short notes:
will brady's ruminations
will brady's ruminations
2004-08-21
WAR PROTESTS
John Singer Sargent is better known for his society portraits and domestic scene depictions | So it was a surprise to see the image posted here, "Gassed" while conducting a random roam through a website featuring his work
For a couple of other good Sargent sites, check out CGFA's site and the Met's site of a Sargent exhibition | He has also done more than the yeoman's share of work involving nudes, but that's for a more mature audience | Look around the site and you'll find them |
John Singer Sargent is better known for his society portraits and domestic scene depictions | So it was a surprise to see the image posted here, "Gassed" while conducting a random roam through a website featuring his work
For a couple of other good Sargent sites, check out CGFA's site and the Met's site of a Sargent exhibition | He has also done more than the yeoman's share of work involving nudes, but that's for a more mature audience | Look around the site and you'll find them |
¶ 18:20 0 comments
WEBSITE ACCESS
No pictures today No access to rondak.org pages, no access to rondak's e-mail either | Cleartel is down and up and again today | Again, as usual, no explaination before or after | Given that they are in Florida, certainly some of their problems could be an aftermath of the storm | But for a corporation that is aggressively seeking business in other states and elsewhere [only two such examples], and on Monster.com is actively seeking tech support staff you would think they'd have a back up plan | At the very least, maybe someone at Clearel could provide some clarity on the website so when it is actually up and running, people would know that they are having some problems, and that they are dealing with them | No info at all make me wonder |
Frustrating, isn't it |
¶ 10:49 0 comments
Frustrating, isn't it |
¶ 10:49 0 comments
2004-08-20
ATTACK OF THE CHICKEN HAWKS
Swift Boaters for Nixon's Dirty Tricks could just as easily be the name of the so-called "Truth" group currently castigating Candidate Kerry | The New Hampshire Gazette, way back on 30 July 04, was helpful enough to provide a history of extremist firebrand John O'Neill, who has been in the forefront of this particular attack |
Seems we're way past time of following another pice of practical advice from the Nixon/Watergate era | Follow the money to find out the source of the evil | Go to New Hampshire Gazette's site for the entire editorial from that date |
¶ 23:59 0 comments
Swift Boaters for Nixon's Dirty Tricks could just as easily be the name of the so-called "Truth" group currently castigating Candidate Kerry | The New Hampshire Gazette, way back on 30 July 04, was helpful enough to provide a history of extremist firebrand John O'Neill, who has been in the forefront of this particular attack |
Seems we're way past time of following another pice of practical advice from the Nixon/Watergate era | Follow the money to find out the source of the evil | Go to New Hampshire Gazette's site for the entire editorial from that date |
¶ 23:59 0 comments
2004-08-19
NEWS BLIPS
Using Food as Fodder for Social Control | A lengthy analysis from the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project: "Food is ...an international weapon while multi-lateral trade agreements ...and multinational bodies like the World Trade Organization [WTO] have become simple policy and governing instruments [for]... corporations can implement their “economic imperialist” agenda"
Click here for full text of the essay Merchants of Greed
Corporate Governance | The Royal Institute for International Affairs plans, in November, to focus on the problems and ethics behind recent corporate scandals and inherent in land-based nations imposing regulatory oversight on corpornations | Raising the question "can we be sure that the new regulatory framework will prevent future corporate scandals without unnecessarily constraining companies and investors?" seems but part of the issue |
Click here for info about this conference
Mandatory DNA Testing | The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday on US v. KINCADE that the Fourth Amendment permits compulsory DNA profiling of certain conditionally-released federal offenders even in the absence of individualized suspicion that they have committed additional crimes.
Click here for the ruling [pdf file]
Gay Marriages in California | The California Supreme Court repeatedly and explicitly steered well clear of expressing any views on the "ultimate" question in the California gay marriage controversy -- whether the statutes that define marriage as only between a man and a woman are consistent with California's constitution.
