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Category Archives: History
The Idea of Freedom is definitely not new
I always equated Charlie Chaplin with comedy, but when I look back, the most memorable scene I remember, is a bitter-sweet scene from City Lights. In fact, beside some shorter clips on TV I did not actually see much of his work.
But after seeing his speech in The Great Dictator I have to change that. I was surprised that this movie is actually not available on Netflix.
Posted in Art, Emotional, History, Inspiration, Video
Tagged charlie chaplin, comedy, freedom, great dictator, memorable scene
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Cat Videos Can Make up to 30 Percent of Internet Traffic
This is a number that nearly blew my mind but after serious consideration and a bit of research and good old fashioned investigation I have come to the conclusion that this number is not an understatement: 30% of internet traffic IS cat videos!
After finding the main source of all this traffic through this ground breaking documentary…
… I now believe that this is actually a great justification for the existence of the internet at large.
We have heard rumors that porn is driving innovations like home movies in the 50s and 60s and the VHS tape in the 70s and 80s, followed by the internet – but this smut can not stand up to the clean enjoyment of cat videos reaching each and every house on this PLANET. I am convinced that we would also find cat videos behind the wide spread of the VHS tape in the 70s and beyond, and not the porn!
Without doubt, cat videos are even the main trust behind bringing the internet into 3rd world countries.
Posted in History, Inspiration, Philosophical, Video
Tagged 50s, 60s, 80s, innovations, internet traffic, smut, vhs tape
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Government is not Real
This year all things seem to come together right on this one weekend
- Memorial Weekend
- School’s out
- Summer weather
and particularly the first point makes me ponder the eternal question of ‘what is real’. It helped a bit that I also listen to a talk by Larken Rose, one of my favorite anarchists.
Let us look at my spiritual path for a moment and see if we can somehow apply this to my pondering.
On this path, I have now reached a point where I believe that I create my own world. This is often expressed as “The world IS as I see it” and not the other way around, something that I did subscribe to at some point on my path.
However, I have to admit that this is still, to some degree, a belief and not a certainty, as sometimes doubt creeps in. Occasionaly I wish for just one very good and solid experience to show me that something that I had just created in my inner world, was also visible to my physical eyes – that would be a nice thing to have and would remove all uncertainty, right? To give a rude example – I create a Ferrari in my inner world, go out the door – and there it is – in RED!
Unfortunately, these examples work both ways, so every time I create something in my own universe, and it does not show up in the one that I share with other, or believe to share with others, is like a punch in the teeth of my certainty.
If I could only find one (oh so) little example where it really worked – creating in my own world and finding it manifested in the ‘real’ world!
Today I understood that I’d better not look for little things only – I have a really big one right in front of me and after being able to see it – it’s undeniable.
“So, what is it?” you might now ask.
I was tempted to write some more sentences in order to build tension before I tell you, but I can’t stand this excitement myself any more – so here it is:
Memorial Day!
Huh – that makes no sense, this is something everybody knows and agrees upon – we honor our fallen heroes and celebrate that they are dead!
Maybe that did not come out right – ‘celebrate’ might not be the right word. Let me try it a bit differently and start at the beginning.
- We, as a group, came over here from Europe, mostly to escape slavery from the kings and the nobility that owned us.
- We made the mistake of bringing with us the conviction that others can own us – we did not leave this behind. Could have – but did not.
- With this emptiness inside, of a leader telling us what to do, we quickly got us a new set of rulers. We got us better ones that did not milk us as much as the old ones, but we allowed them to take rights that we ourselves don’t have.
- The first few waves of leaders were very gentle with these rights but slowly but surely the thumb screws were tightened, not in the arrogant ways of the rulers we had left behind, but instead with delicate psychology telling us “You are free” while putting the chains on.
- And we did not notice because we were still feeling the old chains, and their weight might have actually felt good because it was so familiar – and the new ones were a bit lighter, so all was good.
- Leaders, like every other group of people, do not always agree, but they never had the need to work out their differences themselves because they had us to go into battle for them, to find out who’s view was the right one.
