Barry’s Rants

If you are going to have no scruples…then half a scruple is your enemy…

Why is it that when the Muslims offend the Jews or the Christians or whoever that we don’t go blowing up mosques? Sure “we” might get in to a war over supposed “weapons of mass destruction” or “genocide issues” or even oil but, I would hardly call the Gulf War a holy war or religious war on the side of the United States. There are many blasphemous depictions of Jesus and other religious figures and the various church organizations choose to boycot or protest but, typically in a non violent way. Why do the Muslims decide it is religiously okay to blow up things and other people who have nothing to do with the original issue? Again, if they are offended why not let Allah punish the guilty parties? Ultimately is he not the final Judge? Especially since , while being offensive in nature the “sin” causes no person any real harm? I am finding it hard to be sympathetic to their other concerns when this type of thing happens. There seems to be no end to the various factions that appear out of nowhere to be offended by some thing or other. Sticks and stones…just let it go man, life is too short and much too hard as it is.

I am not sure how to take this but, it angers me that sometimes Christians can be so foolish. I am currently cast in a play for my church’s drama group. We are periodically called upon to do some things outside of Sunday morning sermon support, usually for a good cause - like Hurricane Katrina relief or something that helps to support other church mission programs. I am not sure of the recipient of this effort’s proceeds as it is still in the early stages of coming together so I won’t venture a guess and it is not relevant to my point anyway.

My area of concern is: have we become either so weak minded or hardline in our beliefs that we cannot tolerate certain “human” or “natural” concepts in the course of our walk of faith with God? Case in point- referencing an “object d’art” which is a piece of driftwood; in the context of the skit, the reference is to a possible work by Picasso where my character is thinking of a name for it to be able to “sell” it. I am one of many people who interact with the owner of the “object” who is sitting in a city park during a typical day’s lunch hour. Each character has a different perspective on what it is and what it can be used for. My character does not see it as Art itself but as something worthless that can be passed off as art if it has the right “spin” on it. As part of putting the correct marketing “spin” I project a few suggestions of titles for the piece; one being conceptual in nature, like “coexistence” and the other trying to conjure a reference to something Picasso would name one of his works, “reclining nude”.

This brings me to my point. The powers that be in my church have deemed it necessary to not use the, as written in the script, title “reclining nude” as it may offend a certain segment of our audience who would be scandalized by using the word “nude” in a church setting. Even though this is purely for entertainment and not during a church service. This would also include any derivative of nude as in naked, in the buff, etc. or other more humorous synonyms that one could conjure.

This would be funny in and of itself if it weren’t so pathetic. The more I think about this the more angry I become. Do you really think that with all of the sin that mankind is capable of, that he sent his son to die for, that this would offend God? I like to think of my God as being bigger than that and having more of a sense of who we are as human beings and understanding the usage and reference and the underlying tone or meaning of the work or simply.. as more adult than that. We are not in elementary school where when someone says the word fart or reads the word ass in the bible (referencing a donkey) that that is too titilating for us and must be excused with an appology or an explanation.

Pulleeeeeaaaase people, grow the f**k up! Get real! If you have a problem with the concept of nudity or nakedness then how do you really pray to God and ask for his forgiveness? I think God would appreciate our dealing with him honestly and not in false censored piousness as if we have to protect him from the evil that we have in us. I believe that might be the reason why he had his son come to earth in the form of a man in the first place. Not that I am advocating disrespect in how we approach our Lord but surely in honesty. Any sin, comes from the heart or within us and is manifest through the mouth or our actions. look within, if this offends you.

I find myself offended at this type of pettiness of faith. How can you exist in this world if that is all it takes to offend you!? Let the concept of “nakedness” be truely offensive in the concept of pornography and abuse or injustice and not in the sense of Art. If we cannot distinguish between these things then I suggest some further research and some councelling would be in order and you can go live in your protected little world and stay away from me. Praise God that he is big enough to deal with all types of people, myself, chief among them.

