The Curse of Morris is no more. Last month, someone cut the wires to the cheesy carillon located in the cemetery just north of me, and the chimes no longer ring out every goddamn quarter hour. The obnoxious ass, Ted Storck, who is responsible for these horrible things wrote a letter to our local paper and also mailed me a note in which he accused me or my amoral atheist buddies of having done it.
Cutting cemetery chimes was a savage act
I hope the person(s) who used a hatchet to chop the wires going to the chimes at Summit Cemetery is happy with himself or herself. Those chimes brought comfort to many folks at burials, as well as those visiting the cemeteries at other times. The chimes are maintained by the veterans posts of Morris, and the repair cost will mean less money to assist those in need, both veterans and others. The chimes were placed there to honor those who served our nation. You dishonored their service by your savage act. You even cut the wires we use to turn off one speaker to the northeast when there are no burials in that area, so if we can’t afford to repair that wire, all four speakers will be left on even when there are no burials in that area, but burials in Calvary and areas to the south. When there are burials, as the hearse enters the cemetery, the bells toll and then after the service, hymns are played.
Be proud of yourself; I’m sure your mother and father would be proud of how they raised you.
The mortality rate in Morris must be tremendous, because those hymns were played every quarter hour, starting in the early hours of the morning, so there must have been 50 funerals a day. Maybe the reason they’ve gone silent is that everyone is dead now?
Storck is such a dishonest fraud. No, I and the other residents of this neighborhood would have no objection at all if the chimes were played for funerals, or for the special ceremonies the local veterans have there; that would be entirely reasonable. The constant din is not. And for Storck, that arrogant carpet-bagging out-of-towner, to insist on subjecting others to a level of noise he can’t hear is unconscionable.
As for the claim that I’m responsible: no. I admit, I have fantasized about seeing them shut off, but usually those daydreams involve a squadron of A-10s howling overhead and turning them into a smoking, flaming crater with Hellfire missiles, not a few chops of an axe. And of course, I have two good reasons for not doing it: as a moral person with an opposition to vandalism, I’d prefer it were handled more ethically, and also as the village atheist of Morris, Minnesota, getting caught vandalizing a Catholic cemetery would have wider repercussions than the merely personal.
But then, Ted Storck can’t comprehend that, as his moral sense has apparently atrophied and replaced with religious dogma and a large dollop of sanctimony.
I’m just going to enjoy the peace and quiet before they repair the damage, after which, knowing Storck’s attitude, they’ll probably redouble the rate or volume of the curse he’s bestowed on this town.
Push the local government for a noise bylaw that regulates the use. That is how we do it up here in the north.
I was recently visiting an island in the Azores, all cat’lick. The church bells rang one ring of the bell for each hour, one for the half hour. And then some ringing for service sunday morning past nine. Not a problem.
What that arsehole is doing is noise pollution.
How about a compromise. Storck can ring the bells as he like – as long as he comes in to the cemetery and pushes the buttons himself.
I also love his threat that it’s going to reduce the amount of money for veterans’ services. Only if you choose to prioritize the chimes over the services, douchecanoe.
I’m honestly surprised this is allowed to go on, PZ. You’ve been complaining about this for years, and I’m CERTAIN everyone else who lives in the area feels the same way about the unwanted noise. It’s a public nuisance and the sort of thing that is rightfully regulated by noise ordinances. Does your town not have one? I’m sorry about my ignorance, but it really surprises me since this kind of stuff is routinely regulated by municipalities. It’s just not a controversial idea that, no, you may not subject residents to intrusive noise at all hours of the day or night. What’s wrong with Morris, seriously?
If PZ Myers and the other local neighbors are being driven buggy by gratuitous, repetitive noise at all hours, why not circulate a petition and complain to the city council.
I’m assuming here that Morris is a democracy and that at least one other person with a hatchet is also opposed.
I’m not one for vandalism, but if this was in my neighborhood I would not be sad that this happened.
