New Flag, 'Old' TV Show, MSIE 8.0, and Library Audiobooks

The weather yesterday afternoon was pleasant enuf for me to get to something I have had on my mental To Do list for months, take down the bracket for the slender metal pole for my old U.S. flag and put up a new bracket for the larger-diameter wooden pole for my new U.S. flag. A metal pole may have seemed a good idea to someone, but the effect of wind on the flag was to bend the pole back and forth, which produced metal fatigue and, ultimately, a ragged break a bit above the bracket.
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As usual, I didn't get out to do this until nearly sunset, and the sun was right where I had to look, so caused problems. The liting was also not right for me to take a picture that would include the birdfeeder I put on the old metal pole (I drove the broken end into the ground) and show flowers and my birdfeeder in front, and the flag in back. Today, I got out in time to do that.

U.S. flags were all over the place after 9/11, but have largely vanished in my neighborhood. I had withdrawn mine only because the pole broke. I shall be interested to see if my displaying a flag influences anyone else in the neighborhood to put out their own flag. I know a fair amount about flags, and regard the U.S. flag as one of the best designs to be found anywhere. It is instantly recognizable, whether flapping in a breeze or falling from an indoor pole. It is distinctive, 'pretty', and meaningful, with elements that people understand to have specific meanings (13 stripes for the thirteen original states, 50 stars for the 50 current states). There aren't a great many flags with such distinctions. The "Union Jack" is one, a brilliant design with similarly distinct meanings to its elements that educated people can recite (the crosses of St. George (patron saint of England), St. Andrew (patron of Scotland), and St. Patrick (patron of Ireland). The bulk of flags, however, are dull, with no obvious meaning to any of their elements.

'Everything Old Is New Again.' Tonite, a 'new', hour-long ABC dramedy (comedy-drama) series, Cupid, premiered, starring Union City's Bobby Cannavale. It didn't do very well in the ratings, being up against two long-established crime melodramas and a new Osbournes variety show on Fox after American Idol.. The original 1990s series didn't do well in the ratings either, and wasn't given long enuf to build an audience.
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I first saw Cannavale in the wonderful 'small' NJ film The Station Agent, which I discussed here February 20, 2006. Not only was that indie set in NJ, but most of it was shot here too, and the stars (Peter Dinklage and Bobby Cannavale), and the screenwriter/director (Thomas McCarthy) are all from NJ. The foto in my blog that day no longer appears because AOL closed down everybody's FTP file-storage space. And yesterday, Yahoo shut down its "Briefcase" file-storage/file-sharing service. What is going on? Google has opened a Google Docs service, and Microsoft has an online Workspace feature that offers file-storage/file-sharing, so I don't really need Yahoo Briefcase. But why are major Internet services closing down features they offered for years?
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In any case, Cupid is a resurrected and altered version of a 1990s show I never watched, starring Jeremy Piven. I shall in all likelihood never watch the revived version either, since it is a drama (as far as I'm concerned, all dramedies are dramas, and I rarely watch dramas) and since it concerns heterosexual romance, which I do not care to see. If Cannavale's Cupid fixes up two guys, I'll watch that episode.

On March 26th, I showed here, as the 9th and 10th fotos, a cluster of "fruiting bodies" of small mushrooms under the enormous yew on part of my small front yard. (What we see as a "mushroom" is the "fruiting body" of a subterranean fungus.) What I didn't know until I went out to take pictures of an updated stage of my spring-flowering bulbs, is that these fruiting bodies are fleeting, and the ones I showed earlier had now died off, having released their spores and thus fulfilled their purpose in the life of the underlying (and underground) fungus.

MSIE 8.0. In my Internet meanderings today, I chanced to see that Microsoft Internet Explorer has a new version, 8.0. I checked my version. 7.0. So I decided to update, since one of the things MS claimed was superior security, something we must all be concerned about because Government does nothing to stop or punish computer crime. I followed the instructions and took the time not only to download the file and install this very large program but also to restart my computer — even tho it takes something like 23 minutes for my computer to become fully usable after a reboot. I went down two flites to have dinner while that happened. When I returned upstairs, I went to follow the instructions that had been onscreen before the reboot (start Explorer, go to Tools, and click on Update). Then I was presented with a quandary, because MSIE said that an add-on I have is incompatible with 8.0, and the instructions about what to do about that were written in computer-ese. They said to right-click on the "Information Bar" and choose to activate an ActiveX control. So I looked at the screenprint diagram, figured out what the Information Bar is, clicked on it — and there was no such option! I then tried to make sense of the "if that doesn't work" instruction, and found it completely incomprehensible.
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Mind you, I've had computers since the Commodore 64 (in ye olden days; it operated by handcrank), and have had a series of computers since, up to my present Pentium IV. But the people who wrote the instructions for this new version of Explorer apparently created this version for each other, and they are deep within themselves and their own closed world of computer experts, so the instructions they provide are very hard for non-experts to understand. I did not have time nor patience to read page after page of explanations and instructions. I don't want to work for my computer. I want it to work for me.
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The "if that doesn't work" steps took me to a Help screen displaying only a Search option, and without any indication of what the heck I was supposed to Search for. So I closed out of that and just tried to use the dratted thing. It worked. So they worried me for nothing.
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Tho the claim is made that 8.0 works faster, I found the opposite. Once you're in it, it may or may not work fast. But trying to swap it out (as to lift some text from a website into your word processor) and go back into it can take a VERY long time, at least on my machine, and I have to switch between programs all the time. It has even frozen my machine. It appears to be a huge memory hog, using some memory for itself and apparently also pushing the Windows program that underlies it, svchost.exe, to take up huge amounts of memory too. If you haven't yet installed IE 8.0, you might want to check with friends who have installed it to see if they have had the kinds of extreme slowness, memory gluttony, and instability I have experienced, before going ahead.
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There are a couple of good features. For one, there is a search box at the top of the screen, to the right of the URL address box, so I no longer have to click on Favorites to bring up Google. And drag-and-drop actually works in organizing Favorites, which it would not do for me in 7.0.

This is the second area where a cluster of mushrooms had been not long ago.

Free Audiobooks. If you're feeling adventurous as to software, aside from MSIE, you might be interested in a flyer I picked up at the Newark Public Library the other day,"Check Out and Download Digital Audiobooks for Free 24/7 at ListenNJ.com".

Hundreds of Digital Audiobooks are now available for Newark Public Library users from ListenNJ.com, a project of the InfoLink and Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperatives.

You will need:
• A valid Newark Public Library card.
• Internet access from your home computer.
(You may NOT use the Library's computers to download audiobooks.)

The first time you borrow materials..., instructions will be provided on how to download the free software needed.

