddy's little girl...

Father's Day has become a day not only to honor your father, but all men who act as a father figure. Stepfathers, uncles, grandfathers, and male friends are all to be honored on Father's Day.

Summer in the Kern River Valley

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 10:47:18 PDT

No one has to remind me of how privileged I am to be a resident of the Kern River Valley. I have loved this place since first visiting in the 40s when Isabella had a population of a little over 30 and Kernville a little over 100. And after moving with my grandparents to the mining claim, that is now Boulder Gulch Campground because of the lake going in, I used to pick up arrowheads as well as shell casings of the blank cartridges used in making some of the old western films hereabouts. And notwithstanding the many hardships, I recall the joys of childhood living in an environment shared only by the critters of the forest for the better part.

It is that wonderful time of year when the heat of summer finally begins to kick in; and being an old desert rat I thoroughly enjoy it, a kindness to old bones and a lean frame for which the bitter cold of winter is no such friend. In fact, preferring the heat I live without air conditioning or swamp cooler and rely only on an electric fan when needed. Another summer benefit is the marvelous, large white blooms of the nightshade plants, and the antics of the various birds at the water I provide them and at the feeders hanging from my oak trees, the quail and doves in the yard taking advantage of the seed the smaller birds spill to the ground.

But not all is serene as I watch mockingbirds chase other birds and even the resident cat because of their nearby nest, and in the balmy warmth of evening as I sit outside I’m dive-bombed by an occasional bat, keeping in mind some might be rabid, and now we even have to be aware of the West Nile Virus and spray with DEET.

Along with this time of year I watch tarantulas making the rounds, recalling one perched on the bathroom sink that surprised me as I reached to turn on the faucet one night. Uppity critter. I very carefully picked it up and deposited it outside. Home is where you don’t bump into things in the dark, but good thing I turned on the light that night. Reason enough to be very careful walking barefoot in the dark around here.

Far be it from me to question the Lord’s judgment in the Creation, but over the decades I have come to question why some things are the way they are? And no, it isn’t the size of avocado seeds as per George Burns that particularly bother me, though I admit to questioning things like the creation of mosquitoes, bears, lions, sharks (and lawyers) and their function in the scheme of Nature, it is things like why grownups are so forgetful of how things were when they were children? Why is it that so many adults seem to forget the many dangerous things that were so very attractive to them as children? Why didn’t the Lord wire this memory into the brains of adults so it would function properly as we grow older and have children of our own?

For instance, there are numerous and quite natural attractions for children among which are matches and lighters, anything that can be made to explode, tobacco, alcohol, guns, so many things adults might take for granted that are dangerous “magnets” for children. Wouldn’t it have been just as easy for the Lord to have wired some kind of genetic “obedience” code into children where a parent simply tells their child something is forbidden them and that would be sufficient? But it doesn’t work that way, and because there are so many hazards into which children are born too many think their name is “No” for the first years of their lives.

A child quickly learns adults are the most unreasonable creatures in the world. “Why can’t I have a pony in my bedroom?” So it isn’t any wonder children quickly learn questions they already know will draw a negative response from the parent don’t get asked, and the child schemes how to get that pony into their bedroom without the parent finding out.

Now I’m a well qualified scholar of the Bible and I find myself asking why did the Lord God from the very get-go make that tree so attractive and then turn right around and tell his children, Adam and Eve, they could have anything in the Garden but the fruit from that tree? It seems to me that was a setup, a loaded gun available to the children dooming them from the start, notwithstanding the beguiling serpent. Few things make something more attractive to a child than telling them it is forbidden to them; but in all fairness to children there are many that do not forsake this in adulthood.

Ok, so things begin to get theological at this point and the ongoing debate of Free Will vs. Predestination continues without let. Nevertheless, adults shouldn’t so easily forget the attraction of so many things dangerous to children, and the lesson from Genesis shouldn’t be lost on adults, that simply saying “No” is seldom enough. And the lessons of childhood should not be forgotten, lessons often learned to our hurt, like Adam and Eve, when we were disobedient.

Even granting we would not want to be robots wired for obedience, still one cannot help wishing there were easier ways of training up our children without so many dangers all about, dangers we adults are responsible for. Don’t you wish our political leadership would remember the lessons of childhood, to act like adults and be responsible for the many dangers facing all of us, the dangers that among other things they were elected to prevent?

