Letter from Birmingham Jail

If you’ve never had the opportunity to read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail I encourage you to do so. It’s one of the most remarkable documents in American history.

Dr. King’s note provides some background.

Note from the author: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author’s prerogative of polishing it for publication.

The letter is lengthy; nine pages. It is an Adobe PDF file.

Screen resolution

NewMexiKen’s laptop has a 15-inch monitor, meaning of course — as all you followers of Pythagoras know — that it is actually 12 inches wide and 9 inches high. The screen has four resolutions: 800 X 600, 1024 X 768, 1280 X 1024 and 1600 X 1200 (the numbers represent pixels). On my 15-inch laptop, the lowest resolution, 800 X 600, has 4,444 pixels per square inch. The higest resolution, 1600 X 1200, has 17,778 pixels per square inch. Everything is four times sharper with the higher setting, but one-fourth as large.

Many, perhaps most individuals keep the resolution at the lowest setting. That’s all there was a few years ago and that’s what they’re used to. When I acquired a 17-inch monitor I increased the resolution to 1024 X 768. I was pleased with the increased clarity. On the bigger screen everything was still large enough to read easily. My laptop has a flat display described as a “TFT active matrix.” I don’t know what the means, but it has outstanding resolution. Even though the screen is 28% smaller than the 17-inch monitor I was used to, I was able to set the resolution to 1280 X 1024 and make up in clarity what I lost in size. Each of these changes did take some getting used to.

All of which is to encourage you to experiment with the resolution of your display. With Windows that is usually done by right clicking any empty space on the Desktop (the main window). You should get a dialog box with a few tabs (Screen Saver among them). The right most one should be “Settings.” Open Settings. There should be a slider to let you adjust the screen resolution.

Catty caddies

From the “Morning Briefing” in the Los Angeles Times:

Golfer: “Do you think we can find that one?” Caddie: “Sir, you could wrap that ball with bacon and Lassie couldn’t find it.”

Golfer: “Do you mind not checking your watch so often—you’re really making me nervous.” Caddie: “This isn’t a watch, it’s a compass.”

Radio station ratings

Ever been curious how the radio station you listen to does in the ratings? Radio & Records posts the ratings for every market on a continuing basis. The charts include the call letters (but not the frequency), the format, the owner and the rating for the past several quarters. Of course, NPR and other non-commercial stations aren’t included.

The rating shown by Radio & Records is — I think — the average number of people that listened to a radio station for at least five minutes during one quarter hour at some point during the day. This is expressed as a percentage of the total possible audience for that market.

For example, KNX-AM in Los Angeles received a 2.1 rating for Spring 2003. That means that — on the average — each day KNX-AM had 218,554 listeners — 2.1% of the 10,407,400 individuals age 12 and older in Los Angeles. Of course, it could have been a different 218,554 each day, or 360,000 one day and 77,108 another day, or 200,000 in the morning and 18,554 the rest of the day, or 200,000 men and 18,554 women. Radio stations pay dearly for all that data and you won’t find it on the Internet.

Wal-Mart…

  • is the world’s largest private employer
  • is the nation’s largest grocer
  • is Disney’s biggest customer
  • is also Procter & Gamble’s and Kraft’s and Revlon’s and Gillette’s and Campbell Soup’s and RJR’s biggest customer
  • is the nation’s biggest film developer and optician
  • is the nation’s biggest private truck-fleet operator, energy consumer and real estate developer
  • is the biggest seller of guns, diamonds, CDs, DVDs, apparel, dog food, detergent, jewelry, sporting goods, videogames, socks, bedding and toothpaste
  • operates gas stations at 700 locations
  • and sells more toys than Toys ‘R’ Us

One City, One Book

I think I was conscious of the One City, One Book movement, but only in the past few days have I become fully aware it was a nationwide effort; indeed extended to Canada, Australia and the U.K. A locality somehow selects one book and calls upon all of its adults and teenagers to read it during a specified period. The purpose is to bring the community together in a shared experience, leading I suppose to discussions in the check-out line. The program began in Seattle, lead by librarian —and action figure model — Nancy Pearl.

It’s interesting to see the books that various communities have chosen. I list some — arbitrarily — below. The Library of Congress Center for the book has a page with many more. There’s another list here.

  • Arizona — Animal Dreams (2002), Plainsong (2003)
  • Tucson, Austin — Bless Me, Ultima
  • Los Angeles — Fahrenheit 451
  • Chicago , Duluth and many other communities — To Kill a Mockingbird
  • District of Columbia — Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years
  • Orlando — Charlotte’s Web
  • Kentucky — The Bean Trees
  • Maine — Killer Angels
  • Ann Arbor — Abraham Lincoln’s DNA and Other Adventures
  • Eugene — Sometimes a Great Notion
  • Waco, Houston and many others — A Lesson Before Dying
  • Virginia — Sophie’s Choice

Is this a good thing? Certainly Judith Shulevitz in The New York Times is doubtful — You Read Your Book and I’ll Read Mine.

Letter to California Recall Leader

Dear Rep. Issa,

Congratulations on achieving your goal of putting the recall on the ballot! You have once again proved that, with enough determination, willpower, and cold hard cash, anything is possible. Kudos to you sir.

During the early days of the recall effort, you blamed Gray Davis for California’s $38 billion deficit, and compared him to a CEO that needed to be ousted from a failing company. President Bush, meanwhile, has created a $455 billion deficit. Your dedication to a balanced budget, and your willingness to hold those who violate this principle publicly accountable, makes you a natural ally in our drive to help recall George W. Bush from office.

In your August 10 appearance on “Meet the Press,” you stated, “Working with Gray Davis is an inconsistent art because he doesn’t do what he says he will do, at least consistently and reliably.” Like you, we share a scorn for government officials who mislead the public and pursue goals that blatantly oppose their stated agenda, like when President Bush unveiled his “No Child Left Behind” Act, his AIDS initiative in Africa, and the expansion of AmeriCorps — and then promptly denied funding to all three.

Your fabulously produced radio ad, asserts that Gov. Davis has ruined California’s economy, leading to “thousands of jobs lost.” Your devotion to the plight of the unemployed means that you probably already know that almost three million people have lost their jobs since Bush took office.

In conclusion, Rep. Issa, we look forward to your support on this issue. Having a hardened recall veteran with millions to spend on our side would give an invaluable boost to our cause. The parallels between these two situations are uncanny, and surely your high-minded commitment to your ideals will not allow you to turn your back on this pressing political situation.

Sincerely,
The Bush Recall Team

Powerball

Powerball Jackpot estimate for Saturday: $100 million ($51 million cash option). Odds of winning the jackpot are the same as always — one in 120,526,770. Odds of an asteroid wiping out life on earth in this century — one in 5,000.

With my luck I’d win Powerball and the asteroid would hit.