"In the Garden" - Pixels and Impressionist Art

Just because the picture didn't come out right doesn't mean it's wrong. Claude Monet's "Artist Garden at Giverny" comes to mind when I look at this photo. Now, I'm no Monet, and I certainly can't do this with a brush - but for an accident it's not that bad...


Here is a link to good ol' Wikipedia's article on Monet. There is a gallery at the bottom which highlights almost all of his work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet

Saving Mr. Zippy

The Post Office is in trouble, and it needs your help. With a projected loss of $15 billion dollars this fiscal year, which includes the $5.5 billion due to the Retirement Health Fund, the Post Office needs you! First, let's take a look at the history of the Post Office in the United States.

In the earliest days of the American colonies, the settlers relied upon one another to deliver messages between the colonies. These messengers included the colonists, slaves and even friendly Native Americans. The system worked fairly well for its time. But what about the correspondence going back to England, Holland, Germany, and all of the other countries from where the colonists originated? For the most part these messages were carried by ship's captains and deposited in the systems of the countries to which they were destined. The system worked okay, but it needed to be more organized. To that end, in 1639, the General Court of Massachusetts named a tavern in Boston, owned by Richard Fairbanks, to be the official depot for mail coming from, or going to, overseas locations. The tavern also served as the place from which mail received here in the colonies would be distributed.

This early system lead to the development of what became known as "the old Post Road", parts of which are still in existence between Boston and New York. The first regularly scheduled mail runs between New York and Boston began under New York's Governor Francis Lovelace in 1673.

In 1683, William Penn, then Governor of Pennsylvania, established postal service throughout Pennsylvania. It was a fairly simple affair, covering only the immediate area. Primarily they were tasked with the delivery of local documents, as well as the letters arriving by ship in Philadelphia from the old world to the residents in Pennsylvania. It was a good system for its time and place.

The Southern colonies, too, had their own method for the delivery of mail. They used slaves to transport documents between plantations. Failure to forward another person's mail was met with a fine, a hogs head of tobacco was the usual penalty.

The first real organization of the Post Office began in 1691 when the English crown gave a 21 year grant to a man named Thomas Neale. Neale had never even visited America, and with no desire to do so, appointed the Governor of New Jersey, Andrew Hamilton, as Deputy Postmaster General. Neale passed away in 1699, passing the torch back to Andrew Hamilton. Between that time and 1730, much remained as it was.

By 1730, Alexander Spotswood, a lieutenant governor of Virginia, was named as Deputy Postmaster General for the colonies. He appointed 31 year old Benjamin Franklin as postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737. At the time Franklin was the publisher of The Pennsylvania Gazette.

Spotswood remained at the helm until 1739 when he was succeeded by Head Lynch, and then Elliot Benger in 1743. Both Lynch and Benger were from Virginia. When Benger died in 1753, Franklin was appointed, along with William Hunter, to be the Joint Postmasters General for all of the colonies. When Hunter died in 1761, John Foxcroft of New York succeeded him. He would serve until the outbreak of the American Revolution.

By this time, Franklin had already toured the colonies to inspect the post offices, which were still largely ensconced in General Stores and taverns. During this time Franklin made many changes and improvements to the service. He ordered new surveys for better roads, and added milestones on many of the main roads. This lead to new and shorter routes, and for the first time, mail was carried by horseback and stagecoach at night between Philadelphia and New York, cutting the travel time in half.

By 1760 the Post Office was operating at a surplus. The system was operated between Maine and Florida, with a route from New York to Canada as well.

With the coming of the American Revolution, most Americans eschewed the official Post Office in favor of other means to communicate with the various colonies. Benjamin Franklin was dismissed by the Crown for being in sympathy with the colonists. William Goddard set up a post office in Connecticut for inter colonial service. He appointed Franklin as Postmaster General. There were now 30 official stations operating across the colonies.

Between that time and the opening of the Western regions, the Post Office took on many different incarnations, including the famous Pony Express, which carried mail from coast to coast in as little as 5 days.

As the country continued to grow, so did the Post Office. And it has served us well for over 200 years. The latest news for this valuable institution is not good. With no money to plug that $15 billion dollar hole it seems that the Post Office may be looking at its demise. And that would be a shame. So, what can be done to save it?

First of all, revenues need to be increased. This can be done by not trying to undercut the private carriers. Instead, the Post Office should charge the same amount as the private carriers do for "junk" mail and other commercial uses. Minimum fees for the private companies need to be set, so as to avoid price wars between the Public and Private enterprises.