Responsible adults don’t want a “nanny government,” however, parents are responsible to their children and those elected to office are responsible to those who elected them. We the People are not asking why we can’t have a pony in our bedroom, but we are asking why politicians don’t act responsibly, especially in the face of so many threatening dangers rather than stomping ants while the elephants are rampaging through the village, treating the electorate like children and having the temerity to call this “public service?”

Many of us privileged to live here in the glorious Kern River Valley take delight in sharing our space with the various critters and providing bird feeders for our feathered friends and water for them and others. One cannot but feel sorry for city-dwellers who at best have to make do with films, television, or screensavers of flora and fauna on their computer monitors. For my part, I don’t even mind sharing my space with the occasional “Pepe le Pew,” though this did cause a woman while visiting to remark on the presence of one that had become quite friendly.

No matter the technological advances, in my opinion “Virtual reality” will never take the place of the real thing. For example, I used to do a lot of ballroom dancing and examples of Japanese robots attempting this seemed a travesty. One cannot help applauding the inventiveness of us humans, but once you have held a lovely woman in your arms, warm, soft and sweet-scented moving together in graceful unison to the beautiful music of a waltz or tango you aren’t going to settle for a robot.

The beauty of our valley is reflective of something Emerson wrote: “That only which we have within, can we see without. If we meet no gods, it is because we harbor none. If there is grandeur in you, you will find grandeur in porters and sweeps.”

For renewal of purpose I will still watch Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald films, I still play the LPs of their music and continue to thrill to the operatic grandeur of love and romance of a simpler time that held so much hope of the future. Of such are the “gods” I harbor that sustain me, and while politicians ignore the grandeur to be found in ordinary people faithfully going about doing the menial tasks required to raise families where would America be without such ordinary people?

Having spent many years in various occupations such as machinist and construction earning a living with my hands and back, punching a clock and getting dirt and grease under my fingernails for a paycheck I am duly appreciative of the lives of the ordinary people politicians publicly applaud and privately disdain. For this reason alone we have justification to wonder what gods, if any, politicians meet or harbor? Perhaps this explains why Congress and state legislatures are not noted for the arts that sustain and advance truly civilized people.

Of this I am certain: If I had not spent those years working with hands and back my university education, the years I spent in academia would be utterly lacking in knowledge of the “grandeur in porters and sweeps,” of the real world in which the gods dwell and are met resulting in the best of the arts that sustain and advance the truly civilized, the appreciation on the part of the civilized for the art to be found in Nature that wastes nothing on superfluities, but even the various hues and scents of flowers have a distinct purpose.

But speaking of the “gods,” while no longer orthodox in Christian beliefs nevertheless I credit many of the myths and fables of the Bible having a basis in facts. Among these and other writings such as those of the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and Greeks is the idea of war in the heavens brought to earth, of demons and angels in conflict from which we derive the origin of Good vs. Evil; the New Testament Gospel of the transcendence of good over evil personified in Jesus resulting in the basis of Western Civilization, the most advanced of any in the world.

Because of my experience and education, particularly my education in theology and philosophy together with the sciences, some years ago I began to entertain the notion there are indeed “monsters” among us in human guise, creatures such as we find in the Bible and elsewhere that throughout history have seemed to especially delight in preying on women and children.

While at first blush seeming fanciful, there are the rare instances of some animals with the human characteristics of self awareness, even using tools like some dolphins using sponges as such. If human characteristics can be found in animals, who is to say there may not be monsters in human guise among us?

Whether due to Biblical “Children of God” and “Children of the Devil,” or the interbreeding of ancient hominids or other, I believe science may yet prove such monsters are a distinct species apart from Homo sapiens and I am presently engaged in sharing my thoughts about this with some colleagues. And while circumstances and environment are often contributing factors perhaps “bullies” are born, not made. After all, saints and devils both come from the best and worst of circumstances and environments, and neither a ghetto nor Beverly Hills is a reliable predictor of the outcome.

Whatever your own thoughts on the subject of monsters among us, at least there are still places like the beautiful Kern River Valley where you have a chance to do some “celestial fishing” in hope of catching somewhat of the thoughts of kinder gods than those reflected by so much seeming madness all about our world today. And while I can no longer make the pilgrimage to my favorite trout stream here in the valley, I’m grateful to be living in a place where I can continue casting my celestial line in hope.