It's Missionaries All The Way Down

     The first place I saw the company logo was the same as a lot of people: on an amplifier.  You saw big ones at concerts and smaller ones at radio stations, and they were just about indestructible: Crown amplifiers.  For many people of my generation and younger, there was an association between Crown amps and rock music.

     (The second place I saw the logo was on a product with closer links to the company's origin, a tape recorder.)

     You can imagine my surprise when, years later, I learned the "crown" in question wasn't meant to refer to any peak of technical perfection or earthly sovereign.  Nope.  It was the crown of Jesus.  And the story of the company was a story about missionaries -- some of them with slide rules and soldering irons.

     Crown didn't set out to make audio amplifiers, though they arrived at them pretty quickly.  They didn't even start out as "Crown."  In the years right after World War Two, audio tape recording was one of the hottest new technologies.  Everyone was finding new uses for high-fidelity recording and playback, easy editing and rapid duplication.  Looking back, it's easy to forget that the only audio recording system good for anything better than scratchy voice was discs, typically big 16" recordings, celluloid over a soft aluminum core, running at 78 rpm for best quality, easily broken, easily bent, flammable* and impossible to edit.  Everyone wanted tape -- and that included preachers.

     Religious institutions had been quick to adopt radio broadcasting when it started out.  How better to reach the populace than with their own programs, or better yet, their own stations?  Tape recording was a natural fit, for many reasons.  Even missionaries were using tape -- and that's how pastor (and radio amateur) Clarence C. Moore of Elkhart, Indiana first got involved.  Early tape recorders were large and fragile; Moore began modifying them to hold up to the rigors of missionary work.

     Clarence Moore was already involved with radio station HCJB in Quito, Ecuador.  Anyone who was a shortwave listener from the 1930s through the early 2000s will recognize the call letters.  At one point, you could pick up the station almost any time of night or day, just about anywhere in the world.  (Airport expansion and, reading between the lines, an increasingly uncooperative local government led the station to scale back high-power shortwave broadcasting, but they're still around, and these days the parent organization works to "plant" local-service stations in underserved locations all around the world.)  The station first went on the air in 1931, and was known for getting high-quality results on a tight budget.

     Back home in Elkhart, Moore's International Radio and Electronics Corporation had gone from modifying tape recorders to building their own -- lighter than the competition, simpler in some ways, but rugged and reliable.  Before too long, the missionaries were asking for PA amplifiers, and IREC built them, too, eventually becoming one of the first companies to combine the two, producing a portable (or at least luggable) recording and playback system capable of serving a crowd.

     By the 1960s, the company's products were selling to a wide group of customers.  The Moores owned radio stations in Elkhart and the company changed their name to Crown.  Maybe it was a subtle message to all the radio and music heathens who were using their equipment; under any name, the quality spoke for itself.  And that's notable.  There are some companies with religious affiliation that lean into religion -- "Buy our stuff 'cos we share your faith," and sometimes the goods don't quite measure up.  That's not how the pastor from Elkhart worked.  Crown was always first-rate.  A Crown amp would deliver power to a horrendous load without undue distortion -- they ran ads showing their more powerful amplifiers with 60 Hz audio plugged in the input running an electric drill from the output.

     Crown got into high-end hi-fi early on, and built a range of products.  They always had a close association with HCJB.  By the late 1970s, they were out of the tape recorder business, but were manufacturing FM tuners, graphic equalizers and other products along with amplifiers.  In 1980, they brought the first Pressure Zone Microphone to market -- it's a remarkable and very different approach to picking up sound, and the engineer behind it once worked for a radio station that I worked for, years later.  But that's another story, and one with too much unverifiable hearsay to tell.

     Moore had also been involved in RF work.  Early on, he'd developed a directional antenna for HCJB and in 1975, when the station needed a high-power shortwave transmitter, Crown offered workspace (and presumably expertise) in Elkhart to HCJB engineers, where they developed a 500,000 Watt, frequency-agile transmitter. Many of those transmitters remain in service around the world, long after the transmission center in Ecuador shut down.  Crown also got in on the early development of solid-state FM transmitters, and built models with outputs ranging from ten to 500 Watts that have sold well for years.

