Madison can't afford a real bell?

Here is a video of the 99 44/100ths percent completed Senior Citizens  low income housing on Central Ave. It is reputed to be a somewhat likeness of the old firehouse that once stood on the site, and according to most old-timers, that's a pretty nice thought and remembrance.
But the bell that sits in the cupola atop the structure -- and is an illuminated skyline focal point at night -- looks to be FAKE!
Another chance to be classy lost to some committee. With a real bell we could've had town-historic ringings, and volunteer ringers; we could've had a single chime at noon each day, to check our quartz watches, and just like the lights on the Empire State Building, the Madison Eagle could publish in advance what the next week's ringings signified.
Hey!  Maybe it's not fake. Does anybody out there know for sure?  Leave a comment!

Booker T & the MGs**

Listen up! Click the title


Even rock n' rollers with a sense of history tend to slot this group into the one-hit-wonder category. After all, what did they do besides 'Green Onions'?
What, indeed. When you read this, remember, they were an integrated band in Memphis, at a time when that was not only uncool, it was dangerous to your health!


Booker T. Jones began working at Stax Records in Memphis as a saxophonist in 1960. In 1962 Booker T. and the MGs were formed as the house band for Stax-Volt Records. Steve Cropper and Donald Dunn, who had been members of the Mar-Keys, played on the groups' 1961 instrumental hit "Last Night." Dunn remained with the Mar-Keys until 1964 when he replaced the group's original bassist Lee Steinberg.

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Prospect Tavern -- much ado about nothing

This is the type of story that keeps lawyer jokes alive and well. In a nutshell, one local business -- Stop and Shop supermarkets -- is challenging the liquor license renewal of a neighboring business, the Prospect Tavern. To what end? It's hard to say, but either the supermarket wants to start selling liquor and sees the tavern as competition, or they, in some convoluted, blue-nose philosophy, see this charming little establishment as a deterrent to food shopping. Click on the headline to see exactly what Stop and Shop is trying to shut down.

Enter the lawyers. And the judges. And the Town Council. And the ABC (Alcohol & Beverage Control).

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Maybe the Middle Ages Weren't So Bad**

Can't anything stay the same any more? Books are electronic, movies jump off the screen to bite you, heros tumble in lascivious scandal, and now a team from New York's American Museum of Natural History, NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Caltech, and the University of Cambridge in England has reported that the Big Dipper, that famous constellation that has been the entree to star-gazing since before Ptolemy, has an extra star in it! Can I please have a time out?


Geez! Back in the good old days, life was so much simpler; either you were on the castle wall, pouring hot oil down on somebody, or you were that somebody, trying to avoid being burned.

OK OK, here's the update. Commit this to memory, and hope that the damn iceberg as big as Manhattan (you heard about that, no?)doesn't go whacking into Australia.


Alcor is the bright star that forms the bend in the dipper's "handle." Astro-geeks have found a new star -- they call it Alcor B (very creative) -- that orbits around ye old Alcor, much like we orbit the sun. Well, Alcor B is a little more leisurely, at 90 years per orbit.


Don't go rushing out into tonight's sky -- it took Palomar's 200-inch telescope to find this -- but the next time you look up there, remember, it's just not the same. The moral, I guess, is, that nothing ever is.


Previously published, 12/17/09

It's just, well, UNBELIEVABLE!

There's a story out there -- you can read it by clicking the headline -- that attempts to implicate President Obama in a ham-handed 'New Black Panther' attempt to frighten voters at a Philadelphia polling station during the 2008 election. For the record, Obama won Pennsylvania by a 3-2 margin, and he LANDLSIDED Philadelphia by more than 5 to 1!
Let's get serious, here. If you believe a syllable of this tripe, you're an idiot, racist, fear-mongering wingnut. There's no use talking to you, you probably believe George Bush was a great president, Clinton had Vince Foster murdered, and Ronald Reagan tore down the Berlin Wall with his bare hands so you could buy a Porsche.
Back in the days before infotainment, when the various media outlets had actual news departments, this sort of drivel was something you read about in a two-paragraph blurb on page 11.  Just how crazy can the right wing get?

Do you really want to see how Fox News, step-by-step, manipulates the media?
Click here!






(caption) Minister KingSamir Shabazz, aka Maurice Heath (photo: Can't Stop the Bleeding blog)
He was in charge of the 'event.' 

