Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Christmas 1962 . . . in full-fidelity FM stereo


Here, the tree stays up until Epiphany. We do things in the proper manner.

In that spirit, Revolution 21 presents Yuletide as it was heard in 1962 -- an hour and 19 minutes of Christmas Day programming in "full-fidelity FM stereo" on KQAL radio in Omaha. If you don't remember the 1960s, particularly FM radio in the early '60s, this will be a revelation to you.

Click for full-size version
This is not today's FM radio. This is . . . how shall we put it . . . laid back. Radio by grown-ups, you could say.

It's not all that slick. Technology was more difficult then. Records skipped, and there wasn't much money in FM in 1962. The money was over on AM, back when AM radio mattered. Really mattered.

In 1962 (in 1972, for that matter), FM was for dentist offices, your mom and dad and grandma and grandpa with their "elevator music" (look it up), and frequency modulation was for the "longhairs." No, not hippies. There weren't any yet -- "beatniks" were as counterculture as you got back then. The longhairs listened to classical music, and they were a lot more cultured than you and me.


HERE, KQAL was for the longhairs and elevator-music lovers from its inception April 19, 1959. And in 1962, it was the only station in these parts broadcasting in that newfangled "FM multiplex stereo," which became a thing in June 1961 after its approval by the Federal Communications Commission.

But you'll hear from this recording that FM receivers (or multiplex adapters, which also used to be a thing) weren't as good as they would be . . . and a 54-year-old reel-to-reel tape probably doesn't sound quite as bright as it once did. And you'll hear that stations like KQAL, at 94.1 on your FM stereo dial, still were figuring out what to do with that extra channel of audio when the records weren't playing.

Sometimes it could get weird. Listen, and you'll hear what I mean. No, I will not spoil it for you.

Some day soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow

BUT THAT'S NOT what's important.

What's important is that this is the sound of Christmas in my 55-year-old head and my 55-year-old heart. It's the sound of the holidays when adults ran the world, and I was far from being one.

When I think of Christmas in our two-bedroom, one-bath house on Darryl Drive in Baton Rouge, La., this station from long ago in Omaha, where I now have lived far longer than I did in Louisiana, is pretty much what I hear. For the record, I also smell fruitcake, pecans and walnuts, fresh oranges, strong coffee, a huge spruce tree in the living room . . . and Bruce floor wax.


I hear and smell these things that are no more. The older I get, the more it happens.

With each passing year, there also are more and more "no mores." At Christmas, I see the loved ones who once filled my house and my life but are no more. I hear the voices long silent.

I remember a Christmas Day soundtrack that sounded kind of like this. As it turns out, my memories are in full-fidelity FM stereo, too.


Saturday, December 17, 2016

1964 Personal Role Radio, new







If you suffer from geek allergies, now is your opportunity to move farther along the Internet Trail.

This post, however, will get us much closer to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

What you see here is a brand-new Army "morale radio," right out of the box -- an R-1289 PRR receiver. Vendor: General Electric Company, Radio Receiver Department, Utica, New York, USA. Date of manufacture: September 1964.

The first wave of American troops in Vietnam would have gotten this from the quartermaster. I just got mine from eBay -- I was a little young to be sent to 'Nam in late 1964, being just 3½ years old at the time.

It's a strange thing, getting something that's 52 years old basically new out of the box. Call it a time capsule, which it is.

A TIME CAPSULE complete with an instruction manual, a schematic and an eight transistor radio in a moisture-proof canvas pouch. 

Moisture-proof is good for things being shipped to the jungle.

From what the Internet (and the eBay seller) tells me, this little GE model -- the P925 back in The World -- was the last of the military "morale radios," or "Personal Role Radio (PRR)" in Army speak. By 1964, after all, what young American didn't already have a transistor radio?

T.B. Player certainly did when he shipped out in '64.

This has been your Geek Minute on Revolution 21. We now return you to your modern, digitized programming.