Figure out why I like automobiles from the thirties. I think it hs to do with the fact that it was an innovative era for automobiles. There were lots of ideas floating around and lots of new innovations as to how to make cars better, safer, faster, cheaper, more convenient. The new ideas were developed and produced and tried out. Some ideas were successful and others fell by the wayside due to either being a bad idea or just poorly executed. Others would take the ideas and refine them and make them better. A marvelous era of change and excitement. Technology on the rise but in a simpler format that everyman could understand and fix or work on. You didn’t need to be a PHD physicist to understand how to fix your car. Some of these early automotive pioneers bucked the system and ended up quite successful while others were swallowed up. It is both exhillarating and heartbreaking to follow the history of some of the car companys that used to exist.

In the case of the Franklin car company they were forced into bankruptcy by their lenders who tried to dictate the type of automobiles that were produced and the public wasn’t buying due to the depression. If the bankers had only listened to Herbert Franklin his company might have survived. He wanted to produce a smaller car which was cheaper for the average man and not the bigger luxurious cars they had produced during the prosperous twenties. He was forced to capitulate and the bankers decision led to the public not buying the cars and ultimately bankruptcy. The cars Herbert did produce were unique in that they were all air cooled which meant they worked well in cold weather- also this was an era where most every car was open and there really werent much in the way of car heaters available from any manufacturer. Also he used aluminum in the car bodies; also to save weight. Franklins were known to be strong and powerful cars that held up to abuse and they were known for their smooth ride (comparitively to other cars of the day) over bumpy roads due to the way the suspension was made. Many of the earlier models had wood frames which also helped to absorb some of the jarring road shocks. Later, for additional strength and to handle the higher horsepower engines a steel frame was adopted. The Franklin factory was located in Syracuse, New York and stopped producing cars in 1934. The one I got the ride in was one of the last that would have been produced being a 1933 model. I find myself being sad over the demise of what seems to be a fine company.

Eventually the company was sold and continued to make engines and one buyer was Preston Tucker who used a modified Franklin engine for his short lived Tucker automobiles. The company was then sold again and was now making helicopter engines. The company’s machines and tooling were finally sold to a Polish company where they were moved overseas and made helicopter engines until the 60s. I find this to be an interesting tale of innovation and determination and sadly deteriation of a lifes work and the longevity of names and things we find familiar today and yet a wave of nostalgia at the thought of their passing.

A kindly gentleman, David Phillips, whom I have never met before today, has given me the best Christmas gift I could have hoped for simply by sharing his passion for old automobiles with me. The scenario unfolded as follows: I went to the Farmers Co-op in Glen Burnie, where I grew up; looking for peanuts not roasted or salted but still in the shell, basically, squirrel food. This trip was necessitated by not being able to find such, I thought, a simple thing at the request of my Dad, for his Christmas gift. Dad likes to feed the little furry tree rats since they tend to disrupt the birds he likes to feed he figures why not get a little entertainment out of the deal. They seem to be willing to oblige and do tend to be pretty funny. Hence the reason for the trip, for the aforementioned peanuts, that I could not find anywhere locally to College Park, Beltsville, Laurel, Burtonsville and other regions local to my place of residence. Anyway, I pull into the parking lot at the Co-op and in drives an old 1930s style car right behind me.

Immediately, I am fascinated as I love the 30s automobile styling. This one looked like an old Ford or Chevy yet none of the familiar marks were on it. The license identified it as a 1933 model year so I asked the gentleman what it was. He responded that it was a Franklin. I knew the name but have never laid eyes on one. Until today I could not have told you what in the world they looked like. I knew from my own research that there were many car companies other than the big three back in that time but, many did not survive the depression or WW II. All of those companies would have been American, no foreign cars in the picture at all. Amazing in and of itself, as we are typically used to Ford, GM, and Chrysler and of late, all of the Asian makers. We went into the store and about our business and when I came out he was talking to another gentleman about the car so I walked over hoping to learn more about the car and also hoping he would give a more detailed showing of the cars features.