- Smart as they were, they did not tell the families left behind something like “Oops, George did not make it – maybe in the future you next son has more luck – but don’t worry, everything went fine and I got what I wanted.” Instead they said the same thing but with words like “George put his life on the line for a [insert noble cause here] and in doing so, he became a hero. You should be proud!” And then they handed the happy wife/mother a shard of metal with ‘George – Hero’ scratched into it.
- As the years went on the reason for George’s demise was quickly forgotten but everybody remembered that he was a hero.
- All this because we forgot to leave behind in Europe the conviction that somebody can (and should) own us.
Now let’s see how this would have played out had we actually left that conviction back in the old world.
- We had come over here into the new world and had started to interact freely and voluntarily with each other, knowing that I own myself, and you own yourself, and that we have every right to do anything as long as it does not infringe in these very rights of others.
- Now a strange group of people might have come along, claiming rights that they themselves did not have, like stealing or making random rules that carried cage time if not followed. That would have been normal, every society breeds some of those crazy individuals but in this hypothetical scenario, where we all know that we own ourselves and can not give what we don’t own, these strange individuals would have just been put into the loony bin where they belonged – Imagine, the idea of ‘I have the right to take your stuff without an exchange and without your consent!’ – They must be surly mad!
Today then, we would not have one hundred million people that give away up to half of their wealth obeying the command of a few hundred (congress, etc.) who back up their ‘power’ with about one hundred thousand enforcers. A nice graphic representation of these ratios can be seen in the ‘The Tiny Dot.’
This article you are reading here right now, also demonstrates the ratio of Us v. Them – taxpayers v. IRS employees: it has about one thousand words. If this article represents Us, then the total of the enforcers is ONE WORD – 100 million v. 100 thousand – and of those latter the bigger part are only pencil pushers and not real ‘enforcers.’
Imagine how strange it is that this whole article is terrified of one word.
The only explanation that would make sense is that this power is a creation of all those one hundred million tax payers. On a logical level the few could not terrorize those many. Only when those many would create the existence of this power, which, in a so-called ‘objective reality’ is just not there, can this government (and any other) exist. Neither does ‘the law’ exist in some kind of ‘objective’ fashion as it was created by the few that we put into existence and which we could just as easily un-create if we so decide.
We only have to answer this one question for ourselves:
Who owns me?
Everything else falls into place automatically – there is no ‘government’ – no ‘authority’ that could possibly make rules which I have to live by.
Posted in History, Larken Rose, Philosophical, Politics, Thoughts
Tagged eternal question, heroes, Memorial Day, memorial weekend, nobility, Slavery, spiritual path, summer weather
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Bigger Than Blue
Saved from an old Video 8 tape…
Posted in History, Music, Video
Tagged Francesca Capasso, Lisa Franco, Markus Binapfl, Markus Deml
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Luscombe, Lucy and Piper
Digging through ‘things’ I have collected over the year, asking myself which be thrown out because I have not touched or needed them in years, I ran into some papers that certainly meet the two characteristics but which I nevertheless don’t want to toss out. Just scanning and keeping for later is certainly an way out of that dilemma, but I go one step further, I put it out on the web because I can imagine that there are others beside me who might enjoy this.
So, here it is…
The following advertisement appeared in several aviation publications in 1987
The only reason I know this is because one of the protagonists, Lucy, gave it to me personally. In other words, I can answer the question “Who’s Lucy?” Together with this ad, Lucy also gave me an excerpt from this advertised book. These are the pages that I did not want to waste.
Not all of the dealings at Luscombe Airplane Corporation in 1939 were of a serious business nature. July saw the culmination in marriage of a romance that had started nearly a year before. Lucy Rago, a local girl from the West Trenton area, was an office girl hired in 1935. In September of 1938, a young male customer flew into West Trenton with his distributor to take delivery of a new “50″ only to find that his plane was still under construction. Because he was low on money from the trip and couldn’t afford to just wait, Jerry Coigny was hired to work on his own airplane. The office area was off-limits to the factory floor
staff, but Jerry was more than just an employee; he was a customer, thus allowed to wander through the office area at will. This afforded Jerry and Lucy much contact with one another; enough to fall in love during the two weeks Jerry worked on his aircraft.