Thursday, December 15, 2016

Trumpiana


Alas, alas . . . whither my poor alma mater, Louisiana State University? Yet another semester, yet another budget cut, in all likelihood.

Bigly.

With cuts right around the corner, the president of LSU warned Louisiana lawmakers Wednesday that his university cannot handle many more budget reductions.

“Another cut to higher education furthers the dire straits that we're in. I don't know how much more efficient we can become,” President F. King Alexander told the House Appropriations Committee.

For the 16th time in nine years, LSU is once again preparing for the legislative knife.

“It's endless, it's like Ground Hog Day,” said Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall.
In order to fix the state’s $313 million shortfall left over from last year, higher education will like have to endure another multi-million dollar cut. Back in November, the governor proposed about $18 million in cuts to higher education overall, with more than $8.5 million from LSU. Those could be enacted through executive order. Any changes to that plan could be announced Thursday, at which time legislators could also vote to increase cuts to education.

Over the last decade, LSU has cut back on courses while freezing faculty salaries time and time again, according to Alexander. Meanwhile, competing universities have lured away their LSU faculty by offering them better pay. Overall, Alexander said budget cuts have led to a net loss of 500 faculty members over ten years.

“We would take notice if we were losing football coaches,” Alexander told the committee.

With regards to how much the university spends per student, LSU currently ranks near the bottom. The school is 46th out of the 50 flagship schools across the country and 12th out of the 14 SEC schools, according to Alexander.

“This day is the worst day of hearings every year because we talk about what should be the hope of the future of our state, and then we talk about how dramatically we've dis-invested in it over the last nine years,” said Rep. Walt Leger, D-New Orleans.

Added to that, the shortfall is holding up maintenance projects. The LSU system current has a backlog of $750 million in upkeep projects that cannot be completed under current budget restrictions. About $500 million of those projects are on the main campus.

When it comes to TOPS, which is only partially funded in the spring, Alexander said it is unclear how it will impact enrollment. His bigger concern, he said, is next fall and beyond.

“The uncertainty of all this has the potential to drive the best and brightest out of the state,” Alexander said.
THERE REALLY isn't much to be said about this ongoing tragedy any longer. It all has been said, and we're all getting tired of repeating ourselves.

Here, though, is one thing I don't think has been repeated to the point of ineffectiveness.

You want to know the best way to describe my woebegone home state? This way.

Louisiana is just like its favorite politician, president-elect Donald Trump: It spends its life acting like a stupid asshole, then it goes bankrupt.

Trumpiana, for short.

That is all. That's enough.

Friday, December 09, 2016

Rick Santorum and his shit-eating smirk


What can you can about an allegedly "Catholic" former senator, perpetual presidential candidate and full-time self-righteous chickenshit whose advise to a "DREAMer" pondering her uncertain future under Donald Trump was this: Go back where you came from?

Trouble is,  this 27-year-old mechanical engineer was brought to the United States when she was 7. Where she "comes from" is here.

Really, what can you say about such a man as Rick Santorum?

OK, what can you say that I'd feel comfortable repeating?

WELL, that's all right. I'm pretty much at a loss, too. Everything that immediately comes to mind is unprintable . . . and note that I'm reasonably comfortable with "shit-eating smirk" and "self-righteous chickenshit."

OK, what about calling him a "vile, crypto-Nazi, cafeteria-Catholic mother. . . ." No, I'd have to confess that one to Father.

I guess we're at loggerheads on l'affaire Santorum. I'll just leave my comment at this: What we need is a name for the particular species of culture-war "cafeteria Catholic" that Rick Santorum exemplifies. I propose "Kultur Krieg Katholiken." Just call 'em KKKs for short.

Everything is better in the original German, ja?

Thursday, December 08, 2016

Godspeed, John Glenn


John Glenn is dead.