     Clarence Moore died in 1979.  In 2000, Crown's audio line was bought by Harman and it's still around, using a crown-in-circle logo.  Meanwhile, the RF side stayed with (or was repurchased by, information varies) Moore's descendants, and as a division of International Radio and Electronics, Crown Broadcast still builds FM transmitters (and rebroadcast receivers), with a crown-in-rounded-square logo.  The same family remains at the helm and the same faith guides them -- and, heathen that I am, I will note the quality of their products remains high.  SonSet Solutions continues the work of the engineering team that built and installed the big shortwave transmitters for HCJB, too, supporting religious broadcasters and the shortwave equipment as well as local-scaled stations.  That's quite a record of accomplishment for Clarence C. Moore!

     (Apocryphally, people who worked at the Moore's stations in Elkhart decades ago report they were typical medium-to-small-market owners, careful with their money, not paying DJs more than necessary -- but the stations did have some unique custom equipment, including a couple of the very few Crown-branded large audio mixers!)
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* A common prank at radio stations was to leave a small ball of celluloid cutterhead shavings in an ashtray.  It would go up almost like flash powder when a lit cigarette came near.  Given that the other thing laying around radio studios was heaps and heaps of paper -- logs, scripts, teletype wirecopy, newspapers and record sleeves ("shucks") -- you can imagine how popular this kind of hijinks was with management and other responsible adults.     

Heat Wave

      Yesterday's high was at least 30°F and it was a real relief.  After a long stretch of single-digit temperatures either side of zero, more normal winter weather has been an improvement.  We might even reach 50° next week -- but I'll believe that when it happens.

Rabbitholes And Politics

     After recent special elections keep turning up surprise Democrat victories in states and districts that heed been electing Republicans with clockwork reliability, I'm starting to suspect that both sides have once again failed to understand what a powerful motivator it is to piss off the normal middle, the voters who are content stay home on Election Day unless they decide things are getting out of hand.  Some of 'em are out waving signs now.  That rarely happens.

     Elsewhere, a recent note has me looking into the history of an Indiana electronics company that began about a 160 miles away from Indianapolis, and I don't mean Electro-Voice.  E-V has long been gone from South Bend, but at least one of the successors to the outfit I'm reading up on is still in the city where they started out -- and it turns out their ties go much further afield.  It's a complicated story and I might not get it all untangled, but I hope to post a link-heavy article about it eventually.

Succotash With Ham

     It was more or less succotash.  And it worked out well.

     I wasn't feeling especially ambitious for dinner.  There was a package of ham chunks in the fridge and a use-it-or-lose-it onion in the cabinet.  I had bought a package of fresh mushrooms that wanted used up, too.  And we have canned corn and beans; I keep them on hand.

     But I started with a strip of bacon, cut into eight sections.  I browned it a little in the bottom of the pan and kept half the grease, adding diced mushroom and following with the onion after taking my time cutting it up.  I added the ham chunks, covered the pan and let it cook down while deciding what else to add.

     A small can of mild Hatch chilies, a can of corn with red and green peppers, and most of a can of pinto beans followed.  I used about half of the liquid from the beans, and added some Italian-blend seasoning, a bay leaf and a little parsley.  After simmering  for fifteen minutes, it looked pretty good and smelled tempting.

     Tam's not a big fan of beans, and Portobello mushrooms aren't her favorite -- but she finished a half-bowl of the stuff in short order and went back for more!  The combination had plenty of umami, a little smokey, savory and with a bit of spice.  Tam added chili-lime Cholula sauce to hers; I settled for a little black pepper.

Read It For Yourself

     The indictment against journalists Don Lemon, Georgia Fort and several apparent protestors (or maybe reporters) has been released and you can look it over yourself.

     They're accused of collusion for what reads to me as regular embedded-type reporting.  Based on what's in the indictment, they were not running the protest or even helping to plan it.  Multiple DOJ staffers are alleged to have refused to pursue the case because it was a nothingburger.  But have a look and make up your own mind, and we'll all find out what the court concludes, by and by.

A First Amendment, If You Can Keep It

     A pair of journalists who covered a protest at a church have been arrested for it by Federal authorities.

     This is...problematic.  They weren't protesting; there are knotty issues with people showing up uninvited at religious services to make a political protest.  That's the kind of tangle that keeps civil rights attorneys gainfully employed, and one that may not have especially satisfying or universally good answers once it goes to trial.  Whose rights prevail?  That's a legal battle entirely within the First Amendment, the freedom of religion and the right to protest balanced, with freedom of speech as the fulcrum.