I used to play the chimes at Cornell, so I’m a big chimes fan – but it would enrage me to have to listen to bells every 15 mins. Pure noise pollution.
One of my favourite Sousa marches is Chimes of Liberty (which requires a full stand-up chime rack (not sure how that would work as a parade march)). Electronic carillon chimes, however, are, or should be (at least) an anathema unto Nuggan!
Sorry, not all carillon chimes. Just the electronic ones that are used endlessly by churches.
The local college has a carillon that sounds nice, but I live JUST far enough away that the sound only wafts into my window in the summer. It only bugs me when the computer controlling it gets it’s clock off and it’s going off at odd times.
I’ve been having more trouble with a new FedEx depot nearby that has trucks beeping intermittently all night. Apparently there is no city ordinance against it, but I have been starting to look into other options. If the chimes start up again try contacting the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and making a noise pollution complaint… http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/air/air-monitoring-and-reporting/air-emissions-modeling-and-monitoring/noise-program.html They define noise as “Any undesired sound.” Seem to fit. Enjoy the silence while it lasts.
Now stuck in my head…
Then they won’t be fixing the bells? Or are the bells more important than the needy?
Maybe you’ll be lucky and the vandal also replaced the soundfile with something more palatable. :-)
I think you ought to give a local muslim an even louder system, so that he can play calls to prayer several times a day right next to the home of Ted Storck.
But making a noise pollution complain is a nicer way to go.
The University of California at Berkeley has a clock tower (The Campanile) with a carillon in it, and a carilloneer who plays one or two short (15 min, typically, occasionally longer) concerts on it each day. Since it’s an old mechanical clock system that chimes the hours and its time keeping can be a tiny bit erractic, in my day on campus one used to refer to “Campanile Standard Time” for when classes started and ended.
My mom has an old Westminster-style chiming clock that goes off every 15 fucking minutes (unless she forgets to wind it, which doesn’t happen often enough, sadly). I have insomnia, and on nights when I can’t sleep, that thing fucking taunts me. Every time it goes off, it’s a reminder that I’ve lost another 15 minutes trying to sleep, and that constant, unignorable reminder just makes it all the more frustrating, which in turn makes falling asleep that much more difficult. Next time I visit, I’m going to have to insist that we turn off that particular clock. Mom can keep the ones that chime the hour (they often also chime once to indicate a half-hour, but there’s no little tune to accompany those chimes like there is for the Westminster clock), but not that clock.
I also live in a town that seems to have a love for churches, and church bells in particular. Fortunately, these only go off on Sunday, and it’s usually not super-early in the morning when they start. Unfortunately, the students are back in town now, and they were up late partying, and that meant that the church bells started too fucking early in the morning for my liking. Clearly, the professors need to give these students more work, seeing as they’ve got time to party on Friday and Saturday night.
I’m not one for vandalism, either. But if this was in my neighborhood it would have happened a long time ago.
Years ago I lived in an apartment complex on the third floor. The woman next to me bought wind chimes and hung them on her balcony. They were about 10 feet from my bedroom window. Anytime the slightest breeze came along, bing, bing, bong, all fucking day and night. I asked her to take them down because they kept me up at night. She wasn’t just “sorry, but no”. She was “fuck you, they’re my chimes, deal with it. (I had never had *any* contact with her before this, so I don’t know where that came from.) I complained to the apartment complex office, but they refused to do anything.
So one night when I knew she wasn’t home I was able to get from my balcony to hers (could have done it from the apartment on the other side of hers as well), and made the chimes disappear. A couple days later she came banging on my door, screaming at me to give her her chimes back (I assure you, I didn’t have them…). I played dumb, and suggested that maybe other people must have been bothered by them as well.
The next day a new set of chimes was hanging there and banging away. A couple weeks later they “disappeared” again, and she never replaced them.
If they are a nuisance and the powers that be refuse to rectify the situation, sometimes less-than-legal means are justified.
