short notes:<br> will brady's ruminations: 2004/08/01

short notes:
will brady's ruminations

2004-08-07

POLITICS OF DECEIT
CHART SOURCE: Julius Civatus | click on the chart for a clearer read |

Bush Terror Alert Timeline by an amazing set of coincidences, I suppose, corresponds closely to whenever Dubya Inc is put under closer scrutiny | Julius Civatus writes in detail about the matter | Stuart Eugene Thiel has some interesting polling data related to all of this |
I am shocked shocked to hear that the use of terror alerts would be used in such a crass, craven and blatently political manner | Why, what else could they be doing that is dishonest? | Alright, maybe from me that's a rhetorical gesture, but you get my point | Go to the Julius'blog for the detail

THANKS TO Ron Gilbert for the link |

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WEBPAGE PROBLEMS

Cleartel seems to be experiencing technical problems this morning | That's where I have all the www.rondak.org files, and I link my images from this page to there | None of the images I've posted seem to be coming up | When I tried dialing into my account there's no reply | When I called tech support a pre-recorded message comes on that states, "We're receiving a much higher volume of calls than usual. Please stay on the line." | Anyway, I see no reason to spend a crisp, sunny Saturday morning [in GMZ+5; 41°N 72°W, at least] waiting for tech support to reply to my call only to have 'em tell me we're working on it | So... if you've come in part for the images, maybe try back later on and Cleartel will have resolved the problem |

Thanks ~ Will

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FAMOUS PEOPLE
all images except the pix of cartier-bresson are his own | portrait from reuters |

Henri Cartier-Bresson |
1908-2004 |

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2004-08-06

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Hiroshima | 6 August 1945 |
Some history: Lewis + Clark College's Hiroshima Archives; the A-BOMB Museum; Doug Long's Was Hiroshima Necessary? | Leo Szilard Online: Documents on the decision to use the atomic bomb | A personal Record of Survival | I tried to find Harrison Salisbury's and John Hersey's accounts but couldn't; the links from their names do make mention of their works | I'm not passing judgement on the whys and wherefores here | I wasn't even born yet | But we need to never forget it |

Related to the deaths in Hiroshima are the long denied and discredited, deaths of citizens in Utah/North America who died from radiation poisoning after all the A-Bomb tests in the desert | Thanks to Pax Nortona for that link |

PIX CREDITS [left] Global Geografia; [right] Bombardments | Acknowledgement: Thanks to Verbumlogos for reminding me |

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HISTORIC PRESERVATION
PIX CREDIT © 2004 | Jake Dobkin

This is not what many think warrant being saved | Which is too bad, actually | One problem that many [but not all] preservationists have is an attitude that tends to exult the architecturally pristine, that produced by [or with costs underwritten by] the upper classes, or places that would be "pretty" to the unthinking eye |
     Simply put, it then comes down to save the brownstones, colonial "villages, the Philip Johnson facades, but forget about vernacular architecture and the work of ordinary Joes | I think this is wrong |
     Society will always need functional, utilitarian buildings and areas, and I see no legitimate reason to always squirrel them away behind fake fronts or grassy knolls and plantings | ...not that fake fronts and grassy knolls are never warranted, mind you |
     Anyway, without the everyday hand-make structures, where would we get such vibrant and alive works such as shown at Blue Jake's or at Satan's Laudromat? | There are other such sites, these are just two that have come to my attention |

P.S. [full disclosure time] I serve as Chairman to my town's Historic District Commission

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FAMOUS PEOPLE ||

Norman Mailer Interview | The renowned irascable writer and street-wise philosopher Mailer gets interviewed by his son John Buffalo Mailer in New York Magazine |
Father to Son: What I've Learned About Rage
A conversation between a man of legendary fury and his son preparing to go to the barricades about the uses and abuses of Bush hatred |
A long thoughtful conversation about misuses of power, arrogance, "...that coven..." that rules us and the edge of dark days in which we live |

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LOCAL SCENE

Off Peak travel time | You can tell 'cuz there's no back-up of traffic at this point |

Middletown's Arrigoni Bridge, thanks to a double set of traffic lights [the first light is directly after the bridge] is usually the overhead of great traffic snarls when rush hour approaches, or on weekend beach travel days, or... well, most any occasion really | I don't mind | I always have something to read in the pick-up though on this day I didn't need it |
Those things reflected in the window include a small Brunton compass and Tom Brown's book, Tracker |