Downloads are available for your personal PC, laptop, or PDA. MP3 audiobooks can be transferred to a wide range of devices, including the iPod®, iPhone™, and the iPod Touch. Some titles can even be burned to a CD.

You may check out up to five digital audiobooks at one time. The loan period is 10 days. After that, the title expires and the audiobook is automatically checked back in. At this time, you can delete the expired files from your computer.

Want to know more? Visit ListenNJ.com and click on the Help button for a complete list of FAQ[*] or take the Digital Media Guided Tour. If you wish to speak to someone at The Newark Public Library, please call (973) 733-7779.

____________________

* "[A] complete list of FAQ" is clumsy English at best. Altho FAQ means "Frequently Asked Questions", one should not have to go behind an abbreviation to determine grammar. "FAQ" is singular, the term for a standard webpage (or feature within a webpage with other things on it as well). The phrasing should have been "a complete FAQ", which would also have saved two words, some ink, and some grammatical confusion and embarrassment.

As if to compensate for my loss of the other mushrooms, this other area, of new mushrooms, to the right of the area first shown above, is perhaps twice the size of either of the other areas.

There is an extensive tutorial at the ListenNJ.com Guided Tour. I clicked on one part, about burning CD's (if permissions are right), and watched the steps and listened to the narrated instructions. Then I remembered that the door to the CD burner in my aging, piece-of-crap Dell won't open, and I haven't found the time and energy to take the tower's case off to find out what the problem is.
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In any case, I'll have to look into this ListenNJ.com program when I have time, because that might be one way to get some info in a convenient form when I'm doing things like fixing fotos at a time when there's nothing on TV and I've already listened to TV shows' video or audio files downloaded from the Internet. This would seem yet another alternative to cable TV. Of course, with a book-length audio recording, if the narrator is irritating, I won't be able to listen. I certainly won't listen, for instance, to a British accent for hours. My great-(etc.)-grandfather fought to drive the British out of this country, and I have minimal patience with British accents. In fact, as a New Jerseyan, I have little patience for a lot of bad speech. Refined NJ speech is the best English in the world. Clear as a bell, unpretentious, with all R's pronounced, educated NJ speech is very easily understood across the entire English-speaking world and by new learners abroad of this most useful of all international languages.
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I was irritated tonite in hearing some narrator on WNYE-TV (NY Bd of Ed station) say wok for "walk" and kwáu.ree for "quarry"; then Jonathan Turley, a legal expert for MSNBC, said íe.yer.nee for "irony". Things like that send me into a rage. But if you are not that easily irritated, you might find free audiobooks you can burn onto a CD for a CD-player in your car, backpack, pouch, or pocket, a good alternative to radio during your commute or an alternative to music CD's during chores around town. You can learn something passively, or listen to some classic novel, maybe even War and Peace or The Great Gatsby in commuting to work or school. I don't have a portable CD/DVD-player, but if I get my desktop's CD-burner working, I might get one. There's a lot of nonmusic audio available online, from language instruction to fiction to nonfiction, and when you're doing something that doesn't require intense concentration, you can absorb materials you select at times of your choosing, while doing other things, from laundry and yardwork at home, to riding the bus or train, to walking supermarket aisles. All free, from the Newark Public Library.

The guide on a bus tour I took of Yellowstone National Park said that evergreens can make (fotosynthesize) food whenever the temperature rises above about 45°F. So my rhododendrons ate today. I actually have a lot of evergreens, from an enormously tall spruce (I think) and very large low and spreading yew, to a boxwood shrub, to English ivy on the ground and up parts of three trees, to barberries, to azaleas and rhododendrons, to a "false cypress", to bamboo. The spruce, shown here, starts below my first floor and extends above the third. It stands green, year-round, outside my bedroom and hoffice windows.

Robeson Events, Starting Tuesday

Starting tomorrow, the Robeson Galleries on the campus of Rutgers-Newark offer a number of activities to the general public, not just the University community. Here's the emailed notice, with a little visual emphasis on key points.

FREE PUBLIC EVENTS WITH THE PAUL ROBESON GALLERIES

"CHARMING AUGUSTINE"

Foto courtesy of the Robeson Galleries

"Augustine was the most extensively photographed of the young women hysterics at the Salpêtrière in Paris of the 1870s. She was 'the Sarah Bernhardt' of the asylum. This is her story."

FELIX MENDELSSOHN, OCTET FOR STRINGS: PERFORMED BY ELIZABETH MILLER & FRIENDS
Wednesday, 4/1/09
2.30pm-4pm
Main Gallery, First Floor Paul Robeson Campus Center
Reception to follow
"Celebrate the 200th birthday of the great composer Felix Mendelssohn. Join us for a concert featuring one of his most popular works ... written when the composer was a mere 16 years old!"

ARTISTS' TALKS WITH CLAIRE WATSON AND BETH B
Part of the exhibition, "Hysteria: Past Yet Present"
Tuesday, 4/7/09
Time 11.30am-12.30pm
Main Gallery, First Floor Paul Robeson Campus Center

PLEASE NOTE: The current exhibition in the Main Gallery, "Hysteria: Past Yet Present", closes on Thursday, 4/9/09.

Gallery Hours are Monday through Wednesday, 10am-5pm; Thursday, 12pm-7pm
Located on the first and second floors of the Paul Robeson Campus Center
350 Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. * * *

The next exhibition will be: "Rutgers - Newark Fine Art Senior Thesis Exhibition"
Opening Reception Thursday, 4/16/09, 5pm-7pm

ALL EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

The Robeson Campus Center is in the upper-campus area accessed at street level from MLK or this stairway from University Avenue or, on its eastern side, from Bleeker Street.

Deliverance Temple

This "Church Sunday" at Newark USA features the Deliverance Temple in Clinton Hill. It took a little doing to find the website of this large, oval church in Clinton Hill. (Some of the pictures may look a little odd because the mind wants to think the building round, which it is not.) "Deliverance Temple Newark" didn't do it. Only when I looked closely at one of the pix today, saw the pastor's name, "Nichol", and added that to the string, did I find a website. You see, the formal name of the organization that occupies Deliverance Temple is "Deliverance Evangelistic Center, Inc." (DEC: 826 South Tenth Street, 07108; (973) 824-7300; church entrance at 621 Clinton Avenue).

Here's some background, from the website's page about the history of the ministry.

[DEC Ministries] was incorporated on October 8,1957 by Apostle Arturo Skinner. From the very beginning, the church motto was: "To reach the lost at any cost with the message of Pentecost." Although it grew to become a renowned national and international ministry, it began simply in the home of a woman by the name of Mother Mary Amartys who lived in Newark, New Jersey.

