Saturday, December 18, 2010

Jim Bemis speaks at Telecom Board meeting on December 16, 2010



GOVERNMENT CHANNEL SCHEDULE published Friday, December 17, 2010, the day following Telecom Board meeting, does not include Telecom Board meeting video to be run during week of 12/17/2010 through 12/12/2010. Bemis' comments, therefore, will not be shown on Cox Cable or AT&T U-verse until long after the Fayetteville City Council meeting at which the CAT contract will be voted on Tuesday, December 21, 2010.
Please click on individual pages to ENLARGE for easy reading.







Tuesday, November 9, 2010

aubunique: Please fill out online survey of opinion of perfor...

aubunique: Please fill out online survey of opinion of perfor...: "Greetings Everyone! CAT Performance Survey 2010 As we reach the end of 2010, Community Access Television (CAT) requests the favor of yo..."

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Highway Commission vote could end mowing and dredging practices that cause erosion, loss of wildlife habitat and decrease beauty of roadsides in Arkansas

Please click on image to ENLARGE. Two hours after this photo was made on October 12, 2010, this area had been brushogged into oblivion. Sure, the swamp milkweed will sprout from its roots next summer. But these plants not only held pods offering hundreds of milkweed seeds but also were feeding milkweed caterpillars that could have made chrysalises and become final 2010 generation monarchs traveling to Mexico and with a chance to return in spring and find fresh milkweed on which a new generation of monarchs could have been raised to keep the cycle of life intact for this seriously threatened species of migrating butterfly. If you want to talk to your Northwest Arkansas representative on the Highway Commission, he is Dick Trammel.
Monarch caterpillars were still eating the foliage of these swamp milkweeds and the seed pods were almost mature when the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department Mowers came down the road and crushed and cut them off near the ground. Amazing hypocrisy for a state agency that touts its wildflower program. And possibly worse hypocrisy is touting its stormwater-protection work and then mowing and dredging ditches repeatedly every year.

Please click on individual images to ENLARGE view.


To learn more about the Arkansas Highway Commission,  please see AHC  link.









Wednesday, October 6, 2010

aubunique: Insect Festival coming up

aubunique: Insect Festival coming up: "Please use live links on site to navigate and read more detail. Bumpers College Home Entomology Home O..."

aubunique: Tree and Landscape Committee sets annual city tree...

aubunique: Tree and Landscape Committee sets annual city tree...: "12th Annual Celebration of TreesSaturday October 9, 2010 7:00 am Town Center entrance on the Fayetteville SquareEvery year the Tree and Lan..."

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Monday-night blues jam in Shreveport, Louisiana


The Musicians of the Monday Night Blues Jam


 
Jerry Beach
Jerry Beach
(Guitar, Vocals)
The Jerry Beach Band
The Bluebirds
Stan Hoffman
Stan Hoffman (Keyboards, Vocals)
LA Outlaws
Danny Wilder
Danny Wilder (Guitar)
Denial
Ted Lindsay
Ted Lindsay (Bass)
Dirty Red
"Dirty Red" (Trumpet)
Dirty Red & Co.
Blue Martin
Blue Martin (Congas)
Ron Johnson
Ron Johnson (Guitar)
Windstorm
The Ron Johnson Project
Scotty Gerardy
Scotty Gerardy (Saxophone)
Dirtfoot
Kionte Mims
Kionte Mims (Drums, Bass, Keyboards!)
Big Rick Alstork
Big Rick Alstork (Vocals)
Walt Williams
Walt Williams (Guitar)
Street Urchin
Reggie Metcalf
Reggie Metcalf (Guitar)
Ron Petitt
Ron Petitt (Drums)
The Eric Craig Band
Randy Lambert
Randy Lambert (Guitar)
Bob Ingram
Bob Ingram (Guitar)
Diedre & Bob
Map to Lee's Lounge
(Click for map & directions)

Ron Johnson of Windstorm
The Amazing Ron Johnson
Wonder what it sounds like at the jam?  Hear what you're missing!
Do you love great live music? What if you could see artists from many of your favorite bands at the same place on the same night? Wouldn't it be awesome to hear these musicians from such diverse bands and backgrounds jamming together?
Guess what? You can, and it happens every week in Shreveport, LA! Get together with us each Monday night at 8 p.m. for the famous Monday Night Blues Jam. The folks are friendly, the atmosphere is carefree, and you'll enjoy listening to some amazing musicians play tunes that will have you "hollerin' for more"!
The Monday Night Blues Jam is hosted by Shreveport's own Jerry Beach, extraordinary bluesman, Grammy- nominated songwriter and LA Music Hall of Fame inductee. Jerry is joined in hosting by a group of Shreveport/Bossier's best-known and most talented musicians (who also happen to be some of the nicest people around). They include: Danny Wilder (guitar), "Kid" Mims (drums), Ted Lindsay(bass), Stan Hoffman (keyboards), Don "Dirty Red" Crenshaw (trumpet), and Karen "Blue" Martin(congas).

How Does It Work?

The hosts generally play the first set (Jerry often jokes "we're the ones who play until the musicians get here"). After the first set, musicians from all around the area (and all over the South) sit in to jam with each other and the hosts. At any given time there might be a singer, two lead guitars, drums, bass, congas, keyboards, two trumpets, sax, trombone, and a harmonica. Occasionally you'll hear some Blues Flute or Blues Clarinet, and one time we even had some Blues Violin! And if someone else is drumming, you're likely to hear Kid on the cowbell- he's got rhythm in his bones, he has to be playing something!
Visit the Widget Gallery
These players are so skilled and the songs are so tight you'd think they've been together for years, when in fact some of them may have just met for the first time that very night. They're just that good, and the whole place comes alive with the music!