Although you can't see it, there's a great Italian restaurant just off the highway to the right of this point | Hard as all get out to reach, but still a good eatery | To the left, a little down the road, is the Come On Over sign that got it's 15 minutes of fame in the Billy Joel video River of Dreams |

COMMENT: Bruce stares over at the sign [admittedly blurry white patch mid-picture] while waiting for the trafic light | For a crisper version of the bridge picture, click here

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BUSH O'THE DAY

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

SOURCE: The Associated Press Published: Aug 5, 2004 Bush Insists His Administration Seeking 'new Ways to Harm Our Country' | WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush offered up a new entry for his catalog of "Bushisms" on Thursday, declaring that his administration will "never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people." | Bush misspoke as he delivered a speech at the signing ceremony for a $417 billion defense spending bill | No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted."

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CORPORATE CRIMINALS

WalMart and the Labor Pool | "Inadequate wages and benefits force workers at Wal-Mart stores in California to seek $86 million a year in state aid, according to a report released Monday by the UC Berkeley Labor Center." So opens an article by Abigail Goldman, LA Times Staff Writer, and featured on From the Trenches, a thoughtful blog about Working Class issues and concerns | Some excerpts:

"The public debate about whether Wal-Mart benefits or hurts local communities has grown considerably louder over the last few years, particularly in California, where some communities have opposed the company's expansion plans.
     "The report found that Wal-Mart's wages on average were 31% below those of the broader group of large retailers — $9.70 an hour versus $14.01 an hour.
     "And with less earning power, Wal-Mart workers rely more heavily on state resources, Dube and Jacobs found, costing the state $32 million in health-related expenses and $54 million in other assistance.
     "In Georgia, a state survey of the state's children's health insurance program found that Wal-Mart employees' families disproportionately relied on the program, accounting for more than 10,000 of the 166,000 children enrolled."

There's More...

Thanks to Dave's Current Events Monitor for citing it, and Mick Arran, site maintainer of both From The Trenches and Omnium

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2004-08-05

ANTI-UTOPIAS

Moon's Submarine Villages | John Gorenfeld unearthed a little ditty about Reverend Sun Myung Moon buying a slew of submarines for what...?
Long known as a consort and pal with members of the Bush Administration, he already gave a $3 million dollar "gift' to North Korea's communist dictator Kim Jong II [so as to gain a business foothold in that country] |
Ask what and why these submarines are for? Moon explains it as part of a vision for "undersea villages" | Katheryn Cramer summarized his vision succinctly:

Whoever reaches up to 500 membership will receive a mold of the Good Go boat in order that you can build your own boats in your country. Eventually there should be the entire 163 nations building boats. Then you can sell the boats and make money. Right now these boats are being built at a shipyard in Korea, but when the time comes you will be able to build your own boats and make money. In the near future there is a plan to build submarine villages. We will have submarines under the water with five or ten families living there together. Anytime you want to move from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean you simply sail there. This time is coming and we will do this.
     The people living on the land will observe that a particular submarine village submerged over a month before without surfacing and so they may all be dead. However, when we have submarine villages, we will have small holes in the wall where we can stick out our fishing rod whenever we need fish. Are you interested in this life? . . .
     The time is coming soon when there will be dozens of cruise size love boats and dozens of small submarines and helicopters. Then the love boat cruiser will drop off a group of people here and there around the world and they will spend a week in each place. Then as the boat comes around they can be picked up again and another group dropped off. This kind of sightseeing arrangement can be made. Isn't it exciting? Those who have enough money won't have to remain in one place. They can travel to the remote countryside of the world and do their work at the same time they are enjoying their lives. . . .
     When soccer teams have to travel to play matches, they don't necessarily have to fly. Rather, they can take the love boat on the way. The reason for the idea of submarine villages is because there are so many restrictions due to national boundaries worldwide. If you have a submarine you don't have to be bound in that way.

You don't have to believe this if you don't want to | But Moon, "the Father" himself wrote of this vision in more detail | The whole text is on the Unification Church website | My question is, where will the mass weddings be held?