The loss of revenue due to the use of e-mails and e-cards, of which we are all guilty, needs to be made up for in other ways. The First Class postal rate needs to be set at a realistic rate, say about 75 cents per letter. We cannot let the Post Office simply go out of existence. Too much time and energy were expended to create it, only to let it slip away from us.

Send a letter to yourself. This should be easy; you know what you want to say, so you can just mail an empty envelope to yourself. Wouldn't it be nice to get a letter once in a while, along with all the "junk" mail? Another method would be for you to place one extra stamp, of any denomination, to the next thing you mail.

Finally, remember this, it still takes a Court Order to open your mail when it is sent by U.S. Postal Service. The Postmaster General is the one who has to approve the monitoring of the mails, which was last done during the Second World War. After 9-11, and the enactment of the Patriot Act, all private carriers were required to let law enforcement open any mail, or packages, carried by Fed Ex, UPS and all the others, without warrants, operating solely on "anonymous" tips. This runs so counter to who we are as a nation, that it sets one to wondering how this is considered to be "patriotic" at all. We have already given up many of our rights in regard to packages and e-mails carried privately; do we really want to cast aside the last truly protected service?

Perhaps I am being too emotional about the whole issue. It's just that I remember waiting for the mailman to come when I was a kid, hoping that the day would bring me that special letter I was waiting for, or perhaps some silly thing I had sent away for with my allowance and the required box tops from my cereal. At any rate, the Post Office is simply too good a thing to let it go without at least trying to keep it viable.

I'm printing this out for my mail carrier to read. I'm going to put it in my mailbox today with the red flag up. Then I'm going to mail myself a copy, with an extra stamp on it for luck.

The Andy Griffith Show

I'm a big fan of the Andy Griffith Show. I say this without embarassment. There is more to be learned about the Golden Rule in any single episode of these shows than in any church, or other house of worship, which I have ever attended. And in between there is some great fingerpicking going on. In the first video, above, the Darling family has come to town, intent on drawing up a marriage contract with Andy for Opie to marry Mr. Darling's grandaughter when the two children become of age. The whole matter is finally settled, Opie doesn't have to get married, and the two families sit down and make some music in Sheriff Taylor's living room.

Andy Griffith really started out telling stories, his first big break came with the recording of his comedy routine "What It Was, Was Football", recorded in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1953. This routine lead to appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and really launched his career, first in film with "A Face In The Crowd" in 1957, which co-starred Patricia Neal, and then on Broadway as the star of "No Time For Sergeants" in 1958. By 1961 he was the star of his own show on television in the all time classic "The Andy Griffith Show". This show also spawned the career of Ron Howard, who often credits the 6 years he spent with Mr. Griffith as the most rewarding ones of his life.

But in all of these genres, Andy Griffith was able to include, and indulge, his real passion, which was music. In doing so he managed to preserve some of the music of North Carolina's long musical legacy. I watch these shows often, on TV, or even on You Tube, where they are preserved in pristine condition. You can watch them in their full versions, or just watch short clips from the episodes which you like best.

Andy Griffith is one of those performers who will be considered timeless. His shows will be aired long after he has left the stage. Here he is, in the Courthouse, singing "New River Train" with one of the prisoners, Jim Lindsey, played by actor James Best. Herb Ellis, a very talented jazz guiarist, and CBS studio musician, is actually playing the second guitar. The close ups are of Mr. Ellis' hands.



And here is a link to "the original live version of "What It Was, Was Football";

http://youtu.be/-z3XvZ-lh7I

Labor Day - 2011

This is a sweatshop on Ludlow Street on New York's Lower East Side. The photograph was taken by Jacob Riis. If any of the workers are smiling, it's only due to the novelty of having their pictures taken. These folks made pants for the princely sum of 45 cents per dozen. Imagine the time it took to accomplish this!

To make matters more clear, remember that this photo was taken in someone's home. That's right, this family, or group of immigrants, were working, living, eating and sleeping in this apartment, which probably contained one other room, with no windows at all, and a toilet in the backyard. The Public Baths were located on Grand Street. They worked 6 days a week, for about 12 hours per day. All of them split the 45 cents per dozen for the completed work. Just how many dozen do you think were made per day by this 5 person team working from scratch? Perhaps 2 dozen per day? That means that these 5 adults were working for a combined total of $5.40 per week.