And with the great astronaut's passing at age 95, so dies a part of every star-struck child of the 1960s. There's not much more a man can say -- the life of an American hero speaks for itself. And what a life Glenn had.

In an age so devoid of greatness -- in an America now so impoverished -- this is what greatness looks like. And below, as broadcast Feb. 20, 1962 on KFAB radio in Omaha, is what greatness sounded like.

Sit back and enjoy this NBC Radio special report reviewing the flight of Friendship 7.

Godspeed, John Glenn.


Friday, December 02, 2016

This is for all the stupid people. . . .


If you're on Facebook, and you probably are, stuff like this no doubt clogs your timeline.

It's like this: America is full of stupid people, clueless that sense has passed them by. It's enough to make you give up, because there's no silver cup. And when you ride that highway in the sky . . . you'll probably meet this guy:



Before social media, lies and craziness already had a big advantage on the truth and good sense. Back in 1855, British clergyman Charles Spurgeon had this to say in a sermon:
"If you want the truth to go 'round the world, you must hire an express train to pull it; but if you want a lie to go 'round the world, it will fly: it is as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it. It is well said in the old proverb, 'A lie will go 'round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.'"
I THINK that pretty much covers it.

Now that we have covered our society-threatening problem with social media, let's look at all the ways the Facebook meme at the top of this post offends.

First off, if ours is "one nation under God," it most certainly is one nation under Allah. "Allah" is the Arabic word for "God," nothing more, nothing less. Muslims worship Allah. Arabic-speaking Christians worship Allah, too.

I have been to Byzantine Catholic services -- Divine Liturgies, which is the same as "Mass" for Latin-rite Catholics. And here's a news flash: We prayed to "Allah" during one liturgy that was largely in Arabic.

Do I need to pack my bags and leave this allegedly "Christian nation"?

By the stars and stripes of social media's loudest "Christian" voices, would the problem be that I am not Christian enough or, perhaps, that I'm not effing stupid enough to live in today's infantilized and lobotomized republic?

SECOND, I have had it with the conflation of the gospel of Jesus Christ -- or maybe I should just say Issa to piss off all the right people -- and the United States.

Issa loves Americans no more (and no less) than he does North Koreans, Russians or Syrian refugees. Issa is not on America's side -- in fact, America is generally far from being on Issa's side. Issa finds nothing about America that makes it more or less a "Christian nation" than any other country with large numbers of observant Christians.

And when you wrap Old Glory around the wood of the cross, not only will your flag decal not get you into Heaven anymore, it just may send you to hell as an idolater. God is not mocked, and that breathtakingly stupid meme mocks God.

THIRD, "Islamic" and "Muslim" are the same thing, dumbass. "America is not a Muslim nation" and "America is not an Islamic nation" is just more cant from the Department of Redundancy Department.

Kind of like calling the genius behind this meme a stupid idiot.

Oh . . . one final thing. America is not a "Christian nation." It is a constitutional republic, and it is open to people of all faiths (or, at least it used to be before Nov. 8), as well as those of no faith at all. The only thing required is the freedom to live out one's faith, and to exhibit tolerance for those not exercising yours.


If you have a problem with anything I've said, you may be a pretty piss-poor Christian. It's a damned solid bet that you absolutely are a piss-poor American.

Thursday, December 01, 2016

FRANKIE SAY (don't) RELAX


I've been sick for two weeks. I'm down to one lung, having coughed the other one up.

Oh . . . and I lost my voice. Yesterday, the only sound I could make was that of a dying bullfrog's last gasp. Today, I'm better -- I sound like Diane Rehm on a really, really bad day.

Yay, me.

But now there's this. Frankie MacDonald, the Nova Scotia weather whiz, says Omaha, Nebraska (exclamation point) is going to be buried, frozen and otherwise devastated by a horrible blizzard. That's. Just. Great.

Well, at least Mrs. Favog can throw my carcass out the back door, and it'll likely keep till spring.

Good night, and good luck.