     But arresting journalists covering the event is clearly over the line.  News is news, and our country has generally recognized a right to report and to publish, to point cameras and microphones at events as they happen, to make notes now and publish afterward.  Arresting the people doing that is always questionable, and while there can be debate over how close is too close, that's not what happened here.

     Journalists aren't untouchable -- but the act of reporting is a Constitutionally protected activity.

     Or at least it used to be.

Overheard In The Office

     RX: "Are you interested in bacon?"  [Holds out plate with a bacon/egg/cheese sandwich on whole wheat, with a couple of half-strips of bacon on the side.]

     Tam: "Yes!  But is bacon interested in me?"  [Takes bacon.]

     She considers my typical morning sandwich or bowl of oatmeal impossibly heavy, but a little bacon is always welcome.

     Outside, it's -4°F.  There has already been one water main break, and as the temperature cycles up and down, we can expect more.  Citizen's Energy inherited a system that had been struggling to keep up with aging pipes for years, through a series of ownership changes.  Citizen's, an unusual public trust, has made remarkable progress -- but it's not a task that is ever entirely done and they'll have more work before this run of extreme cold is over. 

Screamin' Cold

      As the bitter cold and deep snow goes on and and on, I find myself less willing to get out and deal with it.

     Oh, deal with it I have, from shoveling and snow-blowing and running my car a little up and down the alley on Sunday to jouncing out into the ruts on Monday to get to work.

     Monday, I carried a snow shovel.  Just in case; but our neighborhood streets had not been plowed, and I had my suspicions -- suspicions that were confirmed when I returned home.  The city had called in their contract plowing services, which mostly consist of people who own large trucks with a snowplow blade on the front, with which they pick up some extra winter cash clearing parking lots and driveways.  They're fast and enthusiastic in response to the city-funded windfall, and one of them had plowed up a nice wall of snow at the entrance to our alley some time after my neighborhood SUV drivers had all returned home.

     I turned around at the nearest intersection and parked with my headlights on the alley entrance and flashers running, wrapped my heavy scarf around my face and got out the shovel.  A couple of slow passes in each direction got a car-width of the wall knocked down, and after one more, it wasn't any higher than the ridge of snow between the ruts.  I backed my car off, made sure it was in "winter traction" mode, swung wide and took the snow as square-on as I could manage.  My old Lexus mini-SUV plowed right through!

     My tolerance for that kind of tiny adventure is fading.  I'm leaving the house with four layers of tops under my coat, double socks, multiple pairs of gloves so I can keep warm spares inside my coat or between the heated car seat and my legs, and there's just no margin for trouble.

     We're now in the coldest part of the week and I think I'm out of heavy jeans.

Compare And Contrast

      An unpublished comment accused me, "I remember when you were all giddy about the righteous shooting of Ashli Babbit."

     "Giddy," was I?  Well, you can see for yourself; this was the core of the main piece:

     Here's the situation: you and your extended family have gathered in one room of your large house for some all-hands-on-deck thing you do regularly but not frequently -- working out income tax returns, watching The Wizard Of Oz, whatever.  Your family isn't especially popular, and even internally, it has split into two groups that rarely see eye-to-eye.  But you're all there, doing the thing.

     Other people gather in a big group outside on the lawn and start yelling.  Some of them break into the house.  Some adult family members gather the kids and old folks, and get them to a place of safety.  The mob reaches the (now barricaded) French doors that lead to the room you'd all been in.  Some have signs.  Some are shouting.  Others just mill around.  You shout, "Stop!"  You draw your sidearm and point it at the threat.  One of the members of the mob batters out the glass in the door.  Another of them starts to climb through the breach.  You shoot.

     Are you a murderer? 

     What if a similar thing happened at your workplace and a security guard shot a member of the mob that had broken in while they were coming through a just-breach[ed] internal barrier -- is he or she a murderer?

     I addressed it at least two other times, here and here.

     Tl;dr on January 6 is that the mob initiated force; they broke into the closed Capitol building by force, attacked police, broke through doors, damaged public property and smashed out windows, including the internal window Ms. Babbitt launched herself through, toward the muzzles of guns in the hands of Federal officers defending Congress, resulting in her death.  You can find video of the incident.