Click here for a Find Law analyst's read on the ruling
¶ 08:55 0 comments
Using Food as Fodder for Social Control | A lengthy analysis from the Corporate Agribusiness Research Project: "Food is ...an international weapon while multi-lateral trade agreements ...and multinational bodies like the World Trade Organization [WTO] have become simple policy and governing instruments [for]... corporations can implement their “economic imperialist” agenda"
Click here for full text of the essay Merchants of Greed
Corporate Governance | The Royal Institute for International Affairs plans, in November, to focus on the problems and ethics behind recent corporate scandals and inherent in land-based nations imposing regulatory oversight on corpornations | Raising the question "can we be sure that the new regulatory framework will prevent future corporate scandals without unnecessarily constraining companies and investors?" seems but part of the issue |
Click here for info about this conference
Mandatory DNA Testing | The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday on US v. KINCADE that the Fourth Amendment permits compulsory DNA profiling of certain conditionally-released federal offenders even in the absence of individualized suspicion that they have committed additional crimes.
Click here for the ruling [pdf file]
Gay Marriages in California | The California Supreme Court repeatedly and explicitly steered well clear of expressing any views on the "ultimate" question in the California gay marriage controversy -- whether the statutes that define marriage as only between a man and a woman are consistent with California's constitution.
Click here for a Find Law analyst's read on the ruling
¶ 08:55 0 comments
2004-08-18
OLYMPICS 4
PIX CREDIT: © 2004 | REUTERS/Kimimasa Mayama
| Romania's Marian Dragulescu
PIX CREDIT: © 2004 | REUTERS/Kimimasa Mayama
| Romania's Marian Dragulescu
¶ 00:07 0 comments
2004-08-17
CRIMINAL INJUSTICES
"Pay for Play" is more commonly a phrase bandied about when talking about crooked politicians who accept "gifts" from equally corrupt contractors and lobbists | Generally, it's accepted parlance for the idea that if you want to get in on the action at the state level, then you are expected to pay to participate |
Now, however, an old wine is being sold in a new bottle, this time, with the "player" paying after the fact | Namely, once he's gone to prison - having been caught | Now, as highlighted in an article in Don Diva the the tune is "Pay to Stay" | Not that an inmate has any choice in the matter |
Personally, I'm kind of interested in the social dynamics of this idea | Are we going back to the mean old days of debtors prisons? |
After all, with the educational attainments in the prison population well below the national average, and with prison work programs more along the Corrections Corporation of America model, just when and where is it likely that inmates will acquire the skills to pay that debt back? | Endentured servanthood? | Or maybe the Chinese prison slave labor model | Either could be likely from the corporate profit angle
Which brings to midn another question, or a set of them | Is someone the likes of Benjamin Sisti or the Rigas family going to have to pony up these fees? | The cynic in me doubts it |
¶ 23:21 0 comments
"Pay for Play" is more commonly a phrase bandied about when talking about crooked politicians who accept "gifts" from equally corrupt contractors and lobbists | Generally, it's accepted parlance for the idea that if you want to get in on the action at the state level, then you are expected to pay to participate |
Now, however, an old wine is being sold in a new bottle, this time, with the "player" paying after the fact | Namely, once he's gone to prison - having been caught | Now, as highlighted in an article in Don Diva the the tune is "Pay to Stay" | Not that an inmate has any choice in the matter |
Personally, I'm kind of interested in the social dynamics of this idea | Are we going back to the mean old days of debtors prisons? |
After all, with the educational attainments in the prison population well below the national average, and with prison work programs more along the Corrections Corporation of America model, just when and where is it likely that inmates will acquire the skills to pay that debt back? | Endentured servanthood? | Or maybe the Chinese prison slave labor model | Either could be likely from the corporate profit angle
Which brings to midn another question, or a set of them | Is someone the likes of Benjamin Sisti or the Rigas family going to have to pony up these fees? | The cynic in me doubts it |