When I grew up in New York, the city, as most of the nation, was largely free of these sweat shops. The workers had organized into Unions, demanding better wages and working conditions. Gone were the days of the Triangle Shirt Waist Factory, with it's locked doors, leading to the deaths of so many of the women who worked there when fire broke out. Gone was the sign that read - "If you don't come in on Sunday- then don't come in on Monday." As a child of the 1950's, and the Middle Class, these things are unimaginable to me. That is, until I look down at my sneakers.

Unions are almost dead, and sweatshops exist everywhere in the world today. My sneakers were probably made in one somewhere in China, or Malaysia, or Mexico; in short, they probably come from anywhere that people are desperate for work, and there are others willing to exploit that need for profit. These children are working at a brick "factory" in Asia.

Even back on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where much of the Labor Movement began, there are sweatshops once more. In the last 30 years we have been moving backwards in regards to Worker's Rights. Everywhere in the world today, there are factories, and sweatshops, which employ the most destitute of the working class, as well as illegal immigrants, under conditions which make the older photo, by Mr. Riis, look good. Think about this when you are out shopping today for all of the Labor Day Sales.

"Every Streets a Boulevard" from "Living It Up" with Jerry Lewis

It's hard to believe that Jerry Lewis will not be appearing on the Muscular Dystrophy Telethon this weekend for the first time since it was broadcast, locally, in New York several years prior to the popularly acknowledged date of 1966 at the Americana Hotel. Actually, the first one was held in 1952. If you don't believe me, hit this Wikipedia link for yourself. I don't need it, I grew up in Brooklyn and we used to collect change for the Telethon, and even go to the lobby of whatever hotel was hosting it, to drop off the coins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MDA_Labor_Day_Telethon

I'm not sure of who is responsible for deciding that Jerry Lewis will no longer be the Emcee of what was essentially "his baby", but I do know it will never be the same without him. So, for all the Jerry Lewis fans out there, here is the master Emcee himself, along with Dean Martin, celebrating life on the streets of the Big Apple, in the 1954 comedy hit "Living It Up." Listen for those high harmonies from Jerry Lewis and think about how hard it must have been to sing them with such force. He really does outdo Dean Martin in the sheer exuberance of his performance. Like I said, this is a uniquely talented man, and as such, his presence on the Telethon will be sorely missed.

Thoughts on the MLK Memorial.

I don't know which of the errors concerning the Martin Luther King monument, which was unveiled last weekend in Washington, D.C. troubles me more. Maybe it's the fact that it was outsourced to China, while I would have preferred a monument done by an American, not necessarily of African-American descent. Dr. King is often quoted on being judged by the content of character, rather than the color of one's skin. But the monument should have been done by an American, as the whole Civil Rights Era was so uniquely American in it's context.

Maybe it's the way the Chinese artists cast him in a formidable, and almost unnapproachable stance,which was so unlike the man himself. Or perhaps I was troubled by the way in which they mangled the quote used on the monument. In it's short, clipped version the words sound arrogant and full of self praise. They were anything but that.

On February 4th, 1968, while speaking at Ebenezer Baptist Chiurch, a mere 8 weeks before his murder, Dr. King spoke of what his eulogy would be like if he were to pass away before his work was complete. He did not wish to be remembered as a supreme leader, he wanted to be remembered as a man who stood up for what is right, and beat the drum in that cause. He spoke with resignation, as a man who was fully reconciled with his own mortality, his eyes were moist, and his voice filled with emotion when he spoke these words;

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter."

This is the quote as it appears on the side of the monument;

"I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."

Maya Angelou said it best when she opined that the statue, along with it's truncated quotation, "minimizes the man."

The Cat

My first reaction to this fellow was to chase him away. He had been hiding out in our garage to escape the heat of the mid-day sun, which has been quite hot here lately. But each time I came out and saw him, I liked him a bit more. He roams the neighborhood, much as I did in my own neighborhood, when I was younger.

The first day I just let him alone in the shade as it was 100 degrees outside! There was no way I could chase him away. Then the next day I brought him a dish of water. In true cat fashion he turned his nose up at it, and went back to curling up under the front porch chairs.

Well, now I have gotten used to him darting around the outside of the house when I get my morning paper. Yesterday he was hanging out beneath Sue's car, and I brought him some milk. There was not even a moment of hesitation on his part, he simply began to lick it up while I snapped away. Camera shy is not in his vocabulary.

I haven't seen him yet today, but I know he'll be back. I know he doesn't really love me, and he certainly isn't coming by to see me - he's just in it for the milk. And that's okay by me.