The "Hollywood" Connection

As most of you know, the Shreveport/ Bossier City area is home to some of the best musicians in this part of the country. In recent years it has also become one of the most active regions in the nation for Hollywood filmmakers. What you may not realize is that many of the nice folks from "out west" are big Blues fans... you never know who you may run into, as they say. And for any of our film industry friends who haven't visited yet, be sure to drop by, we guarantee you'll love it. Just ask anyone who's been to The Jam before!

Is Blues Music depressing? Will going to the Jam "bring me down"?

Brady Blade & Ted Lindsay
Renowned drummer Brady Blade & our own
Ted Lindsay during a Nov 2008 Jam
Not At All! Quite the opposite, in fact. Many of the great blues artists wrote these songs in order to get those feelings out. Listening to a good Blues set will lift your spirits, and it's the perfect way to get that Monday "back to work" feeling off your shoulders. It's been said many different ways over the years, and it still holds true: If you're feeling bad, great music can make you feel good, and if you're feeling good, great music will make you feel evenbetter! Perhaps an example will help to show what I mean: You may be familiar with a song made famous byAlbert King which starts out with the lines "If you're down and out, and you feel real hurt/ Come on over, to the place I work/ And all your loneliness I'll try to soothe/ I'll play the blues for you"... that song is called "I'll Play the Blues for You" and it was written by our host himself, Mr. Jerry Beach.

Is The Blues Jam Just A Bunch of Slow 12-bar Tunes?

No Mustang Sally!

Perhaps a $100 bill
in the Tip Jar...
The format of the Blues Jam is fluid- the scope of "Blues music" itself is very broad, and many modern jazz, rock and country songs have their roots in The Blues. Although nothing beats a good, slow-grinding 12-bar piece, the range of music is as diverse as the artists who play it. So don't be surprised if you feel yourself moved to slow dance with your honey when Jerry sings "Rainy Night In Georgia", realize you're tapping your foot to Red and Danny leading the way with "Grazing in the Grass", or discover emotion you didn't know you had when you hear your own voice screaming approval as Stan leads the entire Jam into a house-burning rendition of "Superstition"!
Dirty Red Sings
Red sings "Black Magic Woman"
The Blues Jam is a celebration of creative music. The night is about The Blues, and you won't hear much mainstream rock (although late at night the players have been known to patiently back a tipsy visitor slaughtering "Me & Bobby McGee" or any number of other standards). But as long as a song has room for these musicians to explore, you'd be surprised at what you might hear. How about seven musicians jamming to Led Zepplin's "Whole Lotta Love", done as a reggae song? (This actually fits at the Blues Jam, as the lyrics to "Whole Lotta Love" were "borrowed" by Robert Plant from blues legend Willie Dixon!)
Each Jam brings welcome visits from many of our gifted local players, and there are always some great surprises as well. Come on down next Monday night. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Earth Day Festival began Friday night with Caring for Creation at Mount Sequoyah; Earth Day at World Peace Wetland Prairie from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, April 18, 2010, offers eduction and fun for all ages

Please click on image to ENLARGE for closer view of sample photos from WPWP.
PLEASE double-click the image to ENLARGE view and ENLARGE further with your computer's tools to read small type. For more about World Peace Wetland Prairie please see www.flickr.com/photos/7295307@N02/collections/ www.flickr.com/photos/7295307@N02/collections/   
PLEASE double-click the image to ENLARGE view and ENLARGE further with your computer's tools to read small type.

MANY REASONS TO PROTECT LAND SUCH AS WORLD PEACE WETLAND AND PINNACLE PRAIRIE FOREVER:
World Peace Wetland Prairie is the riparian zone of a small stream that historically was fed by seep springs and rainwater from three directions when the first westward immigrants settled Fayetteville, Arkansas. World Peace Wetland Prairie has the deepest layer of dark, rich soil in its subwatershed because leaves and other vegetative matter accumulated as the flowing water slowed and soaked into the absorbent soil and enriched that soil. Pinnacle Foods Inc.'s mounded wet prairie to the west is the main source of clean water flowing to World Peace Wetland Prairie at this time. Before the railroad was built, water flowed off Rochier Hill to the northwest and from the prairie and savannah to the north of WPWP that has been replaced by fill dirt and paving for apartments. Water from the east and north slopes of the high land where Pinnacle Foods Inc. now sits flowed to WPWP along with all the water from the high ground near 15th Street, which moved north to WPWP before flowing east to the Town Branch of the West Fork of the White River. Such remnants of prairie help keep the water where it falls and recharge the groundwater. Like the many similar remnants of such prairie in our diverse geographical area, WPWP and Pinnacle Prairie are the surface manifestation of a significant bedrock fault. Such sunken wetland is a characteristic feature that appears above geological faults worldwide. The Karst map of Washington County Arkansas shows the WPWP watershed in red, meaning that it is a critical groundwater recharge area. Preserving such depressional wetland in our city is the least expensive way to reduce downstream flooding and siltation of our water supply. Hundreds of native plants grow. Many birds and other wildlife prosper on healthy wetland vegetation. And prairie vegetation sequesters carbon dioxide and cleans the ground water.

KEEP the WATER where it FALLS!