Lucy Rago at her desk in Ron's office
After Jerry left the West Trenton area, he and Lucy corresponded daily. As Jerry was racing and barnstorming in his little Luscombe, much of the news his letters contained concerned the performance of his airplane. When Lucy thought something pertinent to the
further development of Model 50s, she would carefully cover the personal messages with masking tape and take the letter to higher management. Almost before her back was turned to leave the room, the tape would be off and the personal sections read.
Lucy in a Luscombe with an experiemental wheel control
Occasionally, Jerry would write a letter to Don Luscombe himself, who at this time was still president, always adding, “Tell Lucy hello”. Don used copies of some of these letters in sales literature. Occasionally when a customer wrote the company concerning this literature, the P.S. “Who’s Lucy?” would be included.
The Christmas following their meeting, December 25, 1938, Keith Funk, another Luscombe
employee, knocked on the door of the Rago household bearing a gift. Jerry had sent Lucy’s Christmas present to the factory, an engagement ring. Lucy later said that the gift made Funk the “greatest Santa Claus in he world as far as I was concerned!”
More letters carried the young lovers through June when Jerry sent news of the sale of his first, wellused Luscombe. The official telegram arrived on June 9, 1939, Jerry Coigny’s deposit and order for a new Luscombe Model 8A was confirmed. The little plane became known as the “Honeymoon Special”, which was stamped on the firewall. When the order was written, Lucy was jestingly listed as extra equipment. After that, customers would jokingly request an “extra” like companion, wife, or girlfriend.
Jerry arrived on July 1, bearing gifts for Lucy’s family. Because of conflict between the families of the couple concerning their wedding ceremony, Jerry and Lucy decided to elope. The other girls at the office helped Lucy smuggle her personal belongings into the factory where they were stashed until the proper moment.
July 12 finally arrived. The little Luscombe 65 horsepower airplane was loaded with Lucy’s belongings and decorated with signs, crepe paper, and old shoes.
The Honeymoon Aircraft
J. H. Torrens, current President of Luscombe, gave a farewell speech and presented the couple with a Lear Radio. Lucy’s co-workers provided her with the necessary “something old, something borrowed, something blue”, and off they flew.
Jerry and Lucy Coigny
A short flight took them to Dylestown, Pennsylvania where they were married in a short civil ceremony. Another flight took them to Wings Field in Ambler, Pennsylvania where Don Luscombe and his wife picked them up and drove them to their estate at Gwynedd Valley. The honeymooners stayed the night with the Luscombes and left the next morning for Grants Pass, Oregon, where Jerry had established a fixed-base operation and flying school.
Jerry Coigny's airplane before leaving the factory - Serial-#804 - NC-2591
Thus far the story of Jerry and Lucy (all images from the Jerry and Lucy Coigny collection). Maybe the book is still available and if you are interested in the Luscombe story, try the address in the above ad.
Just as a little glance into the past, here the price and equipment list of these aircrafts as in the story above. This ways mailed out to dealers and prospective customers shortly after Lucy and Jerry got married:
FLY-AWAY FACTORY, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
AUGUST 1, 1939
LUSCOMBE “50″ (Continental A-50 Engine) — $1895.00
LUSCOMBE “65″ (Continental A-65 Engine) — $1975.00
LUSCOMBE “65″ SEAPLANE (F.A.w.) — $3170.00
STANDARD EQUIPMENT INCLUDES
- Wood Propeller
- Single Ignition Engine
- 17 1/2 Inch Tires
- Fully Enclosed Tunnel Type Cowling
- Carburetor Heater with Hot and Cold Air Control
- Two Full Size Doors
- Dual Controls (Stick)
- Oleo Landing Gear
- Altimeter
- Airspeed Indicator
- Tachometer
- Oil Pressure Gauge
- Oil Temperature Gauge
- Imitation Leather Upholstery (Seat Cushions)
- Pushout Window
- Individual Quick Fastening Safety Belts
- First Aid Kit
- Quart Pyrene Fire Extinguisher
- Logbooks
- Service Manual
- Five Cubic Foot Baggage Compartment
- Upholstery, in attractive leatherette, on both doors, with pocket in each door
- Upholstery in same material on forward cabin walls
- Rubber heel mats on cabin floor
- Door Stops
Now, you might wonder, how do I, your friendly author, fit into this story. Here is what happened.