OTHER LINKS: Don Diva, promoting itself as "The original Street Bible" | The main page to Correction Corporation | NOTE: Ben Sisti, along with Jonothan Googel and Frank Shuch, working under the aegis of Colonial Realty [in Connecticut] were involved in multi-billion dollar pyramid scam that eventually collapsed | Sisti and Googel went to prison; Shuch allegedly committed suicide | Sisti still owns a multi-million dollar gated village housing unit in Florida | Oh yes, their accounting firm? Arthur Anderson |
¶ 23:21 0 comments
OLYMPICS 3
PIX CREDITS [l] © 2004 - OutSports [r] © 2004 - Yahoo News
Camaradarie | From these pictures, the Hungarian swim team was the most effusive |
That is the spirit of the Games | Or at least it is as one would hope | I was disappointed to hear of the Iranian Judo champion who refused to comptete with an Israeli competitor, over the Pasletinian issue | But at least we don't have the tensions as there were in Munich 1972 | It's also encouraging to see men be intimate, without being also purile, in such a public way | Americans could learn a lot more than just good sportsmanship here | ¶ 21:23 0 comments
PIX CREDITS [l] © 2004 - OutSports [r] © 2004 - Yahoo News
Camaradarie | From these pictures, the Hungarian swim team was the most effusive |
That is the spirit of the Games | Or at least it is as one would hope | I was disappointed to hear of the Iranian Judo champion who refused to comptete with an Israeli competitor, over the Pasletinian issue | But at least we don't have the tensions as there were in Munich 1972 | It's also encouraging to see men be intimate, without being also purile, in such a public way | Americans could learn a lot more than just good sportsmanship here | ¶ 21:23 0 comments
INTERIORS
Ralph's china cabinet |
Dark, but look about
and let me know what you see |
<-- a little more detail
Ralph's china cabinet |
Dark, but look about
and let me know what you see |
<-- a little more detail
¶ 09:38 0 comments
LOCAL SCENE || OPEN SPACES
Nothing much to say | Beautiful late afternoon skies as the rain clouds sauntered away north from us |
Nothing much to say | Beautiful late afternoon skies as the rain clouds sauntered away north from us |
¶ 09:19 0 comments
2004-08-16
HOME LIFE
Breakfast is served! |
Doesn't matter what time of day it is, these characters insist on us following their schedule |
I suppos this renders me into one of the internet hoi polloi | Showing the pets | In fact, they aren't just pets | They perform vital functions such as alerting us to unusual noises, capturing, maiming and partly eating mice, moles, large insects and birds |
Virtually every one of them moved in on us | "Red" was rescued from dumpster diving from behind Bruce's workplace, partly feral, still freaked out if we try to touch him | The little black cat ["slim"] started crying ouside the bedroom window one rainy night | "Poco" arived, pregnant on our doorstep barely out of kittenhood herself, dropped off by her worthless trash tomcat husband | Finally "Jake," the current genial alpha male, left for dead up the road and called in to us by a neighbor; he's doing just fine |
Breakfast is served! |
Doesn't matter what time of day it is, these characters insist on us following their schedule |
I suppos this renders me into one of the internet hoi polloi | Showing the pets | In fact, they aren't just pets | They perform vital functions such as alerting us to unusual noises, capturing, maiming and partly eating mice, moles, large insects and birds |
Virtually every one of them moved in on us | "Red" was rescued from dumpster diving from behind Bruce's workplace, partly feral, still freaked out if we try to touch him | The little black cat ["slim"] started crying ouside the bedroom window one rainy night | "Poco" arived, pregnant on our doorstep barely out of kittenhood herself, dropped off by her worthless trash tomcat husband | Finally "Jake," the current genial alpha male, left for dead up the road and called in to us by a neighbor; he's doing just fine |
¶ 09:20 0 comments
2004-08-15
MAPPING || RESOURCES
USGS stops offering photo maps | Right from the website:
USGS stops offering photo maps | Right from the website:
No orders for photographic products will be accepted after September 3rd, 2004; however, all photographic orders received prior to that cut-off date will be filled.
The USGS/EDC will, however, begin offering two new digital products. One of the new digital products is a high-resolution, digitally scanned product, which will be made available upon request starting in July 2004. This digital product is created at approximately 1200 dpi with an output file size of approximately 120 megabytes from a black and white photograph and 360 megabytes from a color photograph and provided in a TIFF format. The cost for this product will be $24 for cleaning and scanning each frame plus the standard media generation costs of, $45/CD, $60/DVD or $30/file if ftp'd.
