Yeah, that's the one I've been singing in my head since about halfway through writing the above post.
Huddie's manslaughter charges were basically semi-bogus. There was something of a tradition in Texas ( and much of the south at the time) that if there was a general melee in a bar, and someone never got up again, when the police got there they arrested, tried and convicted the biggest, toughest looking black man who hadn't run away yet. Huddie was almost always the biggest and toughest looking black man in any crowd, and not prone to run from anyone or anything (Sugarland Prison is still probably the nastiest prison in America, and Huddie earned his knickname by being the thoughest man there). That's also what made it so easy for him to sing his way out of prison. Everyone knew he was just the stand up fall guy who took the rap for a killing that couldn't actually be attributed to any one person.
It was racist, and hardly legal, but in an odd sort of way it kept the peace, because the public (both black and white) could pretend that justice had been done, if only in spirit, and I can't recall ever hearing that Huddie ever made any real complaints about it. And he might have actually had some hand in the killings, although in a modern court with a decent lawyer it's unlikely he would ever even have gone to trial. There was simply no evidence against him.
But the peculiar racism of Washington really, really pissed him off. The city was completely (although entirely "unofficially") segregated, and there wasn't anyplace he and Alan could go to stay or eat together, either in a "black" place or a "white" place. Even in the deep south he'd never encountered anything like that. (Dr. King had much the same experience when he went to Chicago. The unofficial, but very real, segregation of the north was much more insidious than the official segregation of the south, and continues that way in many places. Yeah, it's still a "bushwa" town).
Pete's still with us, but the last time I saw him (which was a few years ago) I was jolted into recognition of his mortality. Pete's always been the Dick Clark of folk music, and gave off a certain air of immortality. Other than a few more wrinkles he's always looked more or less like he did back in the 50's, and acted like it. All of a sudden he's started to look, and act, well, a bit old.
Quoting Pete on Ledbelly:
"One year he started having to use a cane to go on stage. His voice, always soft and husky when speaking, still rang out high on the melodies, but his hands grew stiffer and less certain on the guitar. Then one day he was gone, and we were left with regrets that we had not treasured him more."
I'm afraid it's time to start treasuring Pete while we can.
(I hope Pete doesn't read Slashdot)
(Ok, really, good night. At least for me. Your diurnalage may vary. Lord knows mine does, all the hell over the place)
And Ledbelly is, of course, the moniker of Huddie Ledbetter. That's why it's spelled that way. He got the knickname during his tenure in Sugerland Prison, for manslaughter. That would be his first tenure for manslaughter. Part of the Ledbelly legend is the way he got out of prison by singing.
Huddie died in poverty in December of 1949. One month later Goodnight Irene hit number one on the charts (as recorded by The Weavers) and stayed there for longer than any song has since.
Since that time other Ledbelly songs that have had great sucess on the charts include Black Betty, Midnight Special (written while in Sugerland, the Midnight Special was an actual train running out of Houston and prison legend had it that if it's headlight shone on you in your cell you would be released the next day. This was rather like saying that if you stuck your elbow in your ear you would be released the next day) and The Rock Island Line. Ledbelly was also a friend of Woody Guthrie. Woody's Roll on Columbia was written to the tune of Goodnight Irene (although Woody didn't realize this until Pete Seeger pointed it out to him).
I really pissed off a barmaid one night when I ended my first set with that song. Her name was Irene. She hates that song. I found out why.
Only if you deny the viability of prophetic visions.
Other than as a psycological effect, yeah, I'm afraid I do. I may be a metaphysician, but I'm no mystic. This is not to say, however, that such psycholgical effects can't be without personal value, just as one can use the tarot (or I Ching , according to taste) as a trigger for personal insight without believing that the layout of the cards is anything more than random.
Other than that I'm in essential agreement with you, and for all I know we're in essential agreement on that too.
. . . posting anonymously as I'm WAAAY offtopic.
As you can see by the post you're responding too I don't worry about that sort of thing anymore. I just post and let 'em mod the hell out of me.
Boys will be boys, and it gives 'em somethin' to do and keeps 'em outta trouble.
. ..they told me to not sit at the bar, they can legally do that.
Of course they can legally do that. It's their place. Just as I could legally require that people entering my R/C racetrack had to be wearing shoes, no barefeet or sandals.
The issue is that I wasn't legally required to do that. It was my choice, for their protection, and thus my own.
I could just as well have refused entry to anyone who wasn't wearing a tuxedo, or was. There is a bar that will actually cut off the necktie of anyone who enters the place wearing one (so long as they compensate the person for the tie it's legal. The walls are decorated with the ties displayed as tropies).
The Duke of Glouster on Young and Glouster is the best hole in the wall you'll ever go to.
Maybe it is now, but I'm pretty sure it didn't used to be. Used to be the best hole in the wall you'll ever go to was Madame Jumel's in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Until they changed owners, who changed the chef. Then they actually went and sanded and varnished the floor. What the hell kind of hole in the wall has shiney floors? Then the state passed that no smoking even in bars law, after which the owners converted it into this bizzare sort of neo-art-deco yuppie fern bar that neither the winos, PhDs, muscians or Skidmore girls who previously inhabited the place would be caught dead in.
So maybe you're right about The Duke. I've never made it to Toronto. Quebec has been about my western limit when venturing north. If I ever make it out that way I'll be sure to give the place a look over and see how it compares. And maybe smoke something that's contraban here in the "Land of the Free."
No, not that, I'm talking about tobacco. From that place, ummmmmmm, south of Miami.
Well, in the California case in question the law does actually require that the police officer have some just cause for suspecting you of a crime, and in this case he had an actual complaint and witness and made the request in investigation of that complaint. Mind you that's a pretty big hole you can drive through, and anybody can make any complaint against anybody else. That's one of the reasons we have judges, juries, and a presumption of innocence until found (not actually proven mind you, found. This is a bit of tricky legal philosophy.IANAL. I am accused of being a philosopher. By lawyers.) guilty.
