Bo Diddley--Rock And Roll Prophet Dies At 79

Bo Diddley, one of the most iconic names associated with blues and rock and roll died at the age of 79 from heart failure at his home in Archer, Florida.

Diddley made a name for himself in the mid-1950s for pioneering what he called the “shave and a haircut, two bits” guitar playing style. Often mouthed like “bomp ba-bomp, bomp, bomp, bomp” it became the staple sound for rock and roll as we know it today. And like the best rock music, it didn’t immediately gain wide acceptance. Diddley said that prior to his premier on the now legendary Alan Freed radio show, his music was often dismissed with racist terms like “jungle music.” Freed introduced him with what many cite as the first use of the term “rock and roll,” saying, “Here is a man with an original sound, who is going to rock and roll you right out of your seat.”

With his box-shaped guitar and custom-made electronic effects, his sound resembled no one at the time, and later influenced every rock act from Jimi Hendrix to the Velvet Underground to The Jesus & Mary Chain to Nine Inch Nails. Diddley once remarked in his later years, “They copied everything I did, upgraded it, messed it up. It seems to me that nobody can come up with their own thing, they have to put a little bit of Bo Diddley there.” The Jesus & Mary Chain acknowledged him with the single, “Bo Diddley Is Jesus.” His songs “I’m a Man,” “Who Do You Love,” and “The Mule” have been covered endlessly by other rock bands throughout the decades.

While Diddley eventually received wide recognition for his pioneering efforts, earning a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an exhibit at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, he never reached a plateau in which he chose to retire and celebrate his ego. Instead he continued to write new music and tour all the way up to the stroke he suffered last year. He appreciated the accolades, “but it didn’t put no figures in my checkbook,” he said.

I personally had the honor of seeing Diddley perform at Little Steven Van Zandt’s International Garage Rock Festival in New York City in 2004. His sound and personality held up and fitted in perfectly with contemporary acts like The Raveonettes, The Strokes, and the Stooges. Sitting on a stool and plucking away at the guitar in strange ways, he drove kids completely unfamiliar with him to start dancing. He even playfully teased some of the other acts, keeping true with the attitude that makes the music extra special.

Rest In Peace, Bo, you won’t be forgotten. Here are some of his famous quotes to make sure:

“If you ain’t got no money, ain’t nobody calls you honey.”

“Seventy ain’t nothing but a damn number. I’m writing and creating new stuff and putting together new different things. Trying to stay out there and roll with the punches. I ain’t quit yet.”

“I am owed. I’ve never got paid. A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun.”

On the Nike “Bo Knows” ad campaign in which he participated in 1989: “I never could figure out what it had to do with shoes, but it worked.”

“Elvis was not the first. I was the first son-of-a-gun out there. Me and Chuck Berry”

On the key to good songwriting: “A story with some funny lyrics, or some serious lyrics, or some love-type lyrics. But you gotta think in terms of what people’s lives is based on.”

Barak Obama Makes U.S. History

After what feels like years of debate and political squabble, the primary season is over and the Democratic Party has an official nominee: Barack Obama. Obama has become the first African American to ever win such a major party presidential nomination.

With last night’s 2 primary elections ending the race, Obama won Montana and rival Senator Hillary Clinton won South Dakota. After months of hardcore campaigning and split primary battles, Obama overreached the 2,118 delegates needed to become the nominee by 30 or 40 points with the help of pledged super delegates. Clinton has now started to court the idea of the vice presidency spot claiming she was open to that possibility.

Many political analysts believe this could be an opportune way to gain her supporters down the line since she had the majority of the popular vote during the election process. At this time “there is no deal in the works,” Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs announced on the subject.

The general fight has already begun, with republican nominee John McCain not wasting any time in taking every opportunity he can to lash out at the Chicago Senator and vice versa. After welcoming the young senator to the general election campaign, John McCain stated on a morning show that he thinks Obama has “exercised very bad judgment on national security issues and others.”

The two candidates have extremely different ideologies on the war in Iraq and what roles a president should play in international policy. While Obama argues that keeping U.S. combat troops in Iraq only strengthens Iran’s capabilities and is the wrong approach and wrong decision for the country, McCain believes that maintaining troops there will weaken Iran and allow U.S. troops to keep a watchful eye on the middle eastern country while they continue to establish their new democratic system. Obama has stated he believes the war in Iraq has also made American ally Israel less secure.

Obama believes that friendly diplomacy is key to strengthening America’s reputation overseas and has claimed he will ensure this by meeting with world leaders personally and speaking to them face to face. McCain criticizes this and believes it to be a dangerous and hasty approach.

The new presidential nominee will have to face serious critical charges against him concerning his religious past. He just recently left his church in Chicago due to unsettling comments made by his long time friend and Pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright. He has also managed to dodge staunch rumors that involve him being a participant in the Muslim religion, but will most certainly have to avoid more of the same in the coming months leading up to the election in November.

Other challenges in order to clinch the oval office involve uniting the Democratic Party and winning an overwhelming number of Hillary Clinton supporters after a few hurtful incidents. In partially disenfranchised states such as Florida and Michigan, there are still many angry, unsatisfied democrats who aren’t happy with the final decisions made. He will have to be somewhat reliant on Clinton for her personal support and rallying in order to bridge the gap.

But if he succeeds, he will not only be making history as America’s youngest President since John F. Kennedy, but the first African American President of the United States of America.

Fruit Stickers Do Have a Purpose

You know when you shop at the supermarket and it seems like every fruit and vegetable has a little sticker on it with a seemingly random collection of letters and numbers? It turns out that those stickers do have a purpose (other than to annoy and confuse you).