Reminds me of a pastor in a nearby city. That guy eventually made national headlines for not wanting to stop ringing the bells at certain times even though it was considered noise pollution. His reasons were that a few hundred of his parishioners didn’t mind it and that the ringing of the bells was an indispensable part of church service. Note that he did stop seeing that he or his parish would have to pay a 5 000 euro fine each time the bells tolled at the wrong time.
#14 – at least the call to prayer is only five times a day
Morris is obliviously Christian and conservative. A noise complaint does no good — everyone assumes we just love Christian hymns funneled into our home, and if we don’t, what the hell is wrong with you, Commie?
City ordinance wouldn’t do any good. The trucks are required to beep when they back up by OSHA, so people know to get out of the way of a blind vehicle backing up. It’s also on our forklifts at work.
Could somebody explain to me what kind of switch needs a separate wire to turn OFF a set of electronics?
Grr. That thing. I’ve spent a couple of nights in Morris, further away from the cemetery than where PZ lives. Stupid thing woke me up. It’s loud. I live two blocks from a church with real bells that go off on Sundays, and they’re less intrusive than that thing.
For 30 years, I lived a block away from a church with a conventional tower clock that chimed only once an HOUR. Our guests always complained the first night about the chiming in the wee small hours, but by the second night, found they could “sleep through.” (It helped if we served wine at dinner.)
So I suggest a compromise: a community effort to replace the (literally) hacked mechanism, but, only with one designed to be heard ONLY by the honorees in the cemetery. (The Navy has done wonderful things with undersea sound transmission, surely some of that technology could be adapted to (literally) underground transmission. — pH
I play the carillon at the University of Kansas. The thing that you are describing is NOT a carillon or chime (at least it’s not on this list of carillons and tower chimes ; , as there are no bells. It is known to carillonneurs as a “bongatron,” and is the equivalent of hooking your iPod up to loudspeakers and calling it a guitar. These can be MUCH louder than a set of real bells.
Morris probably does have an ordinance against playing electronic sound systems too loudly, aimed at preventing overly long and loud student parties. This device should fall under that ordinance.
If Mr. Storck wants to install real bells up there and play it by hand himself every time he wants it to sound, he should pony up the money and install one!
OR….get a group of your students together to play a set loudly outside his house several times a day.
Isn’t it something of a disservice of the real thing to call these things “chimes”? We have a Catholic church up the street that plays “chimes” sometimes, but they are a terrible electronic noise, not real chimes. Perhaps you could suggest a compromise: replace the recorded crap with real chimes and real people…perhaps some Christian vets…who are paid to play them.
Close href. Sorry
WhiteHatLurker wins today’s internet.
What? 25 comments in and no mention of Monty Python’s church bells audio sketch?
Ok, I’ll do it. I could only find this on youtube, but the visual part is an unnecessary throwaway added by the poster; the audio is original, intact, and unembellished.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBlRB1HH2g
The absolute solution in the audio sketch is alarmingly similar to PZ’s dream. Are we truly certain that no A-10s were involved in the Morris incident?
Only a religious twit would think a minor inconvenience is a major sin . . . . .
It’s astonishing to me that the chimes were not deemed a public nuisance and a form of disturbing the peace. Morris needs a noise-abatement ordinance. Or more axes.
When I was in Morris, I rented some apartments across the street from that cemetery. Every day I would fantasize about breaking those chimes. I didn’t do it because I’m not a proponent of vandalism, but those chimes were the most irritating thing I have ever had to deal with. It’s not like they were church bells either. I don’t mind the sound of bells ringing (well not every 15 minutes). These chimes in the cemetery however would play hymns. As someone who escaped their religion, it drove me nuts to have to listen to hymns ever time I had to walk to class or had my window open in my apartment.
I mean, how long and how costly is it to re-connect a couple of wires?
OT, but…
PZ @20:
Perhaps a panel at the next FtBCon on the differences between “godless” communism (which got US “under god” in the pledge at the height of the McCarthy witch-hunt) and godless atheism? Or conversely, the similarities.