In her home the Gospel was preached, the sick were healed and soon the house was overflowing. The ministry moved to several locations before settling in at its first Headquarters Church at 505 Central Avenue in Newark, which would accommodate 1600 people.

At the same time Apostle Skinner was conducting services in the Brooklyn, New York area. In 1964 the Deliverance Tabernacle ... was purchased to accommodate weekly services there and to house church staff, the printing ministry and the other mechanics of what was now growing into an international ministry.

"The Supernatural Hour of Deliverance" radio broadcast reached over 20 million listeners in their homes. Because of the ministries['] magnitude of activities by this time, new branches of ministry outreach were established: The Deliverance Prayer Tower, where people could call in for prayer; the Deliverance Voice, an international monthly publication; and The Deliverance Bible Institute * * *

The prior name of the building can be seen despite the earlier letters' having been removed.

Soon Deliverance churches spread from Florida to Massachusetts, [we]stward as far as Chicago, Illinois, throughout the Southern United States, the Caribbean, and Africa. By 1965 the ministry had between 40 and 50 affiliate churches worldwide. Long before television evangelism created the mega camp meetings recognized today[,] Deliverance made history by filling Madison Square Garden ... to capacity.

In 1973 the ministry purchased its present headquarters church, the former Temple B'nai Abraham ... [for] $250,000 in cash ... for the 2,000-seat sanctuary and complex.

I don't know how much of the international organization holds together today.
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I was pleased to see that DEC uses the phrase we used to hear when I was a child but which has recently been largely replaced by "Holy Spirit":

God is ONE eternal, omnipresent, omniscient, all-powerful God in three persons (the Trinity): namely, God the FATHER, God the SON, and God the HOLY GHOST.

The church practices tithing and has an active outreach program. Another part of the church's mission is the Nehemiah Project:

To restore the DEC Ministries Headquarters Church, the former Temple B’nai Abraham, to make it accessible as an important architectural and civil rights landmark, and to form civic and community partnerships that will help revitalization [of] the Clinton Hill section of Newark, New Jersey.

A falling-N and other defects in the lettering above indicate the need for restoration of the building.

The website includes a page devoted to the history of the predecessor institution that built the present church, Congregation B'nai Abraham:

The DEC Temple was designed by architect Nathan Myers and completed in 1924. The richly ornamented interior, has a dramatic multi-level coffered ceiling that features a Star of David stained glass skylight [foto on the website]. Formerly Temple B’nai Abraham, it is one of the three oldest former Synagogues in Newark, and the largest in the state of New Jersey. ***

Rabbi Prinz’ life-long commitment to Civil Rights culminated in his 1963 March on Washington speech "I Speak as an American Jew", which he made just prior to Dr. Martin Luther King’s now famous "I Have A Dream" speech. The two men were friends and united in the common cause of human justice. Dr. King visited and spoke in the Temple on several occasions as he traveled the country speaking out against inequalities in the United States.

In 1973, the Temple building was purchased from B’nai Abraham.... Today the Temple serves as an important Newark landmark. It not only links the histories of two religious institutions, but is significantly related to national and international history as well. It was and continues to be a vital crossroad in the heart of the Clinton Hill Community.

The DEC Ministries family is proud to announce that the Temple has been added to the National Trust of Historic Places, with the designation of "National Significance."

Broken glass mars the magnificent outside lites.

Part of the planned restoration of the Temple building and the Clinton Hill neighborhood is an Arts Center, to incorporate a History Museum Café and classes on various cultural activities, from painting and dance to fotografy and bookbinding. At least that's the plan, subject to funding and staffing.

The website is extensive. The home page shows an animated background of blue sky with blowing clouds, but the other pages are visually dreary, with a very dull gray background and an overall dim, blue-gray theme. The Church might do well to change to a warmer, briter feel. I think they could retain the top frame as-is and just change the background of the main frame to something like a warm beige, like the brick exterior, perhaps textured. Even a brick pattern. Just a thought.

The Church publishes "Deliverance Voice", a bimonthly newsletter, electronically, on the same blogging service as "Newark USA". That blog has a much more cheerful feel.
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Rutgers professor of history Clement Price told me, in a very brief conversation at a Newark Public Library event, that I should try to get into Deliverance Temple, once the largest synagog in Newark, to hear a black, Jewish cantor who sings during Sunday services. Jeffrey Bennett, webmaster of the Newarkology website, confirmed that B'nai Abraham was indeed larger than B'nai Jeshurun, which I have been inside, with a Newarkology tour, and is very big indeed, and had also heard about that singer, but I don't see any reference to him on the Internet. In any case, I didn't get inside Deliverance Temple on the day I took these pictures, and it was a weekday anyway.

This area has long been ecumenical. What was once B'nai Abraham and is now Deliverance Temple, is diagonally across Clinton Avenue from Blessed Sacrament/St. Charles Borromeo R.C. Church.

(Cable) TV, or Not TV? (Alternatives to Cable)

With this very long entry (c. 3,700 words), I hope to give readers who are unhappy with cable TV some guidance as to factors to consider in seeking alternatives, and some specifics on how actually to make use of the alternatives I have found. One section deals with installing and using a digital converter box. Readers who have already done this or have no intention of doing it can skip that. And, as always, any visitor who is not interested in the written topic can just check the pictures, which today are of my early spring-flowering bulbs in bloom, plus two masses of little mushrooms poking out from under my yew.

Crocuses in backyard near driveway, early stage.

I have been unhappy with cable-TV for some time now, and did a careful evaluation of its cost as against value to me. Cablevision Newark's plans jump from Broadcast Basic at $9.32/month, for only over-air channels, which I can get without cable (if with poor picture quality on some), to a Family Cable package at $52.95/month, plus a bunch of digital channels above channel 100 for another $11, which gives you about 180 channels, including all broadcast channels but no premium channels (HBO, Starz). There is nothing in between $9.32/mo and $52.95/mo. I have a three-story house and spend time on every floor, so have to have three cable boxes if I am to watch TV wherever I happen to be, at $6.50 each ($19.50/month for the 3) plus about $1.50 a month for each remote. Add that to my Internet service (Optimum Online) at $45 (a $5 discount over the cost of Optimum alone, without TV), and my cable bill has been running around $133 a month, or $88 a month for the TV portion.
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I realized recently that there are about 140 channels I never watch, ever, but am paying for; and perhaps 40% of what I have been watching was on broadcast channels. Here in Vailsburg, perhaps 15 straight-line miles ("as the crow flies") from the Empire State Building, my reception of most over-air stations, even with analog TV, is pretty good. Channels from 2-5 aren't so hot, but those from 7 on up are crystal clear, so I definitely don't need cable for broadcast channels. I also realized that there is so much crap on TV, broadcast and cable, that there are periods of hours at a time, especially on Sundays, when I channel-surf in desperation for something, anything, fit to watch. Moreover, the enormous mass of advertising nowadays has become maddening. Ads and promos for future shows now take up almost 1 of every 3 minutes of broadcast time, an outrage that Government seems to have no intention of correcting. Some channels not just scrunch the credits at the end of a show, but even superimpose audio promos that obliterate the last minute or so of the program now ending! So you can't find the name of that guest star whose name is on the tip of your tongue, and you can't hear the last words that may resolve one last plot point!

