Eastern, other directions in US and Canada

is Alaska east or west?

Eastern US map
Since there are no US states, Canadian provinces, or territories start with the letter E, I thought I’d get a little directional: east, west, north, and south.

Time zones: both countries have Eastern time zones, as well as Central, Mountain, and Pacific. But the Eastern time zone is NOT the easternmost. That distinction goes to Newfoundland time in Canada. In the US, there are zones for Alaska and Hawaii-Aleutian, the latter the islands of Alaska.

Extreme points:

Northernmost point: Point Barrow, Alaska 71°23′ N, 156°29′ W
Easternmost point: West Quoddy Head, Maine 44°49′ N, 66°57′ W
Southernmost point: Ka Lae (South Cape), Hawaii 18°55′ N, 155°41′ W
Westernmost point: Cape Wrangell, Alaska (Attu Island) 52°55′ N, 172°27′ E

But there’s a big caveat here: These are measured from the geographic center of United States (including Alaska and Hawaii), west of Castle Rock, S.D., 44°58′ N, 103°46′ W. If measured from the prime meridian in Greenwich, England, Cape Wrangell, Attu Island, Alaska, would be the easternmost point, because Attu is on the other side of the International Date Line.

If you just count the contiguous 48 states:

Northernmost point: Northwest Angle Inlet in Lake of the Woods, Minnesota 49°23′04.1″N, 95°9′12.2″W – because of incomplete information at the time of the Treaty of Paris (1783) settling the American Revolutionary War.
Easternmost point: still West Quoddy Head, Maine 44°48′55.4″N, 66°56′59.2″W
Southernmost point: Western Dry Rocks, Florida 24°26.8′N 81°55.6′W, In the Florida Keys – occasionally above water at low tide; Ballast Key, Florida 24°31′15″N 81°57′49″W – continuously above water
Westernmost point: Cape Alava, Washington 48°9′51″N, 124°43′59″W

For Canada:

Northernmost point — Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut 83°6′41″N, 69°57′30″W
Southernmost point — South point of Middle Island, Ontario, in Lake Erie 41°40′53″N, 82°40′56″W
Easternmost point — Cape Spear, Newfoundland 47°31′25″N, 52°37′10″W
Westernmost point — Boundary Peak 187,[1] Yukon 60°18′23″N, 141°0′7″W

The Eastern United States can be defined as east of the Mississippi River. It is further delineated by the designations of the map, which are hardly standardized.

Eastern Canada is generally considered to be the region east of Manitoba, consisting of the following provinces: Newfoundland and Labrador New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec. Ontario and Quebec define Central Canada, while the other provinces constitute Atlantic Canada.

For ABC Wednesday

Deconstructing Abbey Road, Side 1

Deconstructing Abbey RoadScott Freiman has presented several lectures about various Beatles periods. I’ve gone to see his talks on the early Beatles, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and the white album at the Proctors Theatre in Schenectady. These presentation are always augmented with analyses of how the recordings were put together, and I found them worthwhile.

I had heard he was also doing presentations on DVDs and in movie presentations of his lectures. The Spectrum 8 Theatre in Albany had one showing of Deconstructing Abbey Road, Side 1. I wasn’t sure seeing something hitting on a half dozen songs was worthwhile, especially since half of them are not among my favorites.

But my wife was paying, so why pass on it? Abbey Road, as most Beatles fans know, was the last time that the Beatles recorded together at EMI Studios, soon thereafter renamed Abbey Road Studios. George Martin only agreed to produce the album because the group agreed to allow him to do his job.

Frieman laid out the historical framework of the Abbey Road, right after Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman, and John Lennon married Yoko Ono in March 1969. Many of the teenage girls were heartbroken when the “cute” Beatle and the photographer got married on the 12th.

The song The Ballad of John and Yoko documented the other honeymoon, after getting “married in Gibraltar, near Spain” on the 20th. The “bagism” event was covered by the press in the Amsterdam Hilton. Famously, only John and Paul were available for the recording, which was rushed out as a single though Get Back was still on the charts.

The B-side, Old Brown Shoe, was a George Harrison tune already recorded and showed the songwriting growth of the youngest Beatle.

As for Abbey Road proper, George Martin and the band now had access to eight tracks rather than four thanks to some new equipment. Some have said the album was overproduced. If it is – and I wouldn’t necessarily agree – it was the part of the learning curve.

Come Together, a Lennon track, ended up in a legal entanglement with Chuck Berry’s lawyers over the song You Can’t Catch Me. The pilfering is even more obvious when Freiman puts both songs up.

Speaking of stealing, James Taylor seems far less bothered by George Harrison’s purloining the first line of his song Something In the Way She Moves than I was. Still, Something is a great song. As Frank Sinatra noted, one of the best ones written by Lennon-McCartney (!).

Longtime roadie Mal Evans played the anvil sound in the chorus of Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. It’s not my favorite track, and Lennon and Harrison also tired of McCartney’s perfectionism.