Perhaps pointing out that not all atheists are commies, and that some christianities sound an awful lot like communism?
Perhaps led by, or including, Richard Carrier on the panel?
–pH
I know Morris is Christian, but I don’t believe everyone in the area (yes, I’m including Christians) likes this. I’m SURE many faithful find it just as oppressive. Maybe there’s a stigma about complaining that is keeping them quiet, too?
If you haven’t already, it might be helpful to find an area friend or neighbor without your reputation to spearhead an effort to address this. Maybe just seeing someone who’s not the VILLAGE ATHEIST talking about it would be enough to bring the timid out of their torpor.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I didn’t see the bit in the OP where PZ asked for advice on how to deal with this? Do any of us really think that a fellow with, let’s be honest, more than a few little grey cells to rub together hasn’t thought of the possible reasonable solutions, and satisfied himself that they’re not actually possible and/or reasonable?
PZ, you have my sympathy. I could not live with that. I live next to a railway spur, used only for a trip to a single tire factory about 20 km away, which means I get one train each way about three hours apart, three nights a week (usually 9-10 & 12-1 for the return). For thirty seconds or so, the DVD needs pausing if there’s dialogue. But after the first couple of times, it didn’t even wake me up anymore. 6 30-second periods a week? No biggie.
There’s also a church somewhere nearby that plays a little ding-dong at 11am on Sunday, but that’s the only one, and it’s one time per week.
Also, yes, why is it costing so much to have to splice in some new wire? Did the person with the axe climb the tower to chop every wire into 73 pieces or something? Also, what’s up with the “special wire to make it not go ding”? Is this jerk just being ripped off by a couple of savvy electricians or what?
I know unwanted advice can be annoying, but sometimes conversation with humans does that. There’s no unwritten rule, CaitieCat, that allows us to distinguish between when that is and isn’t appropriate in every situation. If PZ says “shut up, you’re annoying me,” then I certainly would. I don’t think it’s your call.
I don’t see where I told anyone to do or not do anything. I made an observation: that despite his not asking for it, comment after comment suggested completely obvious things one could do to fix this, and it struck me that we weren’t giving PZ much credit as a capable citizen.
If you want to continue to offer advice, you are completely welcome to, nor do I (nor did I) intend to bring it up again. I’m sorry my observation seems to have annoyed you, but I think you’re reading a lot more “YOU GOTTA DO WHAT I SAY” into my comment than was actually there.
Good to see you have your priorities straight, Mr. Storck.
Ok, so takeaways from the serious-letter-to-the-editor.
1. Cutting wires to a non-residential/cemetery entertainment audio system is a ‘savage act’.
2. There is insufficient insurance on the cemetery or audio system that the veteran societies will carry the burden of repairs and said repair is so onerous as to be a burden that robs the poor but the Catholic parish church that benefits from the audio system will not share the costs to relieve that burden.
3. There are 4 speakers in total and the letter writer is threatening to leave all 4 on from now on as punishment for the wires being vandalized, bcuz…that’ll learn ya? Which seems to indicate the letter writer knows the wires were cut as a solution to burdensome noise pollution.
4. The partial listing of how the audio system is deployed seems to be a pre-emptive defense of how unharmful the usage of the audio system is. Too bad it’s easily falsifiable. When/if the wires are repaired, are the audio system controllers going to be held to the usage detailed in the letter?
5. The savage act was also an infantile one, as parental disapproval was invoked. Okay then.
If someone is proven to have cut the wires as a deliberate silencing of the constant ‘sharing’ (and not someone connected to the cemetery having pulled a royal glitch while working on things, or just the system itself having borked), then doesn’t it stand to reason that at least one other person in Morris disliked them enough to be driven to sabotage?
Perhaps Morris (or at least the residents within a certain radius of the cemetery) are in what I heard Peter Boghossian call the “contemplative stage” of being approached about at least reducing the times the electronic system goes off. Especially now that they’ve had a taste of what it’s like to not have them going off every quarter hour.