Again in the case in question the person was formally arrested and convicted of commiting a crime (that's why it can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court), not the one at issue in the complaint, but rather the crime of obstructing justice for not showing his ID, a rather blatent misapplication of law in order to be able to charge him with something if I've ever seen one, and I rather suspect the Supremes will jump on this issue to overturn the conviction, rather than deal directly with the Constitutional issue of requiring ID (they like to do that sort of thing. They will, as a rule, always look for the lowest level they can overturn a ruling with, even in those cases where they know it is overturnable on Constitutional grounds).
Note also that in some states it is legal to detain people for up to 48 hours just because (or at least it was the last time I looked. Things change session by session. Even lawyers have to recheck every law for every case, just in case), perhaps "for your own protection." ( Take heart though in knowing that in such cases you will be treated just as fairly as any other person taken into custody, in other words, just like a bank robber. "Alright, bend over and spread your butt cheeks.").
The cynical might have a hard time differentiating this practice from governmental endorsed kidnapping. I've been accused of being a cynic.
There is a fine point of legal philosophy here as to just what being taken into custody means, and what it does not necessarily mean is that you have been accused of some crime.
It's also perfectly legal to throw you in the slammer for merely violating some code or other, which is not technically a crime at all. Say, a parking ticket you picked up while visiting Podunk.
And, of course, being accused of a crime has no direct bearing on whether you have actually commited one, or might be found guilty of same (as per above these are not necessarily the same thing. See also the O.J. case, which rather reverses the issue. Just because you have been found not guilty doesn't mean you didn't do it, and provision that you should be treated as innocent until found guilty only applies to the law, and not private opinion. "Guilty" is a legal state, not one of fact).
Yes, most American law is still (although this is eroding) state by state and city by city. Bear in mind, however, just because it's a local or state law doesn't mean that it will pass Constitutional muster, and is thus, in itself, legal.
Many, many local laws are (some rather blatently) contrary to Supremem Court rulings (my own city recently had to pony up $30 mil for unconstitutional prosecution of a law that had already been covered, in some depth, by the Supreme Court, leaving my mayor to publicly wonder what other local laws might be contrary to federal law. He wasn't a very bright fellow (and I have to surmise corporation counsel wasn't either), I could have given him a list, including the one he violated).
They stand until someone challanges them, and it simply isn't worth it, in either time or money, for most people to challange them.
Nor is there any requirement ( as per above post) for the Supreme Court to hear such a challange, even though it has merit.
It seems to be a hard concept for some people to grasp that it may well be the law itself that is the crime.
Yes, and/. covered the story. It is legal, by California law, for a policeman to demand ID. This is not the same thing as requiring you to have one on your person.
If you do not have one on your person the police officer, again by California law, is legally empowered to take you into custody to determine your ID.
So carrying ID may save you a night in the pokey, but it isn't required.
The idea that you can even be required to produce ID, or be taken into custody for refusing to present it, is the issue currently on the docket of the Federal Supreme Court. The very fact alone that have decided to hear the case is evidence that the consider the issue has real Constitutional merit, at least to the extent that it requires federal review (the Supreme Court is only required to hear those strictly federal cases delineated in the Constitution itself. They can, and do, simply refuse cases that they don't consider worth their time).
As a general rule (there are, of course, certain exceptions, but they are exceptions) one does not have to provide a police officer with anything other than nonresistence to arrest.
When a bartender asks for ID he is doing so because the law requires him to certify legal age. He is not required to check your ID, he is only required to check your ID if you order a drink, and you are free not to order one. (It is a myth that those who are under the legal drinking age cannot legally go into a bar. Think about all the restaraunts and diners that serve alchohol. No problemo. Some bars refuse entry to those underage because it makes life simpler for them, and because many local law enforcement agencies don't understand this point themselves. Some bars I know only card on the weekend and the rest of week only card when a drink is actually ordered. There's no accounting for the behavior of people).
In the past anything that could serve as a legal document showing age was accpetable. On my eighteenth birthday I bought a bottle of wine with my birth certificate ( I poured the wine down the drain. I wanted the bottle to put a ship in. It was crappy Mogan David anyway. Just the right bottle though). I have also used my passport.
The sticky wicket is the lack of a photo on the birth certificate (not that it would do any good if one were included), thus the ease with which one person's ID can be used by another.
We're getting really frickin' paranoid about all this ID shit, and according to my bank my federally issued passport no longer, in their interpretation of the law, qualifies for photo ID according to the PATRIOT Act.
And, in theory at least, your passport is certified and issued to you by the frickin' Secertary of State.
In future I suppose I'll also need, along with my driver's license (technically this cannot be required for any purpose other than operation of a motor vehicle. Well, that idea seems to have gone by the boards. In my state you cannot get a nondriver's ID is you already have a driver's license. You may keep an expired driver's license (with a hole punched in) as a "nondriver's ID" if you wish. Yeah. Right.), a federal ID card, a note from my mayor, the President himself; and my mommy.
Most of what goes into making the bills is cotton.
And cotton grows on. . . Chevys?
It's a plant fiber, just like wood. Paper is felted plant fibers. Cloth is spun and woven fibers (plant or otherwise). Paper money is paper and has absolutely no resemblence to cloth, other then the fact that they're both made of plant fibers. It is the processing that determines whether said plant fibers are paper or cloth. You simply have an ingrained way of thinking cotton=cloth=blue jeans, wood=pulp=paper.
And you can make clothes out of paper (just as you can make clothes out of felted wool). Paper clothing was actually a bit of a fad in the 60's, especially in Japan, and you'll still find that hospitals contain a lot of it. Dupont is pushing for a return of the popularity of paper clothing in its impregnated form. It goes under the trade name Tyvek. Your outward most clothing (your house) may already rely on it heavily.
