08:23 – Barbara picked up some new “tennis balls” for Colin at the pet store the other day. Boy, I wish these had been around when I was playing tennis. They look just like standard tennis balls, but they aren’t. A standard tennis ball weighs 2 ounces (58 g) and, when dropped onto concrete from a height of 100 inches (2.54 meters), bounces about 60 inches (1.5 meters). These “tennis balls” weigh 3.7 ounces (105 g). I didn’t actually test the bounce, but I’d guess that if I dropped one onto concrete from 100 inches it’d bounce about 2 inches (5 cm). With no bounce to speak of, a hard flat serve would come up only a few inches from the court surface by the time it hit the fence.
Poor Colin. Now that I have a mixture of real and fake tennis balls on the foyer table, he’s never sure what to expect when we go out the front door. He always rushes two or three meters down the walk, turns, and waits for me to toss a tennis ball onto the walk so that he can pounce on it. The first time I used one of the bounceless ones, he over-pounced and it rolled under him. Once he got used to scooping bounceless ones off the walk, I switched to a regular one, which bounced over his head. Being a Border Collie, he quickly figured out that there are two different kinds of balls in play, so now he tries either to grab it in mid-air before it hits the walk or to short-hop it.
13:45 – Here’s a sensible young woman. I confess that I was only vaguely familiar with Kelly Clarkson’s name and had no idea what she does. Clarkson is taking heat for endorsing Ron Paul, whom some pretend to believe is racist, sexist, and homophobic. He’s not, of course. The only basis for these accusations are some articles that appeared in a newsletter decades ago. Paul has said repeatedly that he did not write these articles and that he never made the statements in question that were attributed to him. No one has presented any evidence whatsoever that he did write those articles or make those statements. His record as a congressman and his public statements as a presidential candidate for both the Libertarian Party and the Republican Party should be enough to convince any reasonable person that Paul has been the victim of a smear campaign. Of course, most people are not reasonable, and most of the other Republican candidates are exploiting that fact to harm Paul’s candidacy. He scares them, and rightly so. Paul has integrity, which none of the other major Republican candidates does, particularly Gingrich. Integrity? He’s heard of it.
Kelly Clarkson’s number of Twitter followers and Amazon.com sales rank has INCREASED since her support of Ron Paul made the news. The early naysayers that were ditching her for supporting a libertarian Republican were quickly replaced with supporters. Whether you like Ron Paul of not, you have to admire her for publicly supporting ideals that go against the groupthink in the music industry.
To be fair, I can see why people are worried by what was in Paul’s newsletters. And, while he didn’t write them, I’m under the impression that he did sign several of them — which was a bad mistake.
Then again, his mistakes are trivial in comparison to the habitual atrocities of government. So it goes.
They’re gonna nail Paul for those newsletter comments and accuse him of being a racist and anti-Semite like they did with Pat Buchanan, SOP for RNC and NR operatives. The Dems happily watch, of course, while their guy, the Prophet, blows away differently-colored folks all over the world, while he and his cronies turn their backs on the plight of their alleged brothers and sisters in the inner cities, as they sip their cocktails at their tony digs in Oak Bluffs, Martha’s Vineyard.
Meanwhile I just heard on the radio on my way home through the wintry northern VT landscape, a 12-degree heat wave, that Mittens says Ron Paul is out of the American mainstream. I about drove off the highway laughing myself to death.
Mittens is IN the mainstream? A Mormon cult multi-millionaire whose dad ran for Prez back in the Bronze Age, and who was governor of arguably the most liberal/hard left state in the country? Mainstream?
Jesus wept.
And Sarai laughed!
Spent the entire day trying to catch up on mail (snail). Just now emerging from that mound of work. It is raining hard outside, and temps are supposed to plunge to well below freezing tonight. Why does it so frequently freeze after raining in this part of the country?
Great Big Radio is been playing only songs from 1968 this week.
http://65.49.77.146:9028/
They took a vote during the early part of the month to pick a year, and ’68 won overwhelmingly. Listening today reminds me how much I think the quality of music from the late ‘60’s has never been equaled. And so many teenagers were responsible for that good music. The fabulous voice of 15 year-old Alex Chilton on the string of hits Memphis’ Box Tops had, is only the beginning. They played “I Met Her in Church” not long ago, and I don’t think I have heard that since 1968.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDDBRt8_O1w
Here’s the visually unexpressive teenage Chilton lip-syncing to “The Letter”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWY8UyW9bw
Surely that was a take they did not use. Even the organ player stops faking several times.
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band was also on not long ago, with “Smell of Incense”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpPqPFQoGFk
That’s another group of exceptionally talented mid-teens (who started recording at 14), and broke up in 1970 at the age of 20. Michael Lloyd, moved to head of A&R at MGM records after the break-up; the youngest A&R man at a major record label, ever.
Here’s another song that is never heard, even though it peaked at #22 in the Hot 100 and #14 on the Billboard R&B charts. Why are these songs never heard? Why? Love the tubular bells at the beginning of the song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcm5rZjVGk4
It is The Sandpebbles who are listed as Northern Soul artists, but I believe were actually from the Carolinas or Georgia. The song was recorded in NYC, and I suppose that makes it “northern” soul.