Different clump of crocuses.

A commercial break can now run 3½ minutes, with 7 different commercials and a couple of promos or, occasionally, PSA's (Public Service Announcements), some of which are very offensive. One PSA run by a NYState program to get people to stop smoking shows truly disgusting medical images. I don't smoke; never have. Why should I be attacked with revolting images of cancerous lungs, or plaque being squeezed out of an artery taken from a dead person?
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On MSNBC's Countdown, Keith Olbermann interrupts long commercial breaks with snippet "teasers" about what is still to come. So we get two minutes of commercials and promos for other shows, 30 seconds of teaser, then another two minutes of commercials and promos! TV advertising has become hugely abusive. I might not be so angry about that if TV were free, as it used to be. But it's not. I'm supposed to pay to watch this crap? I don't think so.
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In a rational world, you would pay for cable or suffer commercials, but not both. It's like PBS: either begathons or commercials, but not both. Unfortunately, on both cable and PBS, you get both bad things, not one or the other. Almost every PBS show nowadays has onscreen announcements of the contributors to production costs. The announcements for corporations are indistinguishable from regular commercials. There are types of commercials I wouldn't mind on PBS: advocacy pieces pro and con, oil or coal; argumentation about impending legislation, such as the proposed new way of organizing unions, and why it should or should not be passed. But a commercial for Mercedes Benz or Liberty Mutual Insurance? No.

Daffodils (narcissuses), and blue hyacinths just coming up.

Further, something like 90% of entertainment programming on cable is reruns, some of shows decades old. It has reached the point that almost anything I'm likely to watch, I've already seen, usually more than once. I don't need to pay to see these things again. I don't watch sports channels, but the one good thing about sports channels is that most of their programming is new. Not all. I was channel-surfing a couple of weeks ago and saw what looked like old film. Sure enuf, a sports channel was showing a baseball game from the 1960s! Entire. What the ...?!
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Even serious stations, like the History Channel, History International, Science, and Discovery, repeat their shows endlessly. Make new once, show as reruns dozens of times. The same movies are shown a hundred times a year, on different channels: Joe Dirt, Barber Shop, Beauty Shop, The Wedding Singer, Van Wilder, Miss Congeniality, Independence Day, Men In Black.

Isolated crocus in a new location. I don't know how it got there unless crocuses produce seed that some critter carried 50 feet.

And shopping channels and tons and tons of infomercials! Hours a day on dozens of channels, some called "programs" and actually listed in the channel guide: Guthy-Renker crap, fad exercise machines, get-rick-quick scams, and worse. One women's channel actually runs a shop-at-home "erotic" service, with dildos and other obscenities for you to run across in channel-surfing!
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On top of all that, Cablevision Newark runs what are supposed to be monthly tests of the Emergency Alert System not monthly, not weekly, but sometimes every day, blanking out the sound of whatever program (rarely a commercial) happens to be on at the moment, for a full minute. You can lose a plot point, or the solution to the mystery that the entire hour has been building to, in that minute.
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So I decided Tuesday, I've had it. No more. And I called Cablevision to preserve my Internet connection but turn off cable TV completely.
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The woman who took my disconnect order asked, for feedback purposes, why I was discontinuing cable TV, and I told her some of the above, plus complained about (1) the listings on channel 14 not showing all the channels, including three I would occasionally watch, and (2) sometimes channel 14 would carry a hockey game — even tho there are dozens of vacant channels Cablevision could use for that — and drop the scrolling program listings altogether, not even move the listings, rather than the hockey game, to one of those many vacant channels.
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She offered me a discount on the Family Basic package to $30/mo for a year, but I said that I would still have the expense of 3 converter boxes (and associated remotes), so I'm not interested. I'm not saying I'll never resume cable TV. If I win the lottery, I may reconnect. Or not.

Closeup of largest clump, before peak bloom.

Alternatives to Cable: (1) The Internet. Fortuitously, a lot of programming is migrating to the Internet. I can watch entire episodes of many shows, and clips from many others, perhaps a day late. I can watch the Tonight Show with Jay Leno live over-air with an acceptable picture on my ground floor and a pretty good picture on my third floor (I haven't installed an antenna on my second floor yet). If I miss something, as in switching back and forth among Leno, Letterman, and Kimmel, the whole Tonight show is available on the Internet the next day and for a couple of weeks thereafter. Letterman and Kimmel are also available, but with a longer delay.

Wide view of my little front yard, with many but not all daffodils open.

MSNBC offers free shows, in video and audio, but the instructions are unclear. I did as they said: right-clicked on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and selected "Copy", but nothing happened. When I then tried to "Paste" it into a directory ("Folder") on my computer, I got only the graffic button I had right-clicked on! It turns out the instructions should say, "Right-click, then choose 'Save Target As...', to save the podcast's current file to your computer". Once I figured that out, I was able to store both formats, .WMV and .M4V.
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The .WMV file plays in the built-in Windows Media Player. The .M4V file plays in the Quick Time player, tho I had to start that player first, then load the file from a "Details" view of the directory I had stored it in, because it wasn't recognized automatically. I can also play .M4V files in iTunes. I don't have an iPod or such, but if you have, you can subscribe to these things, not download each when you think of it.
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In any case, even without an iPod I have at least 3 ways to play these MSNBC files (and other such files from other content providers), so can be fully as distracted by playing video (as, essentially, background audio) at the same time as I am working on other things, as I was with cable! Isn't that great?! But, I can turn this off and back on at any time I'm at my computer, without regard to when it shows on TV. If I want to focus on something for a moment, I can pause the playback, then resume when I've finished whatever it was that required more attention.

Daffodils, small blue hyacinth just coming up.