A good chunk of what is in your paper money that is not cotton is flax (and the rest is silk, which is an animal fiber. That's what the little colored bits are. It's really only there to make visible little colored bits), which when made into cloth is known as linen and it's really the flax content that gives paper money its rather unique feel. Go to Office Max or somewhere of the like and find some pure rag paper. This paper is cotton. It feels like very good paper, but it does not feel like money (or anything even vaguely like cloth, since it is not woven). Flax has fine fibers which are more "woody" than cotton (which is why cotton has largely replaced it for clothing), but of a peculiar smoothness and with a fiber length measured in feet rather than inches, and whose terminal ends taper to fine points (which is why flax is uprooted rather than cut).
If you wish to feel what pure linen paper feels like go to any printer that makes wedding invitations and ask to see some samples.
And as per my opening question, money, of course, already grows on trees, it's called "trees," which are as much of a tradable commodity as gold. Gold is not money any more than paper is money. Money may be made from paper or gold, but money is an abstracted medium of exchange, for which one obtains commodities, such as wood and gold. Or may well sell those commodities for if one possesses them but desires some other commodity instead, like a car or TV set.
If you really wish to make money growing trees, plant a black walnut grove, tend for 400 years, and then sell. You'll make a bloody fortune. If you have less patience tend for twenty years and then sell as a black walnut grove. Unless you live someplace like downtown LA you'll find that the cash value of the trees exceeds the value of the land they're growing on.
Wood is valuable stuff. It gets even more valuable as it becomes rarer, just like everything else. The main interest the English government had in New England was its trees. 90 foot clear pine for masts and 400 year old oaks for framing had become virtually extinct in Europe, but were absolutely necessary to rule the waves.
No, if I were a Christian I would recall that he was crucified because that was God's plan for him, to be blood sacrifice for us all, for as the Bible tells us God demands blood sacrifice.
Which must have brought a sigh of relief from all the goats and oxen.
And thus there is no blame to be assigned for his crucifiction, unless you want to take it up directly with God or something.
If you are not a Christian you can certainly be excused (as far as I'm concerned at least, for whatever that's worth) from not recalling that though.
Nor was he an extremest whack job. Those sort didn't bear crucifying because they were so obviously whack jobs that it was safe to simply ignore them, because just about everybody else did, thus they were no political threat.
Now Ezekiel, there was a guy who had spent too much time out in the desert living off some rather dubious mushrooms.
No, Copernicus did not teach much the same thing, except to a very few close friends, and more to the point Copernicus refused to publish until after he was dead.
Galileo escaped the wrath of the inquisition because what he was actually accused and convicted of was violation of the Papal order that he not publish his views, which he subsequently did (a nifty little lifesaving legal device arranged by virtue of the Pope being a long time friend).
Had he been convicted of heresy, as most people believe, those who wished to see him dead would have had their way.
This is also what allows the church to admit that his views were right without officially contradicting itself, his conviction having nothing to do with the accuracy of those views, or even expressing them verbally if it comes to that.
The Pope ordered him not to publish, he published, he was, and still remains, absolutely guilty of his crime, just as, say, Gandhi was absolutely guilty of his and Thoreau of his own.
There isn't necessarily any shame in being a rightly accused and convicted felon. At the very least you keep some good company.
Hence the position of Vatican Astronomer, held by the Jesuit George Coyne, who states, "It's madness to believe that man is alone."
I suppose I could also point out that in like manner the views of most Islamics differ markedly from those of the fundamentalist sort, and there are plenty of Reformed Jews in the world, and that much of what we think we know about these religions comes to us not from the main line of thought but from those that their own contemporaries thought of as "extremist religious whack jobs."
You are speaking of the so called "Western" religions ( of Asian origins, go figure).
Thus the third possibility is that various other "nonstandard" ( in the sense that only billions of people adhere to such relgions, just not typically those people in Detroit). Some of these religions have already made strong footholds, at least, in Europe and the United States. Buddhism is widespread enough among physicists that it hardly even raises an eyebrow any more (well, at least not both eyebrows).
And the fourth possibility is the rise of new relgions founded upon these new ideas.
People are adaptable, even if dogma is not.
Of course there's also the possibility that the answer to the question "who was first" is neither the Earth or Mars, that each was seeded from some third bit of interstellar dust carried across the winds of space and time that predates us both, and by a goodly margin.
Yeah, that'll give those of the Judeo/Christian/Ismalic bent something to chew over, and quite possibly deny. There are still plenty of Millerites in the world, and they like to let me know about it.
No, thank you much, I do not want to buy a Watchtower. Would you care to come in anyway though? We're about to sacrifice to Ramtha and your arrival may be taken as propicious.
A good expansion of my terse post. Not exactly how I would have phrased it myself, but not all that far off either.
Had I been in a different mood I would have written "do what's expected of you" instead of "do as you're told," which in turn expands to "act predictably."
If this only meant that genius was hobbled I actually wouldn't consider it that big a deal, but what it ends up meaning in a large orginization is that anyone above the median is hobbled, policy generally being dictated by finding ways to force those below the median to perform closer to it.
The machine is the ideal worker, not so much because it does a better job, often it does, but often does a demonstrably worse job, but because of its ability to perform at a highly predictable median level.
I'd also make the caveat that boss does not imply orinization. It implies two or more. I haven't entirely avoided bosses in my lifetime, and I've had good ones and bad ones, but the both the best and worst bosses have generally been in that ultrasmall "orginization" catagory. A couple to several people. In a large orginization bosses have bosses too, and so are being constrained to the median level of boss performance by the orginization, which would like to replace your boss with a machine just as much as they would you, thus great bosses are rare, but so are horrible bosses.
In the small business you can be either in heaven or hell, as my snippy, terse phrasing can turn out the be the exact, and spoken, truth. Or the boss might be the sort who sends out for pizza when things are slow and otherwise only cares that the work gets done so he's free to concentrate on his work.
No biggy. If you get stuck with the former you leave and start looking for the latter.