I was in luck. As the other gentleman asked questions I got to see more of the cars subtle features and also get a history lesson. I asked if he would mind showing us the engine. Dave gladly lifted the hood which is the old side piano hinge style, and propped it up. Inside the engine compartment was a rather large in line 6 cylinder engine. I am used to seeing Ford flathead v8s and Chevy 6 cylinders of this era but this one was much larger. Also this one, unlike the others mentioned, was air cooled (yes like the old VW bugs of the 60s were). There was an ingenious system of operable vanes behind the large tombstone like grill. Air-cooled means no liquid, thus, no radiator just the large chrome grill. These vanes were temperature operated and would remain closed until the car engine warmed up to a certain temperature and then they would open to allow the cool air to flow over the engine. As you can imagine the car is right at home this time of year being a large heat producing engine and having the cooler winter air. Another feature the engine had was it was on overhead valve arrangement.

The normal style of Fords engines were known as Flat Heads and unlike today’s cars had the valves and pistons etc. within the engine block. Today we are used to “heads” which contain all of the valves and which can be unbolted to be serviced or replaced. In those days the entire engine would have to be opened up to repair the valves, which is a workable design, but not the most efficient to adjust or even work on. Chevy’s in line 6 cylinder would have made the overhead valve design but executed slightly differently but also had a different oiling system which limited their car’s ability to go fast for extended periods of time. The Franklin’s engine had yet another interesting feature; it had a supercharger. This device is a mechanically driven (by a belt typically) pump to literally force more air and fuel in to the cylinder heads to make more power. Keep in mind that the early engines had great displacement numbers but not that much for output horsepower as we are used to today. This car would have been a hotrod or muscle car of its day; a small car body with a large engine. At this point I decided to push my luck, so I asked if he would accept the last $5 I had as gas money if he would take me for a ride around the block. To my amazement he accepted.

So I was very excited! I am used to car shows where you look but don’t touch and a ride would be out of the question. You’ll get dirt in my car, you’ll scuff the running boards, I just polished it and don’t want to take it out and get it dirty…etc. I managed to get one guy to let me sit in his car once, but a ride- forget it. This car is a rare piece of history and accordingly is the standard to which other Franklin owners hope to restore their cars to in the club which David belongs to. The fact that he is out driving the car much less giving me a ride is unparalleled.

Once inside, you immediately notice how cramped these older cars are, at least in the front. Not uncomfortable, yet not the spaciousness we are accustomed to today either. The dashboard is flat and metal with no padding but is convincingly painted to look like a deep mahogany wood; simple, yet effective. It had a very basic gauge cluster in a small rectangular chrome plate centered neatly in the dash. It was labeled Stewart Warner. Anyone into cars will recognize this name as being a maker of aftermarket gauges for racing and other applications still available today. The gauges consisted of an odometer reading an amazing 27,000 miles young, an ammeter, an oil pressure gauge, a fuel gauge, looking like an old thermometer with the red iodine rising to tell the fuel level and a simple horizontally rotating numbered wheel of a speedometer. Also, this car used a key switch in the dash to start. This is also a forward thinking idea for the time as most cars you had to crank from the outside or had a starter button on the floorboards. It did not start with a starter motor as we have today but, an electrical system which after a second or two the engine started by itself after turning the key to the on or run position. It purred nicely, with a sound slightly different than today’s cars. We are used to the lope of a V8 or the buzz of a four cylinder but this one had a different cadence – one that bespoke of its vintage, recognizable, yet not, but strong and healthy just the same. It was odd getting underway without first fastening a seatbelt, this car being born before those things were invented, at least for use in automobiles.