     In Minneapolis a few days ago, Alex Pretti was recording Federal officers on his phone and more-or-less directing traffic as those officers were doing some kind of immigration enforcement along public streets and sidewalks.  A woman was (apparently) protesting and an officer shoved her to the ground.  Pretti helped her up, standing between her and the officer, and was pepper-sprayed and wrestled to the ground by at least a half-dozen federal agents.  The agents get him face-down and it appears that one removes a gun or gun-shaped object from his waistband and moves away.  An unknown number of the other agents shoot Pretti in the back, at least ten rounds striking him, resulting in his death.  You can find multiple videos of this incident.  Pretti did not initiate force.

     Ashli Babbit and Alex Pretti were both shot by Federal officers.  But Babbitt was an attacker; Pretti was a defender.  Babbitt initiated force.  Pretti did not.

     All deaths are tragic; all avoidable shootings are tragic.  But don't lose sight of who is going after whom.

     And don't call me giddy. 

It Did Snow

     That's right around nine and a half inches of snow on the picnic table.  It was still snowing when I took the photograph, and we may have as much as a foot of the stuff now.

     It took me about an hour to shovel the back walk to the garage, get out the snowblower, clear around my car and out to the alley, and sweep the car mostly clear.  There were tire tracks in the alley, not fresh; I backed into the alley and drove up and down a little ways.  I went far enough that snow started to pile up under the car.

     Tamara took on the front walks after I was done, and that was another hour of work.

     Tomorrow is probably going to be a slow process of driving and shoveling.  It was 13°F when I was working and I managed to work up a fair sweat* anyway, so at least my cold-weather gear is adequate.  Or it was; it's supposed to get down to -5° overnight, and the morning will warm up slowly. 
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* I'd like to tell you I glowed or perspired, but no. It was heavy work. It was sweat. 

Saturday Dinner

      I'd made Hoppin' John early in the week, a big pot of blackeyed peas, ham, red, yellow and green bell peppers, a big onion, canned crushed tomatoes, sliced fresh carrots, diced fresh mushrooms, canned chilies and a couple of piparra peppers.  The store was out of Cajun seasoning and so was I, so I bought some berebere, which is the next best thing and sometimes better.  Simmered for an hour and a half, the dish was a nice treat on a cold evening.  And there was plenty left; I divided the remainder into a couple of freezer bags for later.

     Leftover Hoppin' John is Skippin' Jenny, and she skips all the happier with a little this and that added to the pan.  Last night, I squeezed a big chorizo sausage out of its casing and browned it, then sauteed sliced celery and a leek, and poured in a small can of tomato sauce.  With one of the batches of Hoppin' John thawed and stirred in, it cooked up nicely. Tam and I enjoyed it as the snow fell...and fell, and fell.  It's still falling.  There's about half a foot right now.

     Life goes on.  The Federal government is busy chipping away at the Bill of Rights, but you've still got to eat supper.

I've Been Quiet

     I've been quiet.  What am I supposed to do or say when federal forces are operating as an army of occupation in a major metropolitan area?  When they are shooting people and spinning tales about the circumstances, narrative not corroborated by video recordings of the same events?

     These are bad times.  And they are not improved by a never-ending litany of distortions, sneaky language and outright lies from the federal government -- especially the Executive Branch.  They're arresting, abusing and killing protestors, despite a stated intent to round up illegal immigrants, supposedly concentrating on "the worst of the worst," a category that apparently includes five-year-old children.

     If the idea was to go after people in this country without due authorization, why wouldn't the effort start in a red state with a large population of such people, like Texas or Florida?  With a cooperative state government and a population that voted them in, wouldn't the process run much more smoothly?  And would it not a be a model program they could use to demonstrate their predicted benign effects to the entire county?  Instead, immigration enforcement has been deployed as a kind of punishment, in a state under the governorship of a former opposition party Vice-Presidential candidate, in a city that previously erupted into violence in the wake of a suspicious police killing.  It appears to be intended to create exactly the kind of chaos and harm that is making daily headlines.

     It's an authoritarian display, one that does the country no good and one that, despite press conferences increasingly askew from reality, appears to be backfiring on the President's party.  And yet it looks like their plan is to continue and intensify the beatings until things improve for them.

     I wouldn't bet on that happening.

     Here's a little more on the topic from The Bulwark.