The second suckiest work situation I've found though is the one where you're hired to be a genius, for some overtly acknowledged special ability, charged with using that ability, but then still get a boss/orginization that tries to press you to the median predictability. Say, being hired to overhaul and improve the standard notation system, but being forced to work only in that stanard notation system. This is adding injury to the insult of creative death.
(The number one suckiest work situation I've found is where departmental lines were not clearly drawn and I found myself with two bosses, each with a natural hatred for the other, who were left to determine their boundries of authority by fighting for it, which they did by issuing conflicting orders to their workers and the one who could get their order to "stick" was the "winner." I only stayed there a few months, which was a few months too long.)
The hard part, unfortunately, is convincing your boss of that. The only reason I've been able to do as much as I have over the years is by avoiding bosses whenever possible.
They don't really want you to be a productive worker. They want you to shut up and do as you're told.
Please keep in mind that your average Slashdotter couldn't bike more than a few miles without being close to a heart attack.
Nonesense, possibly on two scores. The first, reading other peoples's posts suggests to me that there are quite a number of Slashdotters who ride bikes and could keep up with me just fine.
But the second is the important one. If they can't bike more than a few miles without having a heart attack it's due to ignorance, not lack of fitness. I could teach nearly all of them how to do it within a week. An 11 year old girl, with no previous athtletic accomplishments, bicycled across America. It's really not that great a feat, if you still have the capacity to make it to the fridge for that last slice of last night's pizza you can bicycle a few miles just fine, but as in all things you have to properly understand what you are doing. Being able to balance a bicycle is not the same as knowing how to ride one properly.
It's true about the computer nerd thingy though, and I'm not a computer nerd, as I've written before. I'm an old style geek, which is rather a different beasty. Cycling, martial arts, squash, cross country skiing, mountaineering, all traditional pursuits of the traditional Anglo-American geek. The jocks went for football and rugby, the so called "contact" sports, whereas the geek was perhaps more inclined to make his contact with the point of an epee.
I really don't understand shunning exercise any more than I understand anti-intellectualism. Mind and body are inseperable. You can worry yourself sick, and exercise yourself unworried. And what are you doing to occupy your time while out on an eight hour bike ride?
You think a lot.
When properly done exercise is complimentary with thinking, nor does it take any time away from thinking. You don them both at the same time.
Gymnasium just means "Place to hang out, like, naked and shit." You might wrestle in the gym, or you might just argue natural philosophy for hours. . . and then settle the issue with three falls or a submission.
As per your last sentence, which is apropos to the other poster's comments, athletic accomplishment is a relative feat, not an absolute one. See the guys at the back of the marathon field? The one's who take six hours to finish instead of two and change? They're slower than the winner, but they're working just as hard as the winner did, for that entire six hours.
Some of the guys who win couldn't do that without having a heart attack.
Hawking is a great athlete, it's just that his athletic skills and accomplishments aren't readily visible to those without the right means of percieving them.
And what I would say is that you are stuck with your limitations, and the wise man is the one who can recognize those limitations and learn to live with them the fastest, but you arn't stuck with the way you are, because the way you are isn't likely to be all that you can be, whatever that is.
There is also a saying that I've always found to be wise, "Rely on your strengths, but work on your weaknesses."
I'm not ever going to be big and strong. The genetics just aren't there, I'm the runt of the litter and am one of those guys that simply cannot build a lot of bulk no matter what I lift.
That doesn't mean I shouldn't exercise and be as strong as I reasonably can (which is a very different concept than being as big as I can). Strength has inherent benefits to me. It lets me pick things up without hurting myself and shit. And then there's different kinds of strong. Put us on bicycles and head us up a mountain the entire definition of strong changes and the big guys are in trouble.
Somtimes it's just a question of horses for courses.
Well, there's the obvious. Use it. A lot. The human machine is built around building up what gets "stressed." That goes for the brain too. For short term working memory exercise make references. Read a book, history or something like that, where you're bit over your head. Keep Google going while you do it and every time you hit something you don't understand do a search, follow the search to whatever else interesting it might lead to, bounce back and forth from the book to search materials.
Now do it with two books, maybe even on different but related subjects, while you keep an eye on/. on the side.
This is pure "cache" work. Don't try to memorize any of it. That's a different "brain muscle." Isolate what you're exercising. You're just trying to keep the different threads of thought all going without losing them.
Now, remember what I said about getting stressed? Don't. Really, the biggest killer of working short term memory is any sort of tension. Tension is an attention grabber, and you only have a limited amount of attention at any one time. Learn to relax. Let it flow of its own accord. If you pick it it will never heal.
It's one of those zen things, where you hit the target by not being aware that the target is even there. The arrow releases itself.
Oh, and here's the nasty part. Just like stressing muscles to build strength, it's a use it or lose it deal. Yes, you can improve your short term working memory, but when you stop using it, the improvment will fade.
Now, I realize that this all seems a bit hard to believe, but that's just because you don't understand the incredible power of magnets.
Have I mentioned before that the "free energy from magnets" people drive me frickin' nuts?
Why yes, I believe I have. Several times in fact. And the only thing harder than trying to explain to these people why it doesn't work is trying to explain it to someone who's invested their life savings in the scheme.
Hey, why didn't someone ever think of putting magnets in an electric motor before?
Then all you'd have to do is figure out some way to switch the coils in sync with the rotation and you'd revolutionize the world!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, that's the one I've been singing in my head since about halfway through writing the above post.
Huddie's manslaughter charges were basically semi-bogus. There was something of a tradition in Texas ( and much of the south at the time) that if there was a general melee in a bar, and someone never got up again, when the police got there they arrested, tried and convicted the biggest, toughest looking black man who hadn't run away yet. Huddie was almost always the biggest and toughest looking black man in any crowd, and not prone to run from anyone or anything (Sugarland Prison is still probably the nastiest prison in America, and Huddie earned his knickname by being the thoughest man there). That's also what made it so easy for him to sing his way out of prison. Everyone knew he was just the stand up fall guy who took the rap for a killing that couldn't actually be attributed to any one person.