Oh! Darling was a second Macca song in a row. He wanted it to sound as though he’d “been performing it on stage all week.” I think that perhaps Lennon should have sung it, as he had remarked.

Octopus’s Garden was written and sung by Ringo Starr, though Harrison helped out on the former. “It was inspired by a trip to Sardinia aboard Peter Sellers’ yacht after Starr left the band for two weeks with his family during the sessions for the White Album.” It was too much like Yellow Submarine for my taste.

I Want You (She’s So Heavy) was written by Lennon about his relationship with Ono. The finished song is a combination of two different recording attempts. “The first attempt occurred almost immediately after the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, in February 1969, with Billy Preston. This was subsequently combined with a second version made during the Abbey Road sessions proper in April. The two sections together ran to nearly 8 minutes, making it the Beatles’ second-longest released track.

“Lennon used Harrison’s Moog synthesizer with a white noise setting to create a ‘wind’ effect that was overdubbed on the second half of the track. During the final edit, Lennon told [Geoff] Emerick to ‘cut it right there’ at 7 minutes and 44 seconds, creating a sudden, jarring silence that concludes the first side of Abbey Road… The final mixing and editing for the track occurred on 20 August 1969, the last day all four Beatles were together in the studio.”

What’s astonishing is that the songs I like – the Lennon and Harrison ones, as it turns out, sound better when Freiman shares the component parts, especially the Preston organ on the early iteration of I Want You. The songs I like less, from McCartney and Starr, nevertheless sound better after his dissection.

As for Abbey Road Part 2, Freiman will live be at Proctors on Saturday, September 28, 2019 at 7:30 p.m., with Part 1 at 3:30 on the same day. Freiman on film will be at the Spectrum (and SEVERAL other places) on Tuesday, August 27 at 7 pm. Given the choice, I think I’ll opt for the in-person experience.

Tune My Heart: Psalm 100

at Purdue University

Psalm 100I’ve wanted to write about the Triennium experience. Scratch that; I need to write about it. The coordinator for Albany Presbytery asked if I’d recovered, as it took her a day or two. I recover when I offload it from my head.

Each day at Triennium had a theme. Day 1 was TUNE MY HEART and the Scripture was PSALM 100, “come before the LORD with joyful songs.” You know, someone could read that at my funeral.

I suppose I should back up. We had a bus of twelve 14- to 18-year-olds. One of them is related to me. There were others scheduled to attend, but the father of a couple of them had died in the previous month, which made one of their friends decide to forgo the trip as well.

One of the two male chaperones was a pastor in a rural church. I got to really get to like Jerry over the week. The two women were from my church, so I knew them. Also, 23-year-old twin brothers who would work behind the scenes at the conference traveled with us.

After a brief commissioning service at a local Albany church, we started off at about 8 p.m. on Monday, July 15, my wife’s birthday. The present from my daughter and me was our absence.

Early on, we watched the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, most of which I actually understood. We switched drivers somewhere between Rochester and Buffalo.

I cannot sleep on a bus. Maybe I could as a child, but certainly not now. I may have nodded off somewhere around Toledo, OH, though not for long. So I was quite tired when we got into West Lafayette around 8:30 a.m., much earlier than we had anticipated, even with a couple of pit stops.

We ate at some nice dinner with ANOTHER group of about 20. It didn’t take as long to be served as we were told. That, BTW, is a key to good customer service: under-promise and over-deliver.

We disembark at Hawkins Hall at Purdue University. We each had one bag we carried onto the bus and one underneath the vehicle. After an orientation meeting, we got our room assignments and two keys. One is actually a swiper card you need to get to a floor other than the main lobby, and the other is a traditional key.

I go to my room on the 8th floor and I find one of the male teens from Albany. If I hadn’t had all that training, I might have said, “Ah, that’s weird. Whatever.” Instead, I left my stuff there, and went down to the lobby and told the folks, who recognized it as an issue.

They gave me a key to a 3rd-floor room. I went to the 8th floor, got my stuff, then went to the 3rd floor. All I saw were young women. In some dorms I’ve been in, they have males on one winge and females on the other. This was NOT the case here.

Back to the lobby. My luggage and I got a ride in a golf cart to some other dorm to talk with someone who’s supposed to fix these things. But my guide was told it should be worked out within the building.

Back to Hawkins, where I was given a key to a single room on the 6th floor. When I opened the door, someone else’s luggage was there. Back downstairs; the coordinator already knew the problem. She led me to the 7th floor, single room, unoccupied, on a floor with only males. Settled at last.

I had time to nap, but by then, I was too wound up to do so. The group walked to Earhart Hall to eat supper, then to the worship service, which was a good introduction to the week.

Songs that have many meanings to you

memories of Scudder Hall

sister sledge.we are familyFor the prompt “A song that has many meanings to you,” I tried to stay within the sprit.

