The musical week starts tomorrow (Saturday, March 9) when the award winning Warren High School Band and Color Guard offers a dinner/music fundraiser at the high school, 8141 De Palma. Tickets are $6 at the door, with dinner starting at 5 p.m. and the concert at 7. Proceeds go for musical instruments and supplies for the high school's fine music program. For information, call band director Guy Holliday at 869-7309.
Then drive down the 605 Freeway Sunday, March 10, to CSU-Long Beach where the CSU-Long Beach Music Department will offer Beethoven's great 9th Symphony complete with chorus at 4 p.m., at the Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $20 general and $10 seniors and students. Richard Rintoul will direct the CSU-Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, Universal Choir, Chamber Singers, 49er Chorus and soloists. Parking is in Lot 12 in front of the Carpenter Center accessed off Atherton Street (between Bellflower Boulevard and Palo Verde Avenue).
How many live performances do you get to see of this great Beethoven work?
Then Tuesday, March 12, at 7 p.m., The Crimson River Gospel Quartet will be featured at the Tuesday Night Community Concert Series offered by the Messiah Lutheran Church, 10711 Paramount Blvd. The event is free, with no collection taken and refreshments will follow the music. Call 923-1215 for information.
Next Saturday, March 16, the annual Interfaith Multi-cultural Songfest will be offered at 7 p.m. at the Downey Theater. This free event brings together 10 noteworthy music groups including the New City Parish Choir; The Voices of Inspiration and Immanuel Community Gospel Choir; Downey's own St. Mark's Episcopal School Bell Choir; Bishop Hershley Weeks and a gospel quartet from the Freewill Baptist Church; Tapestry, a choral group from Redondo Beach; soloist Paul Hill of the Hill Ministries; The Samoan Choir of Lynwood representing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and a Trombone Choir under the direction of Rich Candelaria, which will perform prelude music starting at 6:30, then participate in the concert at 7. There will be free refreshments following this event as well. Tickets are free and will be issued, first-come, first-served, at the Box Office starting at 6 p.m. For information, call 904-3443.
All-in-all, a delightful week of music, and most of it is free!
We won't know the total amount spent by the "No on L" campaign for months, but it is clear a large sum was involved in "outside contributions."
The whole question of books and how to record the history of the world for future generations comes down to who can read and write. This is where the battle is going to be fought over control of our children's minds. Are they to be reduced to a flood of images on a computer or TV screen? Current legislation being lobbied through Congress would allow more single ownership of TV stations and newspapers in the major markets. Bad idea. One world, one opinion, one government.
Author Ray Bradbury wrote a book some years ago called Farenheit 451. It was a world where books were banned, where surveillance cameras and thought police were everywhere. A place where word-of-mouth storytellers kept alive the wondrous stories and history found in books, reciting them in small secret meetings held in the forest and other secluded places out of view of the ever-present surveillance cameras. As a side note, such cameras have already found a foothold in England where hundreds of them watch over the streets of London. And the same kind of thing is currently being installed in Washington, D.C. under the guise of protecting us.
This concept of holding a book in your hands, feeling the pages turn, studying the words for fuller meaning is just different than the impersonal computer screen. I have never felt any great empathy reading text off a computer screen like I have from the pages of a book. Also the sweeping view of newspaper pages to find a headline of interest to draw you into a story is just not possible with a computer. It needs the tactile feel of paper.
How do we teach children to read. The first thing is to teach them to write. The practice of organizing words to express a thought helps lay the foundation to appreciate reading and thus preserve history. The lessons of history are lost for those who do not read. Books provide a choice of ideas. Your choice, not some agenda-driven control group who wants to spoon-feed their plan for your future.
Few things quicken the interest in reading faster than adventure stories. The list is long, but some of the standouts would have to include the tragic voyage of The Endurance and Shackleton's escape from the Antarctic. Another water story would be the 1998 Sydney to Hobart boat race in Australia. Ken Leighton's The Hard Chance is excellent. Many heroes' stories involve water. That's probably because there is such finality from a single misstep.
For the history buff, it is not without reason that John Adams by David McCullough stays on the charts. As our freedoms are tested there is renewed interest in how this group of intellectual giants came together to start a new experiment in freedom, freedom not only to own property, but freedom to express ideas and beliefs. To criticize government and go to the church of our choice are the hallmarks of freedom. It is only with knowledge of the past that these ideas can be kept alive for the future and books are how we record the heritage of history.
The Aviation and Transportation Security Act established a new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as an operating administration within the Department of Transportation. This new administration is headed by Under Secretary of Transportation for Security John Magaw, who began his work at this new post on January 7, 2002. Not only is Under Secretary Magaw in charge of new airport security measures, he also is overseeing the implementation of security on all modes of transportation. The under secretary brings with him many years of emergency preparedness experience from his time as Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, where he coordinated and directed policy and organizational changes that allowed the bureau to be more diversified and efficient. I am certain he will bring that expertise to this new position and this uncharted, yet vitally important territory.
As Americans continue to return to the skies aboard commercial airlines, certainly the most visible and important layer of protection in our nation's 429 airports is the screening operation. Many constituents have written in the months since September 11 to share their experiences, and often frustrations, as they pass through various screening checkpoints. As a frequent traveler myself between California and Washington, D.C., I have personally experienced the screening process and seen first hand the discrepancies and delays that occasionally plague the system. The Aviation and Transportation Security Act places sole responsibility on the Transportation Security Administration for hiring, training, testing, and deploying federal security screeners, federal law enforcement officers and federal security managers at U.S. airports. Congress put in place a one year schedule for the implementation of these new regulations.
On February 17, 2002, the TSA was required to assume all civil aviation security functions and responsibilities. The Transportation Security Administration met this requirement by entering into contracts with private security screening companies for U.S. airports and directly supervising their performance of screening services. This direct supervision led to the recent arrest of 20 workers at Boston's Logan International Airport, including six security screeners who were charged with lying to get their jobs and security badges. Similar reviews have been conducted at other airports, including Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, where 271 people were fired in December for various violations. I am pleased to see that these types of reviews have begun taking place, ensuring that those whom we trust to screen airline passengers are a reliable force.
By November 19, 2002, TSA must have replaced all contract security screeners with its own federally hired, trained, and tested employees. In recent testimony before the Aviation Subcommittee on which I sit, Under Secretary Magaw assured our panel that: "The Department of Transportation is making and will continue to make every effort to fulfill each and every deadline contained in the statute enacted on November 19 last year."
To meet the growing need for these federal security workers, this week Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta announced recruitment efforts targeting 30,000 new workers. With good management and supervision, these 30,000 positions will become an effective team to help ensure our homeland security. Anyone interested in working as a federal screener should visit http://jobs.faa..gov/SecurityScreeningPersonnel.htm or dial (866) 404-1227 for more information. The safety of our skies must continue to be one of our nation's top priorities.