Has anyone recorded the decibels that the system is playing at different distances from origin? If someone with proper tools and time enough did that and published the results locally with comparisons to other noise sources, I wonder what that would do to debate. It would be a great uni-student noise pollution project, although I suppose there would be charges of students being used to advance a horrid anti-catholic bias.
PZ @ 20:
Well, someone had an axe and used it. So I’d guess there’s at least one other person who isn’t thrilled with the noise assault. Perhaps after the town has had a taste of the lovely quiet it forgot about, people will be more willing to say and do something about the noise.
Yeah. This guy. JEFF LAMBERTY! Presumably Storck will be asking for an arrest warrant for the poor guy.
And if you’ve exhausted all legal means, and you most definitely are complaining about a real noise nuisance by any legal definition, and the powers that be refuse to do anything about it because they’re dominated by god-soaked idiots who believe they’re sharing something good (and chances are, don’t live within earshot of the nuisance themselves), I believe you are morally and ethically justified in correcting the situation yourself. (Albeit you’re breaking the law and would probably be arrested/charged if caught.)
Whoever “took the law into his own hands” by cutting those wires definitely wasn’t hurting anybody physically, wasn’t endangering anybody’s safety. He was merely squelching a public nuisance. I applaud him. And if the thing does get fixed, I hope it gets taken out again.
I doubt even the most staunch atheist would begrudge them playing the noise at burial and other ceremonies. But every fifteen minutes, all day every day??? Unacceptable.
IIRC PZ had previously said that complaints were made but nothing could be done.
I love a lot of those old hymn tunes (note: I don’t recall which ones were playing on the one occasion I visited Morris). When I was a Christian, I loved them even more.
But nothing spoils a favorite piece of music faster than hearing it played 1) by a sappy electronic source 2) over and over. I mean, I’m sure you could get to absolutely *loathe* even Bach if you did that enough.
Apparently, a certain kind of religion poisons both taste and common courtesy.
Damn. Make that: “I’m sure you could get me to absolutely *loathe* even Bach if you did that enough.
Reminds me of where I used to live, four-hundred yards from a church. Bell-ringing practice (I assume twas practice), twice a week, consisted of about an hour of ringing the changes; AKA a tuneless racket.
This is blatant privilege-flaunting behavior.
rogerfirth:
Y’know, I think you’ve gone on long enough in regard to justifying breaking the law, Roger. Give it a rest, please.*
*If you’re inclined to argue, remember that Morris is a small town, people know who PZ is, and they know about Pharyngula. Having people go on about breaking the law in this thread? It’s not helping.
I’d just like to say that A10’s have something much cooler than hellfire missiles – their main gun, firing 30mm cannon rounds at a rate of up to 4,200 per minute.
Amazing how he jumps to accuse an atheist. I would look at anyone who suffers from headaches or migraines. Anyone with small children who need to nap, or an elder who wants to nap. Someone with a sick member of the family or any member of the community who works anything but a day shift. A non-christian may find the constant hymns annoying, but a sleep deprived person would find it positively maddening. And someone who suffers from chronic headaches/migraines may well find it physically painful. I would say there are a LOT of reasons someone may have taken a hatchet to such a system. Most places where I’ve lived have a very sensible arrangement with the churches. Either chimes on the hour (with those chimes turned off in residential areas at night, left on in commercial or low residency areas) or chimes/tunes played at 9, noon, 3, 6 and midnight. And no close churches could be on the same schedule. Where I live now, in a very small town, we have a Protestant church downtown and a Catholic church on the East side. They rotate every 3 months, with exceptions for big Holy Days (like Easter, Xmas and the Catholic gets a waiver for the Feast of St. Joseph) It seems to work quite well. I have never heard of chimes being played at a funeral except at the end of the service as the casket is lowered.
I wonder, if they repair it, if someone can ‘hack’ it and play something a bit less religious but equally annoying. Kenny G, Muzak, something along those lines?
triamacleod:
Rats below, yes. I’ve had classic migraines since childhood. Absolute silence is a must when I’m trying to get through one.