For my purposes, since I don't have an iPod, there's no point in storing the .M4V file, because the one test file I downloaded (in perhaps 3 minutes, via cable modem), was an hour-long full episode of Countdown. In .M4V, the file size was 179MB; in .WMV, only 93MB. Both play equally clearly, but if I'm in Windows Explorer (right-click on "Start" button, then left-click on "Explore"), I can simply double-click on a .WMV filename, and Windows Media Player will come up automatically. But to play an .M4V file, I have to start Quick Time or iTunes first, then call up the .M4V file via that program's "File" menu. So the .WMV file is doubly better for me.
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The podcast has the additional, nearly thrilling feature of being stripped of commercials! None. No commercials!
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Countdown, an hour-long program with commercials, is only 41 minutes and 47 seconds long in the video file. So, as you can see, 18 minutes and 13 seconds of this show as broadcast live is commercials and promos: as I said, for every 2 minutes of programming, there is almost a full minute of commercials. Deplorable.

Daffodils in full color, hyacinths not yet in color (pink).

Comedy Central's Daily Show seems, at present, less cooperative, full episodes being available only after a five-day delay. Hulu.com has bunches of complete episodes of many dozens of series. TV.com has others. I haven't done an exhaustive study of what is available on the Internet because until yesterday I had cable. Now I don't, so will look. I'll think about which programs I would like to watch that I have heretofore watched on cable, and search for downloadable or streaming episodes online. And my total cable bill (for high-speed Internet access) will now be $50 (plus tax?), rather than $133. At $83/mo savings, I might buy a new laptop in a year or so (or some Internet-TV device, if there be such). I will then be able to use my wireless router (which I didn't take the time to make work before) to access the Internet from any floor, even the basement if I'm doing laundry. (But I usually play pool while waiting for the dryer.)

Clump of many small mushrooms under yew at retaining wall along sidewalk. I wouldn't imagine they're edible, and I'm not taking chances.

Alternatives to Cable: (2) Digital TV. Over-air broadcasting is available to me free until mid-June, by which time the unwarranted shutdown of analog broadcasting will require me to get digital converter boxes. With such digital boxes, I can get a number of additional channels, many of which merely duplicate the analog channel (that is, digital channel 4.1 has the same lineup as analog channel 4). 13.2 has children's programming 24 hours a day. Why? I didn't know how many of these over-air digital stations I would be able to see clearly. Will UHF stations that did not come in clearly (or at all) in analog, be clearer in digital? I thought I wouldn't find out until mid-April.
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Unfortunately, the Government gives out only two $40 coupons to be used in the purchase of digital converters, per household (max). I applied for the coupons online Tuesday, and the confirmation page said they will be mailed April 10th. I didn't want to print that page but store it (to save color ink; my b&w laser printer isn't working; don't you just love technology?). The "Save" function is, however, apparently disabled on that Government site. I don't know either why nor how. There is a workaround you may or may not know: Alt+PrintScreen puts a screen capture into the Windows buffer, and then you can call it up into your word processor (in my case, WordPerfect 11 or OpenOffice 2.4), where it comes in as a graffic box. You can then save that file as a regular word-processing file and call it up anytime you want. This works for all sorts of things and is a neat feature. Since the file is a graffic, you can alternatively call it up in a graffics program and manipulate the graffic as you like, if it's the picture and not the info that's important to you.

Other clump of mushrooms, behind retaining wall about two feet farther up the front stairs.

In that I understood that I would have to pay for one digital converter box on my own, with no coupon, I figured, "Why wait?", so went to Radio Shack in the Ivy Hill shopping center on Irvington Avenue. The only model they carry costs $60, $20 over the coupon, plus 3.5% sales tax here in Newark. I see cheaper converters offered on the Internet, but when shipping, handling, and perhaps full sales tax is added, the savings may be only trivial, and you have to wait. I also bought a better antenna, for another $20. If you already have a good antenna, and you use a $40 coupon, the Radio Shack unit will cost you twenty bucks plus tax (69¢ in Newark). And that's your total expense for digital TV, for one or two TV's. For any others, it will be $70 plus tax, once. And then TV is free for all the digital channels within reach of your antenna, in perpetuity.
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I took the converter and antenna home, unpacked them, read the quick-start instructions for the converter, plugged the power cord in and put the converter between the antenna and the TV; turned it on, and started the auto-search of what is available. In perhaps two minutes, it presented a list of 28 channels. Entire elapsed time from opening the first box, about 25 minutes.

Crocuses in backyard, at peak bloom.

The picture is brilliant on most channels, but on some channels the picture breaks up or goes black ("NO PROGRAM" or "WEAK SIGNAL" is all that appears) and the sound is missing, no matter where I put the antenna (on my first floor). Planning ahead at Radio Shack, I had bought a coaxial cable coupler ($3.29) to join the antenna to a longer cable so I could move the antenna closer to the window, but some channels still would not come in, including, irritatingly, 13 (WNET) and 50 (NJN). There is an "analog pass-thru" button, however, and if I press that, I can then move the channel selector on the TV off the default channel 3 to channel 13, and the signal comes in clear as a bell. I still can't get 50, however, or a few other channels I should be able to receive, according to what the auto-search found. That may be a problem only on my first floor, and getting higher off the ground may give me more channels. Maybe I can run an extra-long coax cable upstairs and get those missing channels. If the antenna works better at a different location, you can have the box scan for available channels all over again at any time.
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The converter has a remote that selects channels, controls sound volume, and will mute the TV entirely to reduce the irritation of commercials, take a fone call, whatever. Even better, it has a Closed Captioning button that allows you to get the CC2 datastream sent out by that channel, which around here is usually Spanish. If you want to improve your Spanish, you can leave this on and read the captions when you want, or turn CC2 off.

Whiter.

Alternatives to Cable: (3) Reading, in Hardcopy or Online. If worse comes to worst and I can't relax with TV, I have books of my own, books I can borrow from the NPLibrary, and Google Books, some of which are so old that you can read the whole book because it's no longer in print. With newer books, you can read a limited number of pages, which the publisher hopes will entice you to buy; and then you can follow a link to online booksellers (Amazon and such) or the publisher's own website to order it.
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If you have not yet found Google Books, the story is that Google has optically scanned in 7 million books, 1 million of which are in the public domain so can be read entire, online, or even downloaded as (presumably gargantuan) .PDF files. Unfortunately, a book on (English) spelling reform printed in Sweden in 1932 that I hoped they would have, Anglic: An International Language by R.E. Zachrisson, is not available online. At least not yet.

Purpler.

Some Google "Web" search results will produce Google Books pages. To get to Google Books directly, go to Google.com and click on "more" on the right, whereupon Books will be listed in the dropdown menu. Click on that, and you will see a main page with a number of book covers displayed and another search box specific to books. I wanted to see if they have (the late) Alan Karcher's book about the history of the State of New Jersey's breaking up large municipalities into ever-smaller units that Luis A. told me about, but could remember only the key phrase "municipal madness". That did it, and I found a "Limited preview" for New Jersey's Multiple Municipal Madness. A search on "Alan Karcher" produced a bunch of other items, some of them only "Snippet view". I don't know how many pages you can read in a "Limited preview", but I guess I'll find out. Naturally, if you're reading online, you can listen to online music at the same time, in streaming radio, including Newark's own WBGO.org, "Jazz 88[.3 FM]".