Some of the manual controls were of the type long since automated such as a manual spark advance knob which controls the engine timing which would be adjusted depending on what type of work you expected the car to perform – such as going up a hill or traveling at a highway speed. Keep in mind that highway speeds in those days was something like 40-50 mph. There was also the manual choke knob. These days the only things with manual chokes anymore are lawn tractors and motorcycles. Everything else is automatically adjusted now. Some of you may remember having to step on the gas pedal once before starting to “set the choke” when starting the carbureted cars on cold days. This is an even more simple way of doing that. The Franklin also had an emergency brake but probably more like a parking brake to hold the car when just sitting than an emergency brake. It does have a hydraulic brake system with four drum style brakes in the hubs of each wheel. That means that the area where we typically look for the wheel lug nuts has the lug nuts but is also the center of a spoked rim similar to a bicycle and the drum of the brake system as well. We are used to removing the wheel to expose the brake system components which are a separate system from the wheel itself whereas this system means that as the brakes age the drums may have to be “turned” on a lathe to make the surface clean and true for better performance- the same as we do today but, this time it would be the whole wheel having to be turned not just the brake drum itself.

The ride of the car was as good as anything we have today and was probably a bit softer than my own car as the Franklin had a longer wheel base. The suspension system was smooth and capable of handling the many bumps and potholes and the seats were well padded yet comfortable. The suspension differs from the typical Ford or Chevy in that it has a leaf spring on each wheel rather than the single leaf spring across the front as the Fords and Chevy’s used. The rest of the car was pretty much in keeping with the technology of the time. The amazing thing was how well you could feel the engine pull in the seat of your pants. You could tell that it was made for power. It was slightly reminiscent of some old tractors in that you could really feel the torque of the motor. It accelerated smoothly and had not trouble keeping up with traffic around the town as we went around the block. The area we were in has a rather large block as it is not neatly gridded like a typical city block so this was more than just a few seconds of a ride. I was ecstatic as a chance like this does not happen every day.

I was instantly transported back to a time of fedora hats and suits and long car coats when people might have been more courteous and things were just plain simpler. I could totally appreciate the car as a sort of time machine linking us to our evolved past. But also as a working history lesson from not only the aspect of seeing the car in person but from the pieces of history verbally forwarded to me by the owner Dave whose passion led him to learn and even own a piece of the past.

One other interesting tidbits I picked up from Dave was the response to the question of how does the car run on the unleaded gasoline of today? He told me the car likes it fine because back before the mid 30s all gas was all unleaded white gas so the car liked our “newer” unleaded fuel just fine. Lead was not added to gasoline as a valve lubricant until the mid 30s and many of the older car owners were issued bulletins from the manufacturers not to run the “new” leaded gasoline in their older cars as it would damage them. We are used to hearing about how the “older” muscle cars of the 50s and 60s would not like our “newer” unleaded gasoline that the manufacturers were going to produce to help us clean up our air. Imagine that! I had no idea. As I said before many thanks to the generous gift of Dave for his ride in his pristine Franklin and also for the history lesson as well. A truly wonderful Christmas gift!

Yes, one of the things I appreciate about Flip is, him being of different ethnicity than I, we can discuss things which sometimes, on the greater scale, divide humanity. I learn his perspective and he learns mine. This is invaluable to me in that otherwise I might get stuck in my little “white” world and start to lean towards intolerance. I believe, unless stretched by outside forces, we all tend to stay in our little perceived cocoons of safety and like minded induividuals. Periodically he hands me my ass in a verbal sparring match and I actually shut up long enough to learn something.

This being said he brought up a topic of the Australian people’s reaction to an Al Queda member’s response to an Aussie troop action fighting with the coalition forces in Iraq. The Al Queda member said about how they were pissed off and the Aussies have now brought about a Jihad on themselves by taking the aforementioned actions. The Aussies reaction at home was to then take out their frustration by persecuting people of Lebonese descent (not Arabic and certainly not Al Queda - they just looked Arabic) and generally harrassing them and perhaps even causing physical harm. This was done to teach the Al Queda a lesson.

We here in America have a similar reaction many times. Thankfully there have been few reports (that I am aware of) of this type of thing happening here. This does not say it hasn’t happened nor do I say that it is justified in cases where it has, unless the parties are actually associated with terrorist activities. In that case they get what they deserved. “America f**k yeah!”

