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8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, January 20, 2010 Basic Black by Arthur Black S oun ding Off A b ou t Noi s e There is something terribly wrong with a culture inebriated by noise. --George Steiner Noise is to music as weeds are to flowers. We encourage the latter and do our damnedest to stomp the former out of our lives. That said, there's a lot more noise than music in our lives these days. Just think of some of the day-to-day sounds we take for granted that would utterly mystify our forebears. My grandparents never had their innards massaged by a throbbing in-car stereo. They never heard a nail gun. They wouldn't know what to make of the beep of a microwave oven or that eerie four-bar flourish that announces the arrival of Microsoft Windows on our computers. My grandparents never suffered the roar of a snowmobile or a leaf blower at full throttle - and they certainly never heard an LRAD. Neither, for that matter, have I - and I don't want to. LRAD stands for LongRange Acoustic Device. Military types with their charming gift for euphemism - they're the folks who dubbed flesh-shredding land mines 'anti-personnel devices' - have outdone themselves with their description of the LRAD. They call it 'a communication device'. More accurately, it is a 'sound cannon' - a weapon that can blow you right out of your socks. The LRAD is basically a loudspeaker on steroids. It can be (and has been) employed by law enforcement officers to disperse protesters, rioters or...well, anybody that the authorities find annoying but not worth killing outright. When the trigger is pulled on the LRAD cannon, anyone it's aimed at will be assaulted by an ululating siren like screech that can be precisely, and painfully, calibrated. How loud is an LRAD blast? Sticking your head next to a stage amp at a Rolling Stones concert might subject you to 120 decibels. At 130 DB you'd be writhing on the ground. At 140 DB your hearing deteriorates and you experience permanent hearing loss. The LRAD can deliver an aural punch up to LOCAL FARM FRESH PRODUCE Sikma Orchards, Hwy. 2, 5 km East of Newcastle, 905-786-2153. Strawberries & Apples in season Link Greenhouses, 3990 Bragg Rd., Orono, 905-983-9003 Hydroponic Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Sweet Corn. Strickland Perennial Farm, 5467 Middle Rd. Bowmanville. Potatoes, Tomatoes, Carrots, Peas & Beans, Garlic, Swiss Chard, Pears & Perennials H. Richardson Farms Ltd, 4825 Regional Road 9 East, Kendal. Fruit Trees, Strawberry plants, asparagus. MEAT Berrybank Farms, 3383 Taunton Rd., Orono, 905-9835787. Beef, Chicken, Seasonal Produce. Kendal Vale, 4561 Conc. 6, Kendal, 905-983-6107. Lamb, Wool, Wool Blankets. Lee Farms, 3937 Conc. 8, Orono, 905-983-5370. Organic Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Turkey, Pigs Sikmadale Farm, Orono, 905-983-5442 All natural grain-fed beef Clement Poultry, Organically Fed Poultry. Capons, Roasting Chickens & Turkeys. 85 Lovekin Rd., Newcastle 905-987-7239 152 DB. Some communication device. Sound as a weapon. Just what we need in a world of chain saws, car alarms and ambulance sirens. There should be an upside to living in increasingly noisier times. You'd think that we'd be getting fussier and more discriminating in the noise department. You'd hope that the back-alley beating we've been giving our ears would at least make us appreciate the subtleties of nice noise - i.e. music. Sadly, the opposite appears to be the case. The sound quality that comes out of a standard compact disc is infinitely superior to the sound that emanates from those dinky MP3 players. But compact discs players, alas, aren't all that compact compared to an MP3 player, which allows a listener to tote around up to 4,000 tunes on his hip. Accordingly, CD's are on the wane and every third person you meet is walking around with tiny noise-channelling amplifiers embedded in their earholes -even though the sound is decidedly inferior - even crummy. As a matter of fact, a music professor at Stanford University claims he has evi- dence that younger listeners actually prefer what he calls 'lo-fi' versions of popular songs to hi-fi ones. He claims that to a large percentage of the new generation, popular music is supposed to sound muddy and indistinct. More noise in our lives - and this time it's entirely selfinflicted. But some might argue it's not noisy enough out there. Take hybrid cars. The knock on hybrids is that they're too quiet. Cyclists and pedestrians can't hear them coming the way they can hear old gas-burning, piston-chugging ordinary cars and trucks. Collisions between hybrids and cyclists or pedestrians are "way up." Automobile manufacturers are now searching for some kind of aural warning device that can be attached to hybrids to let people know there's an electric vehicle bearing down on them - but what kind of sound? A honk? A whistle? A threebar yodel from Lyle Lovett? Whatever the final solution, you can bet your hearing aid it'll be yet another noise your grandparents never had to put up with. Egg-Shack, 4240 Conc.#4, Orono, 905-786-EGGS FRUITS & VEGETABLES Fred's Fruit Market, 4303 Hwy #115, Orono, 905-983-5628. Tax Farm, Regional Rd. 42, Orono, 905-983-6105. Locally grown potatoes, sweet corn & canteloupe in season Donations always appreciated at the C l a r i ng t o n East Food Bank 905-987-1418 Agriculture's Bounty Contact us to place your listing. Call: 905-983-5301 or oronotimes@rogers.com LOCAL FARMERS Reserve your listing in our new, weekly