Separate small cluster.

Does the NPL have this book? You can find out what the Library does and does not have thru its online catalog, "Clavis". Finding a book there is trickier than with Google. An "Author" search for "alan karcher" did not find it, nor him. But "karcher" produced a number of listings, the first for "Karcher, Alan J.", and a click on that produced 4 results, including the one I was particularly looking for, but also one I'm intrigued by, What's Right with New Jersey.
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Interestingly, what I had regarded as NPL's online index also produced results for the New Jersey Historical Society's library. Another screen at some point announces:

Clavis

A KEY[*] to the Resources of
• The Newark Public Library
• The Newark Museum
• The New Jersey Historical Society
• The Irvington Public Library

____________________

* The word "clavis", pronounced kláa.vis — with a short-A as in "clavicle" (collarbone), tho I would have thought it a long-A, as in "conclave"; see why I'm a spelling reformer?— is Latin for "key".

Golly.

Little clump between "false cypress" and barberry shrubs. Each clump grows bigger with passing years, thru bulb splitting, and now I am seeing more locations, so there must be some spreading by seed as well. However it happens, the crocuses are an early spring joy that the prior owners of my house presumably planted. I planted the daffodils, hyacinths, and tulips. What a great change from apartment life in Manhattan.

If I read the Clavis listing correctly, What's Right with New Jersey is available only in the reference section (noncirculating) at both the Main branch, NPL, and NJHS. "Municipal Madness" is available in the same two reference areas and in the circulating collection at NPL Main. Good. I can borrow it. I don't imagine there are too many people waiting in line for it.
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How about Richardson Dilworth's The Urban Origins of Suburban Autonomy, which has a chapter called "The Rise and Fall of Greater Newark". Drat. It's only in reference, NPL Main. Got to get there. I suppose I can sit and read that chapter on premises. Too bad my laptop computer stopped working, or I could type notes in the Library.
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In any case, I should be somewhat less distracted now by trying to multitask, watching cable newschannels while also working at the computer. That won't reduce multitasking on the computer alone, switching from drafting this blog to making notes and drafting language for my book on spelling reform, and checking the news, and writing the day's entry for my Simpler Spelling Word of the Day website, and fixing fotos in my graffics program, and looking up word patterns (for instance, above, *clav*, in my electronic dictionary, and checking email on all of my categorized email addresses (personal, political, gay concerns, spelling reform, Newark, etc.). I should also have more time and energy for other things than TV and computer, which should prove a very good thing, especially as the weather gets warmer. I've got seeds to start, leaves to rake, compost to scatter, a birdfeeder to keep full and carrots to cut up and put out for the squirrels and possums, to make up for last year's total absence of acorns, and lots of other work to do in both house and yard. In the immortal words of Billy De Wolfe, "Busy, busy, bizz-zzeee!!"

Robeson Event Thursday; NJ Miscellany, Late March

As I mentioned here last Saturday, there is an artists' talk at Rutgers-Newark tomorrow.

Some Recent Mentions of New Jersey/ans on TV. Bruce Springsteen was Jon Stewart's guest on Comedy Central's Daily Show last Thursday, March 19th. That entire episode is presently available online. Toward the end of the interview portion (Springsteen also sang at the end of the show), Stewart said that Springsteen's words moved him to aspire higher and thus to pack up his possessions and take a U-Haul out of New Jersey, thru the Holland Tunnel, into Manhattan. I made a similar trip in 1965, but thru the Lincoln Tunnel. I learned what Jon Stewart may yet come to appreciate: tunnels go both ways.

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The remaining fotos today are of Columbia High School in Maplewood. CHS is a regional high school for two near-in suburbs that adjoin my part of town, Vailsburg, South Orange and Maplewood. I took these pix on Academy Award Sunday after I left Ann Dushanko Dobek's talk at the Ethical Culture Society of Essex County, in Maplewood, just to play safe in case Frank Langella won Best Actor (because Langella is one of a surprising number of famous grads of CHS, including Zach Braff, mentioned below). Had I known Langella wouldn't win, I could have waited for a sunny day to take CHS pix. This first foto shows a changing illuminated sign out front. Tho that info is not legible at this resolution, it says the school was established in 1885.

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Springsteen has lived outside NJ, but he came back. I've passed by a house in Rumson (about 5 miles from where I grew up) that was purported to be his, and Wikipedia says he still lives in Rumson, and has a horse farm in, appropriately, Colts Neck (also in Monmouth County).

Altho the institution, "Columbia High School", was established in 1885, the present, grand building was begun in 1926 and completed in 1927. Wikipedia says: "The predominant feature of A-wing [the original building] is the seven-story clock tower. At the very top a copper pyramidal structure barely visible as the seventh floor. The entire pyramid structure rotates, and one side opens, serving as an observatory. The observatory is equipped with a large refracting telescope made by John Brashear."

The repeat of Saturday Nite Live shown this past weekend included the "Weekend Update" segment in which Seth Myers says of Super Bowl XLIII that the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers opened for Bruce Springsteen.
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So when is Springsteen going to play the Prudential Center? He keeps performing in the Izod Center in East Rutherford. Mind you, if he lives in Rumson, he'd have to PASS Newark to get to East Rutherford. If he's flying in from some distant point, he's probably going to LAND in Newark. So why the [expletive] doesn't he PLAY Newark? The bastard.

Calista Flockhart was on Jimmy Kimmel Live! Monday nite and was introduced as a member of the South Jersey Hall of Fame. I checked her bio on Wikipedia, and it turns out that tho born in Illinois, she lived in various states and attended Shawnee High School in Medford (Burlngton County, Pine Barrens) and then the Mason Gross School of the Arts within Rutgers.

The clock does not show the correct time I took the foto. These great, old, multi-faced clocks are wonderful when they work, but expensive to fix.

Also this past Monday, the adorable Paul Rudd was on the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson , who said to Rudd at one point, "I think you're dreamy." Doesn't everyone? Early on, Ferguson asked Rudd where he's from. His answer came in two parts: "New Jersey" and then "Palisades Park", but then the family moved around, and he grew up in Kansas City (Kansas side). Wikipedia says:

Rudd was born in Passaic, New Jersey, the son of Jewish immigrants from England; his family's original surname was "Rudnitzky". His father, Michael Rudd, was a historical tour guide who was formerly the vice president of World Airways, while Rudd's mother, Gloria, was a sales manager at television station KSMO-TV. He was raised in Overland Park, Kansas. He attended high school at Shawnee Mission West, and college at the University of Kansas, where he was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity.