Hang On to Your Life – Guess Who (#43 in 1971) – A rock song,. the album version of which ends with Psalm 22. Yes, I’ve added it to a Biblical mixed tape.
Harvest Moon – Neil Young (1992). For a previous relationship, I considered this “our song,” complete with dancing. Still makes me slightly misty-eyed.
When Love Comes to Town – U2/B.B. King (#68 in 1989)- the BB elements make it one of my favorite U2 songs.
Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor (#1 for four weeks in 1990) – Prince wrote this and his version is very good. But this take moves me greatly.

Losing My Religion – R.E.M. (#4 in 1991) – As a Christian, I relate to this a LOT, actually.
Celtic Rock – Donovan (1970). This reminds me of gatherings of my friends in the Mid-Hudson of New York State, and specifically of Scudder Hall, my dorm as a freshman in college at New Paltz.
Let My Love Open The Door – Pete Townshend (#9 in 1980). Townshend used to complain that people thought this was a romantic love song when it was supposed to be about a higher power.

King Harvest – The Band (1969) – The last song from one of my favorite albums from high school days. A friend of mine edited the high school yearbook and on the page for the band was a picture of The Band.
Levon – Elton John (#24 in 1972). I’m not sure WHAT this song is about, and I’m OK with that. It’s either named for Levon Helm of The Band or not.

We Are Family – Sister Sledge (#2 for two weeks pop, #1 RB in 1979). Strong affiliation with the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, the team with Dave Parker and Willie “Pops” Stargell. I rooted for them against the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, and the Pirates came back from a 3-1 deficit to win.
Elvis Is Dead – Living Colour (1990). Some folks said that a black band shouldn’t be doing rock. Living Colour ignored that talk.

Democrats debate: so MANY of them

Clorox the White House

2020 Democratic presidential candidates
Democrats debate. I don’t watch, either in June or July. This is a terrible admission for a political science major to make. As I said six months ago, I’m not ready to commit to a candidate until the list of candidates has been winnowed down.

Some of my friends are grousing, “We’ve got to cut this roster NOW!” I’m thinking, “All in good time, grasshopper.” The Republicans had their 17 candidates – and THAT’S the best they could come up with?

You will remember that LOTS of folks believed, not without cause, that the 2016 democratic party process favored one candidate (Hillary) over another (Bernie), and some of the latter either stayed home or incredibly, voted for the other guy. This tedious process is the result.

Of course, I read ABOUT the debates I’m not thrilled with the format of these things. When NBC wanted a “show of hands” about complex issues, I cringed. CNN sought conflict, even when there was none.

The candidates

I was GOING to write about each of the candidates, but – and this is true -I see a few of them on the screen and say aloud, “Which one is he, again?” And I was going to redo this online poll, which I did in February, but it reflected only about half the candidates. Still, the percentages listed reflect how much I purportedly agreed with each.

Elizabeth Warren (93%) always seems prepared. Her answer about the aspirational nature of running for President resonated. The bluster of Bernie Sanders (92%) has been fodder for the late-night comedians, but I don’t doubt his sincerity.

Kirsten Gillibrand (92%) is my US Senator. I voted for her more than once for that job. But she will not win and is only still in this race because she got money early. But she can come by and, in her words, “Clorox the White House.”

I’m glad Julian Castro (92%) is faring OK. I liked his answer about the economy: “There are a lot of Americans that are hurting. Just go and ask the folks that received notice they’re getting laid off by General Motors, or ask the folks sleeping on the street in big cities and small towns across the United States.” I’d like him for the Cabinet.

I expected the prosecutorial background of Kamala Harris (92%) to come back to bite her, and, apparently, it did. With Beto O’Rourke (91%), I’m STILL not convinced there is substance there. I gather Pete Buttigieg (91%) overhyped his youth, and the last debate-style did not play to his strength. Tulsi Gabbard (90%) scored points at Harris’ expense.

Amy Klobuchar (90%), er… she also wore a red jacket, like Warren? Andrew Yang (89%) may have ideas other than his one-note giveaway. Cory Booker (87%) was trying to be so nice the first time, he almost disappeared; I gather he fared better in round two.

Joe Biden (83%): beyond being the guy with a target on his back, he’s got to figure out how to say, essentially, “We did the best we could, based on what we knew then.” LOTS of people supported the crime bill that led to mass incarceration. Some seemed peeved at his mentions of personal loss and his Obama connection.

Marianne Williamson (83%) had been so portrayed as a dangerous flake, I was shocked about her cogent comments on race. She was correct that the Flint, MI water crisis would not have taken place in well-to-do Grosse Pointe, where she had lived.

“If you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid that the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.” In other words, those MAGA hats won’t go away on January 20, 2021, even if the donkeys win.

John Delaney (69%) -meh. Jay Inslee has made his environmental pitch; someone should pick him to run the EPA. Bill DeBlasio and Tom Steyer: I’m annoyed they’re running.
And there are others.

My friends ARE correct that whatever these candidates say about each other, or Obama, the incumbent (15%) will use against the eventual winner. The process will be sorted out soon, with only seven to ten candidates likely to be on stage in Houston in September.

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