In this case we got to thinking about the popular mind set of “sending various ethicities, races, and peoples of differing beliefs back home” to their respective global points of origins - believed or actual. And how, mainly, these groups tend to be “extremist” in nature; specifically the neo-nazies and the KKK and others of that ilk. We then thought wait a sec here…there tend to be many less of the extremists and much more of the maligned parties in the actual number of persons and generally it is the extremists who make more noise about things than the maligned parties do soooo…why not send the extremists back to whereever they seem to favor as their paradise of choice and let us as a nation keep the, usually more peacefull in nature, maligned parties. Wouldn’t this actually do our country more good in the long run!? Specifically, let us send all of the neo-nazis over to Germany where they can be near all of their shrines and the homeland of nazi-ism. My sincere apologies for foisting this crew off onto Germany. This I think would be cheaper and make all parties ultimately happier- except for the rest of the German population, but I think there must be a few over there as well…let us round them all up and keep them in an “Escape from New York” style all in one place. We’ll call it the a**hole of the world…

Just the other day myself and several friends were in the car on the way to see a movie and one friend happened to remark about the different driving style in NJ. They remarked how on a two lane road that you did not linger in the left lane and how nobody drove over there for very long. And how they were accustomed to being able to drive in any of the lanes whether or not there were two three or four; “if there are two lanes I am going to use them”. I believe that inadvertantly they had hit upon much of our “drive gently” state’s problem. Too many people are of the impression that the left lanes are valid lanes for just driving… anytime. I have heard many people in this state call them fast lanes. I have made this error myself and have caught myself. While I have referred to them as such in the past I treat them as what they really are…PASSING LANES!. This is one reason why we have such traffic congestion!

The situation which brought about the comment in the first place was one where we were in a hurry to see the above mentioned movie and were stuck behind someone in the right lane. Now this brings up two things: first the guy I was behind was in the correct place to do what he was doing, which is driving slower than the rest of the traffic. Second, the reason we were stuck behind him is someone was demonstrating the very thought that my passenger had vocalized earlier, which is, not passing the guy we were behind and thus effectively blocking both lanes.

I have no problem with the guy I was behind as he was in the right lane and ,normally, we could have passed him and alieviated both our pain. However, my issue is with the person in the left lane lingering right next to the first guy. This I believe is the customary thinking of most MD drivers, and even the surrounding DC, VA metro area, in that they are in the fast lanes and are going fast enough suit them. Well there are two things wrong with that …and you all know what they are…but I will state them anyway. Fast is a relative term. Fast enough for you may not be fast enough for me. I may be willing to break the law to a higher degree than you are comfortable with. Second, They are actually passing lanes. IF you aren’t passing someone then get the hell out of the way. You ARE the cause of the congestion by not thinking enough of others to move out of the way or remembering back to drivers training where they DO refer to them as passing lanes. Either way just PASS the dang vehicle and get out of the way!

Yes I know by wanting to speed at a higher rate than you I am a scofflaw. Let me remind you that unless you are doing 55 or 65 (in certain parts of I95) that you are as well. I believe much of the impatience we experience around this area is due to frustration caused by this phenomena.

Let me state an unwritten rule here in this area: When you merge (and you have to be moving to merge in the first place - not be stopped) the first lane in usually the 55-60mph lane where you should start out on or even stay in. The next lane over is usally 65mph or more. The third lane is usually 70mph and the fourth lane is usually 70 plus. This is a striation I have noticed in driving around these parts for many years. Is this correct? No. Is this legal? No. Do they teach you that in Drivers Ed? No. It is however, necessary for “street smarts” survival in this area. Do people adhere to even these unwritten rules. No, hence, even further compounding of the traffic situation.

Once again let us call them PASSING lanes. Let us actually pass something (on the left) or move over and clear the lane for someone else to do so if they desire. Let us let go of the me first mentality of driving and remember the other guy! Let us remember our basic drivers training. Let us do our own part in making the traffic situation here better for all. Stay the hell out of my way! He he, just kidding, remember the other people you share the road with.