THANKS TO Kathryn Cramer, John Gorenfeld and the Consortium | point2point also has a clip wondering whether or not North Korea plans to attack California with those subs |

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2004-08-04

DISTRACTIONS

Watch what your doing? | A Swiss portalet manufacturer has supplied the world with these ~ a public loo [image, left] that water closet exhibitionists who don't wish to get arrested for exposure can have their fun and remain modest at the same time | Who would have thunk it? | Meanwhile, on the outside [image, right], the casual passerby can check out his or her coiffure or attire while never suspecting the user inside may be up to some barely hidden case of no good | Or doing themselves good, whatever | For me, I suppose, this new urban innovation has me wondering what was the original idea behind it | Did the manufacture have an oversupply of one way mirror glass thay he neede to get rid of? | Not nearly as graceful as the discree oval wonders in Paris ~the ones with the "over 60 million satisifed customers served" stickers on the doors | Go figure |

UPDATE | 6 aug 04 || In a private e-mail "Hans I." asks: "I wonder what happens at night?????
Everyone knows one way glass only works when it's lighter outside and darker inside but at night they must have lights inside the washroom and then everyone can see in and you won't be able to see out."

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BLOGGING

Anybody out there? | For all I know, I'm writing to an audience of less than 10 | One occasionally reads the page the same time I'm working on it, though I can no more identify that person than I could some rare South American plant species | So, anyay, Who is looking at this | This inquiring mind wants to know | What do you like or dislike thus far? | Drop me a note | just cut-n-paste the addy in the proper slot > that's will.brady@gmail.com |
Appreciate the comments in advance |

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OUTER SPACE

Hubble Telescope earns its keep again! | This time the strange twisted cloud structures at the heart of the Lagoon Nebula (M8) | Images like this make me forever glad I subscribe to Universe Today and Space.com |
What we're seeing here, according to Universe Today is

...the central hot star, O Herschel 36 (shown here on left, red), is the primary source of the ionising radiation for the brightest region in the nebula, called the 'Hourglass'. Other hot stars, also present in the nebula, are ionising the outer visible parts of the nebulous material.
This ionising radiation heats up and 'evaporates' the surfaces of the clouds (seen as a blue 'mist' at the right of the image), and drives violent stellar winds which tear into the cool clouds |

for the whole story... | Of course, the saddest part, is that this image was captured almost 10 years ago; it's the wealth of data that it's collected that has kept us from seeing it until now | So far, the Hubble is still slated to cease operation in 2010 | We need some science-for-science-sake folks running the fiscal dog + pony show |

OTHER SOURCE MATERIAL The European Space Agency which has a bookmarked notation for the Hubble at http://www.esa.int/science/hubble

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2004-08-03

HIGH CRIMES + TREASON

Ashcroft Orders Law Books Destroyed | Why? | A scoop from The Agonist

Last week, the American Library Association learned that the Department of Justice asked the Government Printing Office Superintendent of Documents to instruct depository libraries to destroy five publications the Department has deemed not "appropriate for external use." The Department of Justice has called for these five public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.

There's More...

UPDATE DOJ rescinds order to destroy the law books | Says it was "an oversight" | Uh huh!

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2004-08-02

COMPUSORY EDUCATION

Rote learning makes good automatons | That's what I get from John Taylor Gatto's book Underground: A History of American Education | The book [online as a e-book, incidentally] posits that it wasn't the benighted educators like John Dewey who championed the USA's school system, but the Rockerfellers, the Carnegies, the Mellons and others from the Robber Baron era | Their purpose served them well |
Had this not such a strong ring of truth to it, I might dismiss it as paranoid thinking, and it is | But just because we're paranoid doesn't mean it isn't happening |
My question then, is, assuming the premise is a given, and now that we know about it, how do we turn it around? I sure don't want to rely on home-schooling and "religious" education centers now that I know that the teeming masses have been so throughly indoctrinated as to be, themselves, unlearned |

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WEBSURFING | Part 2

An abundance of riches kept me busy last night |
Here are some other worthy websites

• The psychology of cyberspace | From John Suler, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Rider University - [suler@mindspring.com] an e-tome that picks the brain [so to speak] of each of us using this medium |
• Martus | Monitoring Human Rights abuses around the world | Funded by the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation |
• The American Street | Extensive political/economics oriented weblog apparently started by "Cowboy Khalil" and written by a host of others |