I lived in Palisades Park (Bergen County) from the day I came home from the hospital to age nine, and have a cousin in Overland Park. Rudd is 5'10". Me too. Small world. Note the oddity that Calista Flockhart attended Shawnee High School and Paul Rudd attended Shawnee Mission West. Overland Park is the setting for the TV show United States of Tara, in which a main character is played by Rosemarie DeWitt, an actress who graduated from Whippany Park High School.

"Columbia High School was designed in the Collegiate Gothic style by James O. Betelle of the Newark, New Jersey architectural firm of Guilbert & Betelle. Collegiate Gothic, or Academic Gothic, construction was prevalent in the Northeast in the 1920s, and was Betelle's preferred school building style for both its scholastically historic roots and practical considerations. Guilbert & Betelle was also responsible for many schools, public buildings and banks throughout the Northeast." — Wikipedia

Braff on Kimmel. Tuesday nite, Jimmy Kimmel introduced one of his guests approximately thus:

Among the many gifts the State of New Jersey has given the Nation is my first guest, ... Zach Braff.

During the interview, Braff mentioned that he hangs around with a lot of musicians, and they covet/resent the Grammy he won for the film Garden State. Wikipedia says the movie's

title alludes both to the nickname for New Jersey, and to lines from Andrew Marvell's poem "The Garden", "Such was that happy garden-state,/ While man there walked without a mate:"

It was filmed over 25 days in April and May 2003 and released on July 28, 2004. The main setting and primary shooting location was New Jersey.

The Internet Movie Database shows a bunch of filming locations, including Newark. I've never seen the movie and am unlikely ever to do so. I'm a little old to be interested in a "coming of age" movie.
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You can see entire episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live!, presumably including that one, at the Kimmel website, but you have to install a special video player from ABC.

The distinguished architecture of the original building was not matched by more recent structures, not as to style, nor color, nor materials, nor artistic quality.

David Letterman some weeks ago asked, "Anybody here from New Jersey?" Bunches of people hoot and applaud, whereupon Letterman says, "I'll speak slowly." Hm. The takeoff was that one of his guests that nite was from New Jersey. I think it was Demetri Martin.
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Last nite, one of Letterman's guests was Mary Tyler Moore. AOL had hilited a story about her earlier that day that said that she is nearly blind (from diabetes), so I watched as she came out. She sure didn't walk as tho nearly blind. Morally blind is another thing. In the AOL article, she is quoted as approving embryonic stem-cell research with this dishonest verbiage:

"As someone who has had type 1 diabetes for far too many years now, I'm grateful to President Obama for setting in place a policy to fully explore this promising field of science. The President's Executive Order is a strong signal to patients, scientists, and the nation that we have the government's full support to pursue ethical research that may accelerate progress to new treatments and possible cures for diabetes."

"Ethical research"? Killing babies to chop them up for parts is "ethical research"? That is as outrageous as former President Bill Clinton saying on CNN that embryonic stem-cell research is "pro-life"! Yes, killing babies is pro-life. Of course it is. And you never had sexual relations with that woman. We know that Bill Clinton has no respect for the truth. We might have expected better of Mary Tyler Moore, who is active in animal rights. Animal rights but not rights for the unborn. Very consistent.

When I was reviewing this foto up close, I noticed that the bronze plaque is not square with the stone onto which it is affixed.

In December 2006, Governor Corzine signed legislation to establish a stem-cell research facility in Newark, but it was not supposed to destroy embryos. Instead, there are stem cells in adults, including in excess human fat. Even the Roman Catholic Church has enlisted in "adult stem-cell research". The press release about the State program studiously avoids both words, "embryonic" and "adult", but a Gannett story of March 14, 2006 is clearer:

Others pushed the committee to remove embryonic stem-cell research from the legislation and only allow non-embryonic stem-cell research."That would be an ethical and practical use of money," said Mary Tasy, director of New Jersey Right to Life.

"There are no cures with embryonic, and there are 141 cures with non-embryonic, and (this is) making New Jersey a sinkhole of debt," said John Tomicki, executive director of the League of American Families.

State Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Bergen, who proposed the amendment on the Senate floor, said the NJIT institute would work "on developing commercial products that will be generated from research on adult stem cells." He also said the funding is for "capital construction, not operating expenses."

"We do not have to fund this as a state. Private research, private groups would fund it if it was promising," Sen. Gerald Cardinale, D-Bergen said before the amendment was passed 24-13.

That is "ethical research", and, assuming the institute was in fact established, it's being done in Newark.
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In any case, who knows the MTM connection to New Jersey? Don't all raise your hands at once.

Give up? In 1988 she starred in a short-lived TV series called Annie McGuire. Her (title) character lived in Bayonne. Round and round we go, where we stop, everyone knows: New Jersey.

No to an MUA

Bill Chappel, a James Street activist, has sent me materials (including the graffic below) about attempts by Newarkers to stop the City Government from creating a Municipal Utility Authority that would replace the present Water and Sewer Department. I don't know why the Municipal Council and Mayor would want to put any part of city government beyond their control, but that is what would happen if an MUA were created. Unelected functionaries would control the very water we need to survive. Who would control them?

Logo used by the Newark Water Group, with the slogan "Water is a human right".

Bill made the following statement before the Council last Wednesday:

Madam President and honorable Council Members:

The real value of water is assigned by culture, which treats water as sacred; it is also assigned by rules of social equity and justice which recognize that everyone has a human right to water. Therefore we the citizens of Newark want our elected officials to maintain direct control of our water supply. If we lose control of our water, then what do the citizens really control?

Philosopher George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Most of us have forgotten that 40 years ago the City of Newark had a Municipal Utility Authority for water and the City Council did away with it.

On June 27, 1968 the Newark Evening News quoted Kenneth Gibson. "In view of the experience that the public has had relative to the creation of other authorities (Port Authority, Turnpike, Parkway etc) I question whether or not the new authority will serve the needs of the people of Newark."

On August 13, 1970 in an Evening News article headlined "Harris calls for firings, dissolution of City Utilities board", City Councilman at Large Earl Harris [said]: "Since the water supply for the city is one of the chief assets, it should be back in the hands of the people of the city who own it and not in the hands of the so-called 'authority' over which the people have no political or economic budgetary control."

City Clerk Reichenstein said, "An Authority is unnecessary." He says that it couldn’t do anything a commission, operating under city sanction and supervision, couldn’t do and without parting with Newark’s priceless watershed. "The current scheme seems a high risk for the privilege of bonding beyond the city's debt limit. If there were sufficient public confidence in City Hall’s ability to manage Newark's affairs the proposal to delegate large powers to an agency remote from the people could be rejected without detriment to the city."