Here's a cost-cutting idea whose time has come!**

Ed note: The crux of this article made it to the U.S. budget radar scope yesterday; is the Fed reading Jaxonia?

The United States Navy has 13 aircraft carriers and another one named and ready to be built. No one disputes the value of these ships, but do we need THIRTEEN of them? Let's look at some facts and figures --

It costs anywhere between 10 and 15 BILLION dollars to develop and build a nuclear carrier and roughly $160,000,000 a year to keep it afloat and active. That's around 2 1/2 billion annually in upkeep

Currently two of these rather large puppies are in their home ports, and FIVE of them are undergoing routine maintenance. So six carriers are routinely deployed around the world. Where? Right now one's in the Bay of Bengal, one's in the South China Sea, three are roaming around the Atlantic and the last one's in the Persian Gulf. Sounds like we've got the world pretty much covered!

Couldn't we de-commission 3 or 4 of these giants? We have never needed more than one of them at a time since WWII, and we would save half a billion dollars a year in upkeep; Hold the line at nine carriers, and we'll save another 60 billion.

By the way, our science, technology and energy budgets total $45 billion; maybe we could spend a little more to help get a 50 MPG automobile? Or maybe toss $20-30 billion at Africa? It couldn't hurt!


Previously published 1/27/09

Henrik Fisker�s �Timeless� Automotive Designs

This is a wonderful little automotive stroll around some pretty cars. Click the headline to go there.

Fisker helped design the Aston Martin Vantage 

pictured left. Incidentally, 

Bernardsville Audi 

has a silver 2007 Vantage on its lot; it has

 less than 

5,000 miles on it, and is offered at $79,000. It's right 

out front, if you want to ogle!

Gotta LUV this guy! **

This started out to be a definitive page on the Italian hot dog, but in searching around for a good pic (shown here) I stumbled upon Philly's own Holly Moore. I was humbled!

Click the title and be impressed... his site just HAS to be the ultimate expression of gusto for street food.

Great anecdote: I haven't been to a tenth of the places Holly lists (and talks about at length), but I DID go to Isla Mujeres, off the Yucatan Peninsula. Would've paid good money to meet Holly when he was there.

Please take note of the pic: if it's not served on a half-loaf of pizza bread, it AIN'T an Italian hot dog!
(April 23, 2008)

Editor's Note

After publishing this blog for a few years it has become painfully evident that some of our best efforts just slide down the time tunnel to unread oblivion.
Well, no more! Beginning tomorrow Jaxonia will update and republish some forgotten gems. You shall know them as reprints by the double asterisk in their headlines and their original publishing date at their tag ends. 

The Crises of Capitalism -- a brilliant primer (in cartoon format!)

Swing your philosophical pendulum to plumb center and be impressed! Click on the headline to get going.

(And thanks to Ed Meisse for discovering this gem!)

Wanna buy a stock? How about GM?

In almost two years of non-stop Republican Obama bashing, the stink they raised about the government 'takeover' of General Motors has begun to smell like roses, prompting a GOP/GM silence that is deafening.

True to his word, President Obama is planning to wean the government off its 70 percent stake in a revitalized and resurgent General Motors. In an IPO offering scheduled for this summer, the U.S. will put up more than 20 percent of its holdings. GM plans to file US$20bil IPO in mid-August.

A year ago, the GOP planned to use the federal GM bailout as a major focal point in the 2010 elections. Don't hold your breath!

Joey Chestnut Wins Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest 2010

Click the headline for the complete story; click here for a Kobayashi (last year's winner) update.

July 4 - Twisting the Lion's Tail

A blast from the past --- By the 1870s, the Fourth of July was the most important secular holiday on the calendar. Even far-flung communities on the western frontier managed to congregate on Independence Day. In an American Life Histories, 1936-1940 interview, Miss Nettie Spencer remembered the Fourth as the "big event of the year. Everyone in the countryside got together on that day for the only time in the year." She continued,

�

There would be floats in the morning and the one that got the [girls?] eye was the Goddess of Liberty. She was supposed to be the most wholesome and prettiest girl in the countryside � if she wasn't she had friends who thought she was. But the rest of us weren't always in agreement on that�Following the float would be the Oregon Agricultural College cadets, and some kind of a band. Sometimes there would be political effigies.

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