• Path to Freedom | Urban Homesteading | Site Blurb: "...Our objective is to live harmoniously and sustainably as possible in the midst of the city. On our urban homestead project incorporates many back-to-basic practices, permaculture methods, and appropriate technologies for our present circumstances..."
• Ephermera Now | Lush with illustrations depicting that fantasy 50's Dick and Jane Primer world | lots of jpeg files | If you are on dial-up takes time to download the internal pages |

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2004-08-01

WEBSURFING

Some little gems
found while roaming about this evening |

• Ben Ostrowsky's Sylvar | "People, Favorites, Images, Data, Blogs" | Perhaps one of the most enlightening pages on the site Webcraft offering sound, no nonsense advice on composing a well-made webpage | Since I use so many images so casually, this site probably doesn't fit the bill |
• Memepool's Humor Page | I've been here before, just keep forgetting to give it proper notice |
• Declan McCullagh's Politechbot | Actually, I've known this site for quite some time | "...chronicling the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics..." | One of the best sources of info on corporate and government cyber-snooping, Congressional follies and the Internet, absurdities and serious incursions into individual lives | McCullagh is also quite an accomplished photographer |

• RPI's Earth + Environmental Sciences Department | Actually, came across this via a back door of images on the website | Geology being my second training [geomorphology to be more specific] it ought be no surprise I love a good earth studies lab |
• Superbad | A website kaladiscope | offbeat visual tidbits | Keep on clicking if you've a lot of time on your hands |
• Malathar; The Little West Texas Dragon | Cute dragon sketches and a quirky improbably story about the birth of an ISP's mascot |

pix credit: Lake Vostok | Michael Studinger/ National Science Foundation --^

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OUTSOURCING

"Everyday Low Prices"; plus... low quality of life, too? |
Okay | Full disclosure time | I have shopped at Wal-Mart; probably will do so again in the future | Don't feel guilty about it, yet... at the same time, I recognize the company for being the exploitive, bad citizen in the community that it often is accused of | Many have written about WalMart in this context including Margot Ford McMillan* | But WalMart is one of many, and the cheap prices they offer do not deter even those who have been stripped of higher wage jobs, from shopping with the retail beheomoth |

They aren't the only corporate titan selling out the folks who live down the street | And Outsourcing [or Offshoring] of the USA workforce is not going to stop tomorrow |
     What I'm getting at is that WalMart shouldn't be taking all the heat | This Week's [2004/08/02] New Yorker Magazine [print edition only, regrettably] has a thought provoking piece by John Cassidy entitled Winners and Losers, which looks at the down and upsides [yes, there may be some upsides in this] to companies shuttling their production off the continent | The "upside" isn't one likely to benefit the guy in Peoria who lost his job to a Bangeladesh programmer, but to lead, perhaps, to a more equitable distribution of wealth across the planet |
     Where does that leave the now cash-strapped and out of work Heartlands job hunter? | S-O-L, perhaps | for the short run at any rate |
     What seems to go unanalyzed here is the whole question about distribution of wealth locally, within the nation that is | The analysis that is called for needs to look at the gross disparities of wealth [See Billmon's 22 july 04 entry on Minimum Wage as well as his Building a Bridge to the 19th Century ] and you'll get a sense of what I'm getting at | Call it

"communist" if you will, but you'd be incorrect, but the implication here is that many among the rich, have ~for far too long~ been running on "Spiritual Empty" and feeding at the public trough | They now have to begin to redistribute that booty of dispropotinatly allotted gains, and share it more equitably with those who help create those profit margins for them | Mind you, I'm not against people being wealthy, but that the distribution of wealth needs to be based more upon the burden of the workload taken on while gaining it | And ideas-traders, often placed at the top of the rewards heap, only play one part of the total package of wealth manufacture | The large mass at the bottom helped create it |
As for the corporate criminals like Kenneth Lay, well, hell, ENRON never actually had a product anyway | They traded on futures of oil and other energy sales spike | They were gamblers who took the pot before the game was over | They didn't win, they looted the treasury | That's right, take the wealth from those suckers | Treat them like drug trafficers | Interdiction seems at the very least more kind than the guillotine |
Responsible opposing viewpoints will be heard | More later |

OTHER ARTICLES: *in the PROGRESSIVE POPULIST Low Priced Bandit | The Economist: Offshoring

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