It was racist, and hardly legal, but in an odd sort of way it kept the peace, because the public (both black and white) could pretend that justice had been done, if only in spirit, and I can't recall ever hearing that Huddie ever made any real complaints about it. And he might have actually had some hand in the killings, although in a modern court with a decent lawyer it's unlikely he would ever even have gone to trial. There was simply no evidence against him.
But the peculiar racism of Washington really, really pissed him off. The city was completely (although entirely "unofficially") segregated, and there wasn't anyplace he and Alan could go to stay or eat together, either in a "black" place or a "white" place. Even in the deep south he'd never encountered anything like that. (Dr. King had much the same experience when he went to Chicago. The unofficial, but very real, segregation of the north was much more insidious than the official segregation of the south, and continues that way in many places. Yeah, it's still a "bushwa" town).
Pete's still with us, but the last time I saw him (which was a few years ago) I was jolted into recognition of his mortality. Pete's always been the Dick Clark of folk music, and gave off a certain air of immortality. Other than a few more wrinkles he's always looked more or less like he did back in the 50's, and acted like it. All of a sudden he's started to look, and act, well, a bit old.
Quoting Pete on Ledbelly:
"One year he started having to use a cane to go on stage. His voice, always soft and husky when speaking, still rang out high on the melodies, but his hands grew stiffer and less certain on the guitar. Then one day he was gone, and we were left with regrets that we had not treasured him more."
I'm afraid it's time to start treasuring Pete while we can.
(I hope Pete doesn't read Slashdot)
(Ok, really, good night. At least for me. Your diurnalage may vary. Lord knows mine does, all the hell over the place)
KFG
Only if The Kentucky is the name of a cheap tenement building in East Harlem.
KFG
And Ledbelly is, of course, the moniker of Huddie Ledbetter. That's why it's spelled that way. He got the knickname during his tenure in Sugerland Prison, for manslaughter. That would be his first tenure for manslaughter. Part of the Ledbelly legend is the way he got out of prison by singing.
Huddie died in poverty in December of 1949. One month later Goodnight Irene hit number one on the charts (as recorded by The Weavers) and stayed there for longer than any song has since.
Since that time other Ledbelly songs that have had great sucess on the charts include Black Betty, Midnight Special (written while in Sugerland, the Midnight Special was an actual train running out of Houston and prison legend had it that if it's headlight shone on you in your cell you would be released the next day. This was rather like saying that if you stuck your elbow in your ear you would be released the next day) and The Rock Island Line. Ledbelly was also a friend of Woody Guthrie. Woody's Roll on Columbia was written to the tune of Goodnight Irene (although Woody didn't realize this until Pete Seeger pointed it out to him).
I really pissed off a barmaid one night when I ended my first set with that song. Her name was Irene. She hates that song. I found out why.
Nice girl otherwise.
Good night.
KFG
Only if you deny the viability of prophetic visions.
Other than as a psycological effect, yeah, I'm afraid I do. I may be a metaphysician, but I'm no mystic. This is not to say, however, that such psycholgical effects can't be without personal value, just as one can use the tarot (or I Ching , according to taste) as a trigger for personal insight without believing that the layout of the cards is anything more than random.
Other than that I'm in essential agreement with you, and for all I know we're in essential agreement on that too.
. . . posting anonymously as I'm WAAAY offtopic.
As you can see by the post you're responding too I don't worry about that sort of thing anymore. I just post and let 'em mod the hell out of me.
Boys will be boys, and it gives 'em somethin' to do and keeps 'em outta trouble.
KFG
. . .they told me to not sit at the bar, they can legally do that.
.
Of course they can legally do that. It's their place. Just as I could legally require that people entering my R/C racetrack had to be wearing shoes, no barefeet or sandals.
The issue is that I wasn't legally required to do that. It was my choice, for their protection, and thus my own.
I could just as well have refused entry to anyone who wasn't wearing a tuxedo, or was. There is a bar that will actually cut off the necktie of anyone who enters the place wearing one (so long as they compensate the person for the tie it's legal. The walls are decorated with the ties displayed as tropies).
. . . its about them not serving a minor. .
Yes. That's what I said.
KFG
The Duke of Glouster on Young and Glouster is the best hole in the wall you'll ever go to.
Maybe it is now, but I'm pretty sure it didn't used to be. Used to be the best hole in the wall you'll ever go to was Madame Jumel's in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Until they changed owners, who changed the chef. Then they actually went and sanded and varnished the floor. What the hell kind of hole in the wall has shiney floors? Then the state passed that no smoking even in bars law, after which the owners converted it into this bizzare sort of neo-art-deco yuppie fern bar that neither the winos, PhDs, muscians or Skidmore girls who previously inhabited the place would be caught dead in.
So maybe you're right about The Duke. I've never made it to Toronto. Quebec has been about my western limit when venturing north. If I ever make it out that way I'll be sure to give the place a look over and see how it compares. And maybe smoke something that's contraban here in the "Land of the Free."
No, not that, I'm talking about tobacco. From that place, ummmmmmm, south of Miami.
KFG
Well, in the California case in question the law does actually require that the police officer have some just cause for suspecting you of a crime, and in this case he had an actual complaint and witness and made the request in investigation of that complaint. Mind you that's a pretty big hole you can drive through, and anybody can make any complaint against anybody else. That's one of the reasons we have judges, juries, and a presumption of innocence until found (not actually proven mind you, found. This is a bit of tricky legal philosophy.IANAL. I am accused of being a philosopher. By lawyers.) guilty.