A few years after the book in the above ad was published I started flight my training. During a visit with a friend who had a little motel in Badger, close to the southern part of the Sequoia National Park, I met a local who took interest in me and my flying because he had been a pilot during the war. He took me on a visiting spree around the area to meet local pilots.
One of them had the most amazing private air strip: Hangar on top of a hill, the short 1000 foot runway steep runway down the hill. Gravity helped to gain enough speed to get to minimum take-off speed at the bottom of the hill. On landing – the other way around – gravity helped again, this time to slow the plane touching down at the base of the hill, racing up the hill and coming to a stop in front of the hangar. Until now I have no idea what would happen if a plane would run out of speed during the climb up the hill, because the hill was definitely too steep for an airplane under propeller power only.
Another local pilot was Jerry Coigny. He had a more traditional air strip, if you can call it that – It started at the edge of a bluff and ended in his back yard. The similarity was that again, independent of wind, you took off in the opposite direction as you landed. The back yard was just big enough to turn a small air plane around. No, not just one turn. You pulled into a tight 90 degree left turn a little bit up an incline, pulled back power and gave full right rudder and let the plane roll backwards in a right turn. Then full power and left rudder to complete the 180. On my first visit I did not really know all that. Jerry was now a retired airline pilot but was still flying is 49 Bonanza (with a wooden propeller!) in and out of his air strip located at about 4000 feet elevation. He showed us around his estate and was very fond of his restored antique cars.
I finished my flight training, collected flight hours and experience and ended up buying a 1983 Piper warrior. A sales brochure of the warrior was the other item that I should have thrown out but could not, so I can share it here.
At a bout 4 or 5 hundred hours in the plane I felt able enough to take on bush-flying. I got in touch with Jerry, he gave me the exact coordinates of his property which I could plug into my Loran (GPS had been too expensive for me then) and I got on the way. I buzzed my friends motel first so they could drive up to Jerry and Lucy’s house to pick me up and I continued on to find that bush pilot’s dream runway. I was used to runways like Burbank so, a strip consisting of two narrow paths in the grass just wide enough for my wheels was quite a change.
Jerry and Lucy's private air strip
This is also where I learned how to turn around at the end of the runway – in Jerry’s back yard.
Over the years I flew into Jerry and Lucy’s air strip and it was always a different restored antique car that we or I were picked up in from the tie-down in the middle of the strip. The last time I was there, Jerry had unfortunately passed away.This is when Lucy gave me the story that I told above. Now I don’t know how the story ends, if the air strip is still there and even if Lucy is still wandering amongst us – probably not, because it’s way more than 10 years ago that I was up there last and Lucy was already old then.
Often, when a couple is together so long and happy, the second follow rather soon so that they can have new adventures together. If they are together again in the everlasting hunting grounds then I am sure that they fly around in a Luscomb, Bonanza or maybe in some cute little white space yacht.
Posted in Culture, Diary, History, Reminiscence, Stories
Tagged advertisement, airplane, aviation publications, coigny, Don Luscombe, extra equipment, Jerry Coigny, Keith Funk, Lucy Coigny, romance, west trenton
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Ray Manzarek about the beginning of the Doors
During my first semesters at the University of Dortmund a break-through in album sales happened. While at the regular record store you had to shell out over DM 20 (that’s Deutsch Marks for all you young kids, the currency they had in Germany before the Euro) for a 30cm album, some entrepreneurial students started to sell those same albums for DM 14.95 or less in the entry hall of the cafeteria (mensa in latin-german).
This is where I got pretty much the whole collection of my albums I still have after so many years. Some of the early and important items in this collection are records from the Doors. Sure, we knew Jim Morrison by name but the other members of the band were more or less face and name-less.
Until today, when I found the great video site called L-Studio. L must be standing for Lexus as this site is hosted on a subdomain of Lexus.com. And why not – BMW sponsors TED, why should Lexus not have it’s own video site with – I have to say – excellent video.