June 27, 1968, in a letter, Kenneth Gibson raised the question of whether a consulting firm "which received more than $100,000 for the study which recommended the creation of the Water Authority should now be appointed consultants to it." (Does this Sound Familiar?)

We urge you to resist the siren-song of easy money and demand that the city administration do the hard work of managing our water supply instead of taking the easy way out.

Lest we forget how badly people can mess things up when they are not subject to restraint, let's remember that the Passaic River, seen here at and above the Great Falls in Paterson, used to be drinkable all the way to Newark Bay.

Bill is part of a Group that has issued an information statement that says, in part:

Five years ago the city administration and the city council tried to lease away Newark’s Water and Sewer Dept to an appointed board for 30 years. Newark Residents turned out in large numbers and stopped the plan. Now, the city administration is at it again. They are planning to turn the department over to a City of Newark Municipal Utility Authority (CON-MUA ) run by a board appointed by themselves. This MUA would do what they tried to do five years ago at the expense of Newark Residents:

-- Remove the day-to-day operations of our most important resource -- WATER -- from the direct oversight of our city government.
-- Set up a whole new, expensive layer of bureaucracy to run the authority.
-- Provide for speedy contracts to outside [not Newark-based] corporations -- with much less oversight, with huge potential for sweet-heart deals
-- Hire who they wanted, from anywhere [read: outside Newark; forget about residency requirements and give great City jobs to non-Newarkers].
-- Hire more public relations people to "sell" us on water-rate increases.
-- Hand over the lion's share of control of our Water System to the State level.

Pure and simple, this is a plan to remove control of the City of Newark’s Water and Sewer Department from the duly elected representatives and the people of Newark. The City Administration and City Council must be held accountable, and not be allowed to sell out the people of Newark by spinning off to essentially private control, one of our most valued resources.

I fully agree that, as a universal principle: to the extent humanly possible, NO governmental power should be exercised by unelected functionaries whose decisions cannot be reversed by elected officials acting in the interest of, and answerable to, the people.
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The Newark Water Group urges people to speak against the MUA at City Council meetings. If you'd like more information or the form of petition, contact the Newark Water Group (at (973) 374-6433; email: citywaterpetition@yahoo.com). Let's stop this MUA "con".

Separately, each of us is like the smallest distinguishable drop in the picture above. Together, we are like the Falls, great and powerful. The Great Falls even run an electric generating station: power to the people indeed.

A Suburb-like City Service in Vailsburg

As I was working at my computer one afternoon a few weeks ago (February 27th), I heard a garbage truck and crew out my OPEN window — after weeks of mainly below-normal temperatures, the outdoor temp was warmer than the indoor that day. (I keep my house very cool in winter.) That warmth did not last, and I had to close the house up that nite, and it is still closed up.
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I might not trouble to look out to see what's going on with a garbage truck on Friday, since in my part of the city, Friday is trash pickup day (morning) and glass-plastic-metal recycling pickup (in the afternoon around that time). But something was different. Maybe more voices. In any case, a crew of dumptruck, bulldozer, and three or four men was picking up a wide stack of bagged leaves and loose heavy branches, from in front of the multifamily house across the street.

In addition to the bagged leaves and loose branches being collected, there is also a pile of what appears to be topsoil already in the truck. I certainly hope it's to be used in composting, not buried uselessly in a landfill.

I've seen this once before, outside my own house in 2001. I had cut down a tree out front, but fell off the ladder and was seriously injured so was unable to move the trunk and branches off my property near the curb. A neighbor helpfully cut the trunk into manageable pieces, and some weeks later, the City came by and took them away. Perhaps my neighbor also called to arrange that, because I didn't know they even did that.
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Ordinarily leaves are collected in late autumn, and it is more common for people to use great big paper bags that can go thru any composting process — if that's what's done with them — right along with the leaves and twigs. The people across the street put their leaves into plastic bags, but I guess someone will take the plastic off, if, as I hope, the leaves are turned into compost, then used as fertilizer in City parks and landscaping around public buildings. Smaller branches can be made into wood chips, which can be used as mulch. It could also be used as fuel for heating or even small-scale electric generating stations, tho I doubt Newark has any. This is part of what we need to do in the new "green" economy. Commercial tree services cut up tree trunks and large branches, and sell them to people as firewood for home fireplaces. The City could do the same, but I don't know if it does.

In this foto, the trunk has just landed inside the truck, and more wood is now falling out of the bulldozer's scoop.

In any case, I got a warm feeling about my tax dollars working on leaf and limb removal. I'd feel even better if the City could use the wood to heat retirement homes, schools, City offices, and the like. Let's say it does.

Good Neighbor

This "Church Sunday" at Newark USA I present a foto of the Good Neighbor Baptist Church in the Weequahic section (100 Chancellor Avenue, 07112-2248; (973) 926-0932) which appears originally to have been a synagog. My Google search seemed to produce a website for this church, but when I checked it out, it comprised only a single page wishing people a Merry Christmas. Will instructors of website design in Newark's colleges please require their students, as real-world experience, to create websites for some of the many churches and other voluntary organizations in Newark that need an Internet presence?
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Baptist411.com gives a little more info about the church than other bare-bones 'yellow page' listings, but shows no website, so I stopped looking.

I saw this church during a walking tour of Weequahic conducted by Jeffrey Bennett, webmaster of the Newarkology website. Jeff conducted a tour of the Ironbound last Sunday, and I asked how it went. He said:

About 40 ppl came on my walking tour. Maybe 10 of the attendees were students from Kearny High School who were on the tour as an extra credit assignment. It was one of my youngest crowds ever. ...

Going to try to schedule a North Ward tour some time in the spring, then the East Orange bike ride.

He's keeping busy. I hope he puts together a walking tour of Downtown north of Market Street. I've been on the others (Weequahic, North Ward, the Ironbound, Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Fairmount Cemetery). Jeff surely can give some background information on the people depicted in the statues in the various parks, the history of the major churches, the prior and current uses of major buildings both in and outside the campuses of the various colleges, and the history of Rutgers-Newark and NJIT, and their predecessor institutions. There's a lot of good info for someone to pull together into a walking tour.
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Kearny is one of those areas that Newark wanted to annex around 1900. A lack of enthusiasm on the part of both Newark and Kearny kept that from happening. Times change, attitudes change. It's time to try again. The mere fact that Kearny is in a different county from current Newark means nothing. Lots of cities extend beyond one county. We don't have to hold up Atlanta as an example. There's one right at hand. Originally called "Greater New York", it is now known as "New York City". So Greater Newark does not have to stay within Essex County.