Jay Weinstein cracks the produce code on his blog to help you identify the difference between organic an non-organic produce, just in case you were starting to wonder if fruits and vegetables are all the same. It turns out: they’re not.

Price look-up (PLU) codes are an international numbering standard that identifies each type of produce, so that computerized cash registers can ring up the cost of fruits and vegetables automatically. The code also lets consumers whether the item is a conventional, organic or genetically modified (GM) crop.

Conventional produce carries a 4-digit code. For organic or GM produce, an extra number is added to the beginning of the series, making it a 5-digit code. If the starting number of the 5-digit code is a 9, it is organic. If the starting number of the 5-digits begins with an 8, it is from a genetically modified crop.

The codes are on every item of produce, from lettuce to apples, but often get mixed together or placed in the wrong bins, so check the labels on your produce the same way you check labels on other products.

Aid in Myanmar Not Enough

Myanmar's ruling government will allow foreign aid into their country to
help the 2.5 million suffering from the recent cyclone on May 2nd and 3rd.
Though no aid will be accepted from U.S., French or British military ships
because Myanmar's junta fears political invasion or interference. Recent
criticism has surfaced in Myanmar of Western nations attempting to turn
their country into a neo-colony.

Most of the aid will come from Asian countries for now, including China and
India. The government has allowed medical teams from 10 neighboring
countries that are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to
distribute supplies and survey the scene for what’s needed. According to the
Pentagon, planes carrying 480 tons of relief supplies were permitted into
Yangon but haven't been permitted directly to needed areas.

U.N. Spokeswoman in Bangkok said foreign aid seekers were seeing some
progress in terms of pipelines starting to come through but insists the aid
given so far isn't nearly enough. U.N.'s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon met
Friday with the country's junta leader Senior General Than Shwe, attempting
to convince him of the pressing matter at hand. The United Nations and the
whole international community stand ready to help you overcome this
tragedy, Ban stated to the general.

But the junta leader did not respond kindly and simply reiterated he and his
army could handle it themselves. The government even went so far as to block
visas for foreign disaster management experts.

Because of the junta's resistance to aid, France has questioned labeling
their resistance as crimes of humanity and was ready to push for a U.N.
resolution that would authorize delivery by all means necessary.² Aid
agencies from western countries are preparing boats, vessels and supplies to
deliver as soon as they're able.

The death toll from the devastating natural disaster is now 78,000 with
another 56,000 still missing. The economic damage is estimated around 11
billion.

Salmon Skin Bikinis?

An elaborate example of waste not, want not goes into Chilean fashion designer Claudia Escobar’s exotic salmon skin bikinis.

Escobar saw not only a source of cheap raw material in the masses of salmon skin discarded worldwide every year, she also saw the opportunity a source for helping the poor, making money and giving life to her creative talents.

The Lycra-trimmed, ultra-mini salmon-skin bikini sells for about 250 pounds ($494.9) and a pair of trousers fetches around 750 pounds, with half of the sale value going to workers, after paying off the negligible amount of overhead.

The 37-year old innovative designer says she is using fashion as a tool to help women internationally overcome poverty by taking traditional, local materials and molding them into high-priced luxury items. She has worked with Mapuche Indians in South America and women in Senegal where she sent them a technique for using fish skins based on their own method of treating goatskins.

"Many people who lived near rivers and oceans have used fish throughout history. It's not my original idea," she said, speaking in Edinburgh's port area. "It's amazing, it's a used product and you transform it into a product with added value."

Escobar is planning to launch another line, also based on local materials, picking up wool shed by sheep in the Scottish islands and has already started to recruit people with knowledge of traditional knitting techniques.

Green Parking Lots

Parking lots are notorious environmental wastelands, with their seemingly endless miles of asphalt and lack of greenery. But there could be a way to help green parking lots as they don’t seem to be going anywhere as long as cars remain our main source of transportation.

"Solar Trees," named by San Diego-based company Envision Grove, not only provides shade for parking lots, like trees, it also provides a source of electricity, using solar power.

The solar grove provides not only energy, but shade, which reduces the need for air conditioning in cars as well as has the capacity to reduce light pollution by trapping light underneath the canopy while simultaneously lighting the parking lot.

Each canopy can be tilted to maximize the energy trapped and produced by the sun. Each tree is s 10 feet tall at the low end and 13 feet tall at the high end and together can shade 6 cars. By generating large amounts of energy, it saves the CO2 emissions that traditionally generated electricity creates.

Not only that, but they can be washed down when they accumulate dust and also can route rainwater into bio-swales: porous, organic material that filters pollutants from park lot run-off.

For more information on the environmental and economic benefits of the solar grove, visit http://www.envisionsolar.com/.

The Introduction of EvoLux R with EvoDim

The ability to dim your lights is an eco-conscious effort that we should all have installed. Now with EarthLED.com’s introduction of the EvoLux R with EvoDim, the dimming is all in the bulb, so there is no need to bother installing a dimmer switch.

The bulb has an innovative three stage dimming function called EvoDim, which allows for maximum energy conservation by letting you cycle the bulb through three different output settings simply by rapidly switching the bulb on and off. You can’t use it on wall mounted or touch sensitive lamps, but for all other purposes it’s great.

Like the rest of EvoLux family of bulbs, the new EvoDim bulbs come with the innovative features of their predecessors, including:

A lack of hazardous materials, including mercury and lead

It is cooler than traditional bulbs, meaning less energy output as well as being safer household appliance

Longer life than less expensive CFL bulbs and traditional bulbs

To learn more about EvoDim and other Evolux products, visit their website at www.earthled.com