A second digital product is a medium-resolution digitized product and will be available on-line as the rolls of film are digitized beginning in October 2004. This medium-resolution digital product is created at approximately 600 dpi with an output file size of approximately 15 megabytes from a black and white photograph and 45 megabytes from a color photograph and will also be provided in a TIFF format. The cost for this product will be $1 per file access fee along with the media generation costs of $30/file if ftp'd, $45/CD, or $60/DVD.
Samples of both the high-resolution and medium-resolution digital products for two frames of photography over an area of New York City acquired in 1966 at a scale of 1:24,000 are available to FTP from the following location:
http://edc.usgs.gov/phoenix_iv/new_york
¶ 23:59 0 comments
OLYMPICS - Part 2
CNBC's talking heads squawked yesterday about the dearth of occupied seats in the gymnast's sessions | What seemed lost on them was that the "cheap seats" were packed | I'd venture to guess that, just as it was years back when I worked at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, the greed factor overrode the pragmatic planning aspects | As with most extravaganzas, event planners spend far too much time currying favor from the privileged, not enough time realizing that the bills 
have to be paid | Next time, have available seating go cheaper | Takes more effort to get to the top dollar figure but, it may work | Anyway, I guess I can't get away from the social justice angle, even when relaxing |
Here's a couple more pix from the tv screen last night during the cyclist competitions | The left side has them coming in en masse to the finish | The one on the right, is, I'll admit, pretty fuzzy | But it's the only shot I got of the Acropolis besides the one from yesterday's entries | I could be disingenious and say it was on purpose, to capture the sense of speed, but that's not it at all | I liked the color texture though |
¶ 21:37 0 comments
CNBC's talking heads squawked yesterday about the dearth of occupied seats in the gymnast's sessions | What seemed lost on them was that the "cheap seats" were packed | I'd venture to guess that, just as it was years back when I worked at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, the greed factor overrode the pragmatic planning aspects | As with most extravaganzas, event planners spend far too much time currying favor from the privileged, not enough time realizing that the bills have to be paid | Next time, have available seating go cheaper | Takes more effort to get to the top dollar figure but, it may work | Anyway, I guess I can't get away from the social justice angle, even when relaxing |
Here's a couple more pix from the tv screen last night during the cyclist competitions | The left side has them coming in en masse to the finish | The one on the right, is, I'll admit, pretty fuzzy | But it's the only shot I got of the Acropolis besides the one from yesterday's entries | I could be disingenious and say it was on purpose, to capture the sense of speed, but that's not it at all | I liked the color texture though |
Little know facts: A more sombre aspect of the Olympics is the fact that 13 workers died while the Olympics venues were constructed in Athens | According to a Yahoo/Asia news release: "Deaths at construction sites have spurred a small but vocal anti-Olympics movement in Athens, adding to anger over massive security measures and commercialism surrounding the world's biggest sporting event | "People won't forget their problems, no matter how big the party is and how many fireworks are used during the opening ceremony," protest organizer Giorgos Mavrikos said | Construction crews raced round the clock this year to finish off seriously delayed Olympic venues and infrastructure projects, pushing up the Olympic budget to more than US$7 billion and compromising worker safety, according to protest and human rights groups | Amnesty International, the human rights watchdog, said the Olympic death toll could be as high as 40 workers" |
¶ 21:37 0 comments
SUMMER FEAST
Julia Child might not approve, though Jan and Michael Stern would | But as we sat waiting for the Olympics events to air last night, we feasted on what you see here; burgers, fresh tomatoes and [not visible] corn on the cob | It was a small feast for Bruce's brother Tom, and we finished off the rest of a birthday cake that lyingly read "no carbs" on the top |
¶ 21:14 0 comments
Julia Child might not approve, though Jan and Michael Stern would | But as we sat waiting for the Olympics events to air last night, we feasted on what you see here; burgers, fresh tomatoes and [not visible] corn on the cob | It was a small feast for Bruce's brother Tom, and we finished off the rest of a birthday cake that lyingly read "no carbs" on the top | ¶ 21:14 0 comments
SITE UPDATES
rondak.org has been left untended for too long | Slowly, I'm making necessary updates | Starting from this page [yeah, it's actually on a host website, I know] I've updated the diary/blog archives page indicies [page 1 - pre 2001; page 2 - 2002 and page 3 - 2003-04]
I've begun a completely new links page | Expect it shall be a few pages long before all is said and done, and plan on getting rid of old megalinks pages put up before | Though I'm not certain about the way I've started doing the "subject archives" ~ seems too cumbersome and unweildy | Anybody have suggestions on mnaging that?