I have sometimes wondered about the PZ’s hometown/village of Morris. Do his neighbours still say hello? Or is it not so bad after all?
So, having a professional interest in noise I checked the Morris website for their rules. They have adopted the Minnesota State noise standards, plus having some additional ordinances. For the similarly geeky…
The relevant standard for the affected residential area can be found here I believe. Basically it’s a 65/55 dB LA10 noise limit for day/night, where night is 2200-0700. This is to be measured outdoors at “the point of human activity…”. So for instance the boundary of the residential property or the façade of a University teaching building.
Frankly that is a high noise limit for such zones, certainly by European or Australasian standards.
In the Morris City Code the relevant bits seem to be…
So, there do seem to be mechanisms for dealing with this, but it would take the Council getting their act together, or possibly legal action (against the Council) to force them to do something.
tldr version: you would get away with doing this in my country.
I guess PZ is now The Happy Atheist.
I read PZ’s post again. Is it really true that they play the chimes every quarter hour, every day? I can see how an anotherwise peaceful person might start to fantasise about ground attack aircraft.
A carillon can be a lovely (or at least tolerable) instrument by the way. Once a week or so. And played by a human, not a machine.
PZ:
Reading Rob’s post @54 made me think that you might be able to get someone at the university to measure the noise levels. If they are too high, the university might be conviced to weigh in on the matter. Of course, because you are a smart person and it is annoying the hell out of you, I assume you have already tried this route.
Ekwhite (57), I noted in the Council minutes when they were discussing noise complaints about a grain elevator that the City had to borrow a sound level meter to take readings. Sounds like noise is not really top of mind for them. Sure, you don’t want your City to be as quiet as a, err, graveyard (ok maybe not the Morris one anyway) but exposure to high noise levels over long periods causes all sorts of low grade effects that people seldom recognise.
Not saying you were suggesting the City should be noisy BTW…
Is there a mosque in town? Pool your money to buy them some serious equipment. “Come here to joy, come here to prayer”… at sunrise, and then 4 more times every day.
Otherwise, be what threatens them and blare communist songs…
…oh, wait…
…no. Blare American patriotic songs at them. See how long it takes for them to hoist the white flag.
I was thinking Sousa marches. Stars & Stripes forever, every fifteen minutes.
Just got back from the Stand Up For Science protest at Parliament Hill, which is relevant to this thread because the first speaker was delayed 15 minutes by the daily noon carillon from the Peace Tower — played by a real human on real bells. Today’s programme was a medley of Beatles tunes.
Somehow I doubt Mr. Storck would allow his “carillon” to carry that repertoire.
I like the idea of finding the people with reason to complain about the “bongatron:” people who work shifts, have youngsters that need naps, need naps themselves, have sick headaches or chronic pain or insomnia, and so on, and presenting their requests.
A carillon running every fifteen minutes on a machine is pretty much appalling.
As Olav has it in #56, a carillon can be a perfectly lovely thing, in moderation. And the humans who play ’em have my respect. But the very nature of the things are: no matter how well tuned it is, it’s not the most consonant of instruments, even played artfully. They do wear you out, pretty quickly.
Seriously. I make no apologies for the language: this is the kind of thing you’d have to be a right fucker to do, running one of those things so frequently, and on a machine. Like so many profoundly obnoxious things people do, I expect they only get away with it because, well, Tradition. I mean, this is the sonic equivalent of setting off fireworks every fifteen minutes, pretty much. As fireworks, too, are nice things… in moderation. But it just doesn’t take too much to get to Too Much.
So the whole cutting of the wires thing, I’m thinking they must have more than a few suspects, if they’re working from motive…
And honestly, they should be grateful that’s all they got. In a just world, seems to me, the idiots responsible for such noise should be subjected to regular visits from large troupes of bagpipers, who might come swinging through their windows on rappelling lines, playing loudly, as they land, sometime around two am.