Some of these videos are with and about Ray Manzarek, the creator of the Door’s characteristic keyboard sound. Hear him tell about the Door’s beginnings …
… and then look through the other video for more Ray Manzarek and try not to miss the series of Web Therapie with Lisa Kudrow.
UPDATE: just ran into the new video of Weird Al Yankovic – ‘Craigs List’ – were he pays homage to the doors – in his own special way. And the great thing is that Ray Manzarek actually plays the keyboards in this spoof of the doors! No wonder that Yankovic version sounds so authentic…
The Right to Bear Arms
The most compelling reason against gun control is the consideration that with gun control and laws prohibiting the ownership and use of arms the law abiding citizen will give up his arms while the criminal, by the very definition of criminal not following the law, will keep and bear his arms. So the next time he wants to rob somebody his chances that the other person is able to defend him or herself are much smaller.
The organization Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership has published a very well made video discussing all the aspect of the second amendment…
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Spread the word!
Posted in Educational, History, Politics
Tagged firearms, inalienable rights, second amendment
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The US One Century Ago – Statistically
That was interesting! I ran into some statistics that somebody had collected with the intend to awe us all when we compare these numbers with the numbers of today.
The most intriguing aspect of these numbers is to try to interpolate what we will see in the days of 100 years from now. Looking at Ray Kurzweil’s Book ‘The Singularity is Near’
When I look over only my own lifetime I have to admit that that assumption makes sense, but this also means that I don’t have a chance in the world to predict how our world will look in one hundred years.
Now, in order to bend your mind a bit, here are the statistics from 1907:
- The average life expectancy in the U.S. was 47 years old.
- Only 14 percent of the homes in the U.S. had a bathtub.
- Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
- A three-minute call from Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
- There were only 8,000 cars in the U.S. , and only 144 miles of paved roads.
- The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
- The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower.
- The average wage in the U.S. was 22 cents per hour.
- The average U.S. Worker made between $200 and $400 per year .
- A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist made $2,500 per year, a veterinarian $1,500 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
- More than 95 percent of all births in the U.S. took place at home.
- Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education.
(Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press and the government as “substandard.”) - Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
- Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from entering into their country for any reason.
- Five leading causes of death in the U.S. were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke - The American flag had 45 stars.
(Arizona, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska hadn’t been admitted to the Union yet.) - The population of Las Vegas, Nevada , was only 30.
- Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea hadn’t been invented yet.
- There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.
- Two out of every 10 U.S. adults couldn’t read or write.
- Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.
- Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores. Back then pharmacists said, “Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind,regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health.”
- There were about 230 reported murders in the entire U.S.A.
What struck me as notable was the fact that hundred years ago 20% of the adult US population could not read or write. Looking at todays numbers that was pretty good, even though we are supposed to come to the opposite conclusion.
I found the following quote:
According to a recent US government report, The State of Literacy in America, released by the National Institute for Literacy (NIL), there has been a significant growth in illiteracy in America. Over 90 million US adults, nearly one out of two, are functionally illiterate or near illiterate, without the minimum skills required in a modern society.
Posted in History, Philosophical
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Hitler’s Mountain Home
There is no doubt that politicians are celebrities. And just as we want to know how Brad Pitt lives or how Tiger Wood’s House looks, we don’t mind looking into the private lives of politicians like George W. or Al Gore.
Now fast backwards some seventy years – do you think that it was different at that time?
I don’t think so. We can easily imagine that there were articles published showing how FDR lived his private life or what Winston Churchill did to wind down after a hard day at the helm of his country.
Wait, in that era there is another figure which is rather famous – - this leader of the the country in the center of Europe – what’s his name – oh yes, Adolf Hitler. Were people interested in him? No, that could not possibly be – he was the epiphany of evil!
Or could it be that at that time he was not considered the manifestation of pure evil. After all, FDR designed the American social security system after what he found in Germany. And even today Sarah Brady works on gun control that Hitler had already then modeled for her.
Maybe he was a celebrity as well and this could be the explanation that indeed in a British magazine ‘Home and Garden’ we find an articles from the 1930′s that immensely reminds me of today’s magazine articles visiting stars and starlets homes to have voyeurs take a look.
Without further ado, here a glance into the life of a relaxed Führer.
Posted in History, Politics
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