Again in the case in question the person was formally arrested and convicted of commiting a crime (that's why it can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court), not the one at issue in the complaint, but rather the crime of obstructing justice for not showing his ID, a rather blatent misapplication of law in order to be able to charge him with something if I've ever seen one, and I rather suspect the Supremes will jump on this issue to overturn the conviction, rather than deal directly with the Constitutional issue of requiring ID (they like to do that sort of thing. They will, as a rule, always look for the lowest level they can overturn a ruling with, even in those cases where they know it is overturnable on Constitutional grounds).
Note also that in some states it is legal to detain people for up to 48 hours just because (or at least it was the last time I looked. Things change session by session. Even lawyers have to recheck every law for every case, just in case), perhaps "for your own protection." ( Take heart though in knowing that in such cases you will be treated just as fairly as any other person taken into custody, in other words, just like a bank robber. "Alright, bend over and spread your butt cheeks.").
The cynical might have a hard time differentiating this practice from governmental endorsed kidnapping. I've been accused of being a cynic.
There is a fine point of legal philosophy here as to just what being taken into custody means, and what it does not necessarily mean is that you have been accused of some crime.
It's also perfectly legal to throw you in the slammer for merely violating some code or other, which is not technically a crime at all. Say, a parking ticket you picked up while visiting Podunk.
And, of course, being accused of a crime has no direct bearing on whether you have actually commited one, or might be found guilty of same (as per above these are not necessarily the same thing. See also the O.J. case, which rather reverses the issue. Just because you have been found not guilty doesn't mean you didn't do it, and provision that you should be treated as innocent until found guilty only applies to the law, and not private opinion. "Guilty" is a legal state, not one of fact).
KFG
Yes, most American law is still (although this is eroding) state by state and city by city. Bear in mind, however, just because it's a local or state law doesn't mean that it will pass Constitutional muster, and is thus, in itself, legal.
Many, many local laws are (some rather blatently) contrary to Supremem Court rulings (my own city recently had to pony up $30 mil for unconstitutional prosecution of a law that had already been covered, in some depth, by the Supreme Court, leaving my mayor to publicly wonder what other local laws might be contrary to federal law. He wasn't a very bright fellow (and I have to surmise corporation counsel wasn't either), I could have given him a list, including the one he violated).
They stand until someone challanges them, and it simply isn't worth it, in either time or money, for most people to challange them.
Nor is there any requirement ( as per above post) for the Supreme Court to hear such a challange, even though it has merit.
It seems to be a hard concept for some people to grasp that it may well be the law itself that is the crime.
KFG
Yes, and /. covered the story. It is legal, by California law, for a policeman to demand ID. This is not the same thing as requiring you to have one on your person.
If you do not have one on your person the police officer, again by California law, is legally empowered to take you into custody to determine your ID.
So carrying ID may save you a night in the pokey, but it isn't required.
The idea that you can even be required to produce ID, or be taken into custody for refusing to present it, is the issue currently on the docket of the Federal Supreme Court. The very fact alone that have decided to hear the case is evidence that the consider the issue has real Constitutional merit, at least to the extent that it requires federal review (the Supreme Court is only required to hear those strictly federal cases delineated in the Constitution itself. They can, and do, simply refuse cases that they don't consider worth their time).
As a general rule (there are, of course, certain exceptions, but they are exceptions) one does not have to provide a police officer with anything other than nonresistence to arrest.
When a bartender asks for ID he is doing so because the law requires him to certify legal age. He is not required to check your ID, he is only required to check your ID if you order a drink, and you are free not to order one. (It is a myth that those who are under the legal drinking age cannot legally go into a bar. Think about all the restaraunts and diners that serve alchohol. No problemo. Some bars refuse entry to those underage because it makes life simpler for them, and because many local law enforcement agencies don't understand this point themselves. Some bars I know only card on the weekend and the rest of week only card when a drink is actually ordered. There's no accounting for the behavior of people).
In the past anything that could serve as a legal document showing age was accpetable. On my eighteenth birthday I bought a bottle of wine with my birth certificate ( I poured the wine down the drain. I wanted the bottle to put a ship in. It was crappy Mogan David anyway. Just the right bottle though). I have also used my passport.
The sticky wicket is the lack of a photo on the birth certificate (not that it would do any good if one were included), thus the ease with which one person's ID can be used by another.
We're getting really frickin' paranoid about all this ID shit, and according to my bank my federally issued passport no longer, in their interpretation of the law, qualifies for photo ID according to the PATRIOT Act.
And, in theory at least, your passport is certified and issued to you by the frickin' Secertary of State.
In future I suppose I'll also need, along with my driver's license (technically this cannot be required for any purpose other than operation of a motor vehicle. Well, that idea seems to have gone by the boards. In my state you cannot get a nondriver's ID is you already have a driver's license. You may keep an expired driver's license (with a hole punched in) as a "nondriver's ID" if you wish. Yeah. Right.), a federal ID card, a note from my mayor, the President himself; and my mommy.
KFG
Most of what goes into making the bills is cotton.
And cotton grows on. . . Chevys?
It's a plant fiber, just like wood. Paper is felted plant fibers. Cloth is spun and woven fibers (plant or otherwise). Paper money is paper and has absolutely no resemblence to cloth, other then the fact that they're both made of plant fibers. It is the processing that determines whether said plant fibers are paper or cloth. You simply have an ingrained way of thinking cotton=cloth=blue jeans, wood=pulp=paper.
And you can make clothes out of paper (just as you can make clothes out of felted wool). Paper clothing was actually a bit of a fad in the 60's, especially in Japan, and you'll still find that hospitals contain a lot of it. Dupont is pushing for a return of the popularity of paper clothing in its impregnated form. It goes under the trade name Tyvek. Your outward most clothing (your house) may already rely on it heavily.
A good chunk of what is in your paper money that is not cotton is flax (and the rest is silk, which is an animal fiber. That's what the little colored bits are. It's really only there to make visible little colored bits), which when made into cloth is known as linen and it's really the flax content that gives paper money its rather unique feel. Go to Office Max or somewhere of the like and find some pure rag paper. This paper is cotton. It feels like very good paper, but it does not feel like money (or anything even vaguely like cloth, since it is not woven). Flax has fine fibers which are more "woody" than cotton (which is why cotton has largely replaced it for clothing), but of a peculiar smoothness and with a fiber length measured in feet rather than inches, and whose terminal ends taper to fine points (which is why flax is uprooted rather than cut).