I anticipate that my own art pages and the mental health pages shall get the next attention | To this end, Madbook is finally begun again, though to be honest, at first this specialized diary will only have entries you've already seen here |
Come October, I hope to have some of the hunting pages updated as well
¶ 20:25 0 comments
rondak.org has been left untended for too long | Slowly, I'm making necessary updates | Starting from this page [yeah, it's actually on a host website, I know] I've updated the diary/blog archives page indicies [page 1 - pre 2001; page 2 - 2002 and page 3 - 2003-04]
I've begun a completely new links page | Expect it shall be a few pages long before all is said and done, and plan on getting rid of old megalinks pages put up before | Though I'm not certain about the way I've started doing the "subject archives" ~ seems too cumbersome and unweildy | Anybody have suggestions on mnaging that?
I anticipate that my own art pages and the mental health pages shall get the next attention | To this end, Madbook is finally begun again, though to be honest, at first this specialized diary will only have entries you've already seen here |
Come October, I hope to have some of the hunting pages updated as well
¶ 20:25 0 comments
WHAT FAMOUS LEADER ARE YOU?
Honored, but I'd rather someone else went to see the play |
What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com
What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com
THANKS TO Pax Nortona for passing this along |
¶ 17:36 0 comments
OLYMPICS IN ATHENS
Michael Phelps [not pictured here] took his first gold medal last night as we watched on Lynn's wide screen tv in her summer rental cottage | But it wasn't the swimmers and divers that caught my attention, so much as it was the spectacle of the distance cyclers |
In this respect, the media's tendency to have a camera virtually everywhere made the race exciting because it was so easy to watch | Shot amid, among, in front of and overhead by helicopter, you
could see the detail in breath taking swiftness |
As you can also see, I also caught sight of some of the gymnastics exercises |
Midway into the viewing I decided to experiment with the camera and do shots off the screen | I later thought I'll need to do this with a tripod to control some of the blur | There were a lot more pics that I snapped, just have to run 'em through Photoshop and reduce their file size |
Michael Phelps [not pictured here] took his first gold medal last night as we watched on Lynn's wide screen tv in her summer rental cottage | But it wasn't the swimmers and divers that caught my attention, so much as it was the spectacle of the distance cyclers |
In this respect, the media's tendency to have a camera virtually everywhere made the race exciting because it was so easy to watch | Shot amid, among, in front of and overhead by helicopter, you
could see the detail in breath taking swiftness |
As you can also see, I also caught sight of some of the gymnastics exercises |
Midway into the viewing I decided to experiment with the camera and do shots off the screen | I later thought I'll need to do this with a tripod to control some of the blur | There were a lot more pics that I snapped, just have to run 'em through Photoshop and reduce their file size |
FOR MORE OLYMPICS COVERAGE: These are "rated" according to how long it took to download the main page at 49kbs: CBC was quickest || Canadian Broadcasting's coverage | BBC's schedule of events and coverage | Then there's the gay men's perspective that women might like OutSorts Olympics Coverage | ESPN's Olympic Moments + Trivia | CNBC's coverage |
¶ 11:17 0 comments
DARK WHIMSEY
¶ 02:18 0 comments
Pat Robertson
Circle I Limbo
John Wayne Gacy
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind
Kenneth Lay
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow
Richard Mellon Scaife
Circle IV Rolling Weights
George Bush
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled
River Styx
Jesse Helms
Circle VI Buried for Eternity
River Phlegyas
Roy Cohn
Circle VII Burning Sands
Rupert Murdoch
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement
Donald Ewen Cameron
Circle IX Frozen in Ice