If you wish to feel what pure linen paper feels like go to any printer that makes wedding invitations and ask to see some samples.
And as per my opening question, money, of course, already grows on trees, it's called "trees," which are as much of a tradable commodity as gold. Gold is not money any more than paper is money. Money may be made from paper or gold, but money is an abstracted medium of exchange, for which one obtains commodities, such as wood and gold. Or may well sell those commodities for if one possesses them but desires some other commodity instead, like a car or TV set.
If you really wish to make money growing trees, plant a black walnut grove, tend for 400 years, and then sell. You'll make a bloody fortune. If you have less patience tend for twenty years and then sell as a black walnut grove. Unless you live someplace like downtown LA you'll find that the cash value of the trees exceeds the value of the land they're growing on.
Wood is valuable stuff. It gets even more valuable as it becomes rarer, just like everything else. The main interest the English government had in New England was its trees. 90 foot clear pine for masts and 400 year old oaks for framing had become virtually extinct in Europe, but were absolutely necessary to rule the waves.
KFG
No, if I were a Christian I would recall that he was crucified because that was God's plan for him, to be blood sacrifice for us all, for as the Bible tells us God demands blood sacrifice.
Which must have brought a sigh of relief from all the goats and oxen.
And thus there is no blame to be assigned for his crucifiction, unless you want to take it up directly with God or something.
If you are not a Christian you can certainly be excused (as far as I'm concerned at least, for whatever that's worth) from not recalling that though.
Nor was he an extremest whack job. Those sort didn't bear crucifying because they were so obviously whack jobs that it was safe to simply ignore them, because just about everybody else did, thus they were no political threat.
Now Ezekiel, there was a guy who had spent too much time out in the desert living off some rather dubious mushrooms.
KFG
No, Copernicus did not teach much the same thing, except to a very few close friends, and more to the point Copernicus refused to publish until after he was dead.
Galileo escaped the wrath of the inquisition because what he was actually accused and convicted of was violation of the Papal order that he not publish his views, which he subsequently did (a nifty little lifesaving legal device arranged by virtue of the Pope being a long time friend).
Had he been convicted of heresy, as most people believe, those who wished to see him dead would have had their way.
This is also what allows the church to admit that his views were right without officially contradicting itself, his conviction having nothing to do with the accuracy of those views, or even expressing them verbally if it comes to that.
The Pope ordered him not to publish, he published, he was, and still remains, absolutely guilty of his crime, just as, say, Gandhi was absolutely guilty of his and Thoreau of his own.
There isn't necessarily any shame in being a rightly accused and convicted felon. At the very least you keep some good company.
KFG
Hence the position of Vatican Astronomer, held by the Jesuit George Coyne, who states, "It's madness to believe that man is alone."
I suppose I could also point out that in like manner the views of most Islamics differ markedly from those of the fundamentalist sort, and there are plenty of Reformed Jews in the world, and that much of what we think we know about these religions comes to us not from the main line of thought but from those that their own contemporaries thought of as "extremist religious whack jobs."
KFG
You are speaking of the so called "Western" religions ( of Asian origins, go figure).
Thus the third possibility is that various other "nonstandard" ( in the sense that only billions of people adhere to such relgions, just not typically those people in Detroit). Some of these religions have already made strong footholds, at least, in Europe and the United States. Buddhism is widespread enough among physicists that it hardly even raises an eyebrow any more (well, at least not both eyebrows).
And the fourth possibility is the rise of new relgions founded upon these new ideas.
People are adaptable, even if dogma is not.
Of course there's also the possibility that the answer to the question "who was first" is neither the Earth or Mars, that each was seeded from some third bit of interstellar dust carried across the winds of space and time that predates us both, and by a goodly margin.
Yeah, that'll give those of the Judeo/Christian/Ismalic bent something to chew over, and quite possibly deny. There are still plenty of Millerites in the world, and they like to let me know about it.
No, thank you much, I do not want to buy a Watchtower. Would you care to come in anyway though? We're about to sacrifice to Ramtha and your arrival may be taken as propicious.
Hey! Where ya goin'?
KFG
KFG
A good expansion of my terse post. Not exactly how I would have phrased it myself, but not all that far off either.
Had I been in a different mood I would have written "do what's expected of you" instead of "do as you're told," which in turn expands to "act predictably."
If this only meant that genius was hobbled I actually wouldn't consider it that big a deal, but what it ends up meaning in a large orginization is that anyone above the median is hobbled, policy generally being dictated by finding ways to force those below the median to perform closer to it.
The machine is the ideal worker, not so much because it does a better job, often it does, but often does a demonstrably worse job, but because of its ability to perform at a highly predictable median level.
I'd also make the caveat that boss does not imply orinization. It implies two or more. I haven't entirely avoided bosses in my lifetime, and I've had good ones and bad ones, but the both the best and worst bosses have generally been in that ultrasmall "orginization" catagory. A couple to several people. In a large orginization bosses have bosses too, and so are being constrained to the median level of boss performance by the orginization, which would like to replace your boss with a machine just as much as they would you, thus great bosses are rare, but so are horrible bosses.
In the small business you can be either in heaven or hell, as my snippy, terse phrasing can turn out the be the exact, and spoken, truth. Or the boss might be the sort who sends out for pizza when things are slow and otherwise only cares that the work gets done so he's free to concentrate on his work.
No biggy. If you get stuck with the former you leave and start looking for the latter.
The second suckiest work situation I've found though is the one where you're hired to be a genius, for some overtly acknowledged special ability, charged with using that ability, but then still get a boss/orginization that tries to press you to the median predictability. Say, being hired to overhaul and improve the standard notation system, but being forced to work only in that stanard notation system. This is adding injury to the insult of creative death.
(The number one suckiest work situation I've found is where departmental lines were not clearly drawn and I found myself with two bosses, each with a natural hatred for the other, who were left to determine their boundries of authority by fighting for it, which they did by issuing conflicting orders to their workers and the one who could get their order to "stick" was the "winner." I only stayed there a few months, which was a few months too long.)
KFG
The hard part, unfortunately, is convincing your boss of that. The only reason I've been able to do as much as I have over the years is by avoiding bosses whenever possible.
They don't really want you to be a productive worker. They want you to shut up and do as you're told.
KFG
If they can't bike more than a few miles without having a heart attack it's due to ignorance, not lack of fitness.
Ok, this comment may not apply if you happen to live in San Franciso or Ithaca, NY. There are exceptions to every rule.
Including the one in this footnote.
KFG
Please keep in mind that your average Slashdotter couldn't bike more than a few miles without being close to a heart attack.
Nonesense, possibly on two scores. The first, reading other peoples's posts suggests to me that there are quite a number of Slashdotters who ride bikes and could keep up with me just fine.
But the second is the important one. If they can't bike more than a few miles without having a heart attack it's due to ignorance, not lack of fitness. I could teach nearly all of them how to do it within a week. An 11 year old girl, with no previous athtletic accomplishments, bicycled across America. It's really not that great a feat, if you still have the capacity to make it to the fridge for that last slice of last night's pizza you can bicycle a few miles just fine, but as in all things you have to properly understand what you are doing. Being able to balance a bicycle is not the same as knowing how to ride one properly.
It's true about the computer nerd thingy though, and I'm not a computer nerd, as I've written before. I'm an old style geek, which is rather a different beasty. Cycling, martial arts, squash, cross country skiing, mountaineering, all traditional pursuits of the traditional Anglo-American geek. The jocks went for football and rugby, the so called "contact" sports, whereas the geek was perhaps more inclined to make his contact with the point of an epee.
I really don't understand shunning exercise any more than I understand anti-intellectualism. Mind and body are inseperable. You can worry yourself sick, and exercise yourself unworried. And what are you doing to occupy your time while out on an eight hour bike ride?
You think a lot.
When properly done exercise is complimentary with thinking, nor does it take any time away from thinking. You don them both at the same time.
Gymnasium just means "Place to hang out, like, naked and shit." You might wrestle in the gym, or you might just argue natural philosophy for hours. . . and then settle the issue with three falls or a submission.
As per your last sentence, which is apropos to the other poster's comments, athletic accomplishment is a relative feat, not an absolute one. See the guys at the back of the marathon field? The one's who take six hours to finish instead of two and change? They're slower than the winner, but they're working just as hard as the winner did, for that entire six hours.
Some of the guys who win couldn't do that without having a heart attack.
Hawking is a great athlete, it's just that his athletic skills and accomplishments aren't readily visible to those without the right means of percieving them.
KFG
Well, as it happens I was the parent poster. :)
And what I would say is that you are stuck with your limitations, and the wise man is the one who can recognize those limitations and learn to live with them the fastest, but you arn't stuck with the way you are, because the way you are isn't likely to be all that you can be, whatever that is.
There is also a saying that I've always found to be wise, "Rely on your strengths, but work on your weaknesses."
KFG
I'm not ever going to be big and strong. The genetics just aren't there, I'm the runt of the litter and am one of those guys that simply cannot build a lot of bulk no matter what I lift.
That doesn't mean I shouldn't exercise and be as strong as I reasonably can (which is a very different concept than being as big as I can). Strength has inherent benefits to me. It lets me pick things up without hurting myself and shit. And then there's different kinds of strong. Put us on bicycles and head us up a mountain the entire definition of strong changes and the big guys are in trouble.
Somtimes it's just a question of horses for courses.
KFG
. . .my head gets extremely hot when I do my Calculus exams.
Like, dude. That's what the propeller beanie is for.
KFG
Well, there's the obvious. Use it. A lot. The human machine is built around building up what gets "stressed." That goes for the brain too. For short term working memory exercise make references. Read a book, history or something like that, where you're bit over your head. Keep Google going while you do it and every time you hit something you don't understand do a search, follow the search to whatever else interesting it might lead to, bounce back and forth from the book to search materials.
/. on the side.
Now do it with two books, maybe even on different but related subjects, while you keep an eye on
This is pure "cache" work. Don't try to memorize any of it. That's a different "brain muscle." Isolate what you're exercising. You're just trying to keep the different threads of thought all going without losing them.
Now, remember what I said about getting stressed? Don't. Really, the biggest killer of working short term memory is any sort of tension. Tension is an attention grabber, and you only have a limited amount of attention at any one time. Learn to relax. Let it flow of its own accord. If you pick it it will never heal.
It's one of those zen things, where you hit the target by not being aware that the target is even there. The arrow releases itself.
Oh, and here's the nasty part. Just like stressing muscles to build strength, it's a use it or lose it deal. Yes, you can improve your short term working memory, but when you stop using it, the improvment will fade.
I really hate that part.
KFG
Yes, you just keep going around and around about it.
I imagine it can get pretty repulsive.
Or attractive.
It seems to be one of those polarizing subjects.
KFG
Now, I realize that this all seems a bit hard to believe, but that's just because you don't understand the incredible power of magnets.
Have I mentioned before that the "free energy from magnets" people drive me frickin' nuts?
Why yes, I believe I have. Several times in fact. And the only thing harder than trying to explain to these people why it doesn't work is trying to explain it to someone who's invested their life savings in the scheme.
Hey, why didn't someone ever think of putting magnets in an electric motor before?
Then all you'd have to do is figure out some way to switch the coils in sync with the rotation and you'd revolutionize the world!
Muuuuahahahahaha!
KFG
What is, "You say that like it's a bad thing?"?
KFG