short notes:<br> will brady's ruminations: 2004/11/07

short notes:
will brady's ruminations

2004-11-13

GOOD NIGHT

WEBSITES

Checking in on old saved bookmarks
and I find that there's a few still alive and kicking |

• H Kent Craig | Stumbled across this guy's site years ago when I was still using the old Prodigy dial up service | He used to have an extensive HVAC info collection and wrote in a sometimes hilarious recount | I find that he still does | Now with a blog, scroll down and get to the personal pages if ~for no other reason~ to find out where good BBQ can be found in North Carolina |
• Richard Rongstad | Providing his readers with an extensive list of military related links, and one of the most diligently saved collection of letters to the editor I can think of | he says of himself:

"A man once told me; "You're dangerous". He tried not to sound too whiny, and he failed to conceal his dread with his snide attitude. What he was really trying to do was tag me as a loose cannon. I was happy. That meant I got to him. I knew then I had him back on his heels. They always squeal when you make 'em nervous, or you've got 'em in a vise. ...I didn't answer him. I guess what I could have said was; "Thanks. If you're not dangerous, you're not a threat to your enemies and no good to your friends." Or, I could have said, "Aw, shucks.""

• Richard Gosden's essay Shrinking the Freedom of Thought | The subject discussed is "How Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Violates Basic Human Rights" particularly timely with the Sally Satel/Fuller Torrey push to get all Americans "assessed" for mental illness | Goes beyond the USA in implication | Saved by a Nowegian guy named Lundz, who has kept the piece online even after other sites went by the wayside | [ NOTE: So as not to lose this important essay, here's a new mirror site for the work ]
• Project for the Old American Century | a non-profit grass-roots organization that strives to protect and strengthen our democracy through disseminating truthful and unbiased independent news stories untainted by corporate ownership | Develoepd as a counterweight to the Poderhitz / Wolfowitz / Rumsfeldian conspiracy to subvert human rights initatives, egalitarian values and a free nation |
• Joel Pelletier's painting American Fundamentalists | Based on James Ensor's painting [1888] Christ's Entry into Brussels, 1889, his work is sure to stir the emotions, one way or another |

¶ 23:32 0 comments

HOMELESS PEOPLE

Moyra Peralta documents the lives of people without domiciles in the book
Nearly Invisible

‘This is how we live. This is our everyday life. We don’t see it as something squalid, to be hidden - it’s perfectly normal to us.’ - (Mark, Holborn, 1997)

As I write this, I'm on the phone with someone who is telling me about extremists who are prodding the Bush administration to push his "Christian agenda" | While he's at it, let us not forget that the wealthy have less chance of entering heaven than a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle | Every single soul who lacks the chance to have decent food, medical attention, and ~ adquate housing ~ stands as testimony of the failures of the so-call Christian agenda of the rich

Get the Book: Nearly Invisible

¶ 11:42 0 comments

SEASONS CHANGE

Had to come sooner or later

But I wasn't expecting snow two weeks before Thanksgiving | I still have wood to split! This photo was taken around 1000 hours [GMT zone 5] and already the snow is gone from the red maple, and the grass below it is once again green | That is, the part of the lawn that isn't now covered with fallen leaves |

¶ 11:31 0 comments

2004-11-11

RED VERSUS BLUE

here's how Americans really voted |
Cartographers Michael Gastner, Cosma Shalizi, and Mark Newman at the University of Michigan devised a map that shows how we voted by gradation, rather than by gross colorations based only on which side got more than 50% | Thus showing that the pure reds are considerably fewer in representation than the mainstream media would have us believe | They have an interesting website ~ Maps and Cartograms of the 2004 election ~ describing the detail to this projection |
Now, an entirely different way of looking at this would be as Wonkette described a mostly purple nation, "God! our country looks gay!"

¶ 23:59 0 comments

I'M A RADIOACTIVE...

...that's what I am, or what I could be if one of these babies capsized or had the straps holding their cargo come loose | That's right, each of the containers on the flatbed trucks that drove ahead of me down CT State road # 149 was carrying nuclear [New Que Lure] waste from the decommissioned Yankee Nuclear plant in Haddam Neck | It's a winding two lane road, folks | One that meanders uphill and down through tiny hamlets and rolling farmland |
Thankfully, the drivers were not in a hurry | I saw no reason to be either | The trucks are from Maine | I don't know where they were headed, but it was away from the Interstate |

About Decommissioning Connecticut Yankee: NRC's FAQ on Decommissioning Reactors | Why CT Yankee dumped Bechtel "...due to Bechtel's history of incomplete and untimely performance and refusal to perform remaining decommissioning work." | Atty General Blumenthal says "What we have here is a nuclear management nightmare of Northeast Utilities' own making" || Sites that talk about readioactive decontamination: Decontamination procedure at an A-bomb testing ground | University of Reading | UK: Decontamination procedures | InstaCote's Decontamination Stripper |

¶ 22:46 0 comments

VETERANS' DAY

click on the images on the right to see the complete picture and the full size of the essay |

When it is ended, it matters little who keeps the body count | The dead do not return |
It really does not matter what the present conflagration, be it Verdun, Little Big Horn, the Mekong Delta or Fajullah; the outcome is the same | Death wins

| Those who survive the battles, have to figure out how to deal with what they experienced singularly |
     Some do this better than others | Sloan Wilson's protagonist in the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Tom Rath, copes with living with first hand memories of atrocities by, essentially, forgetting about them |
     Others, including many American soldiers who went to Vietnam, remain tormented by private, psychic demons even today | What is occurring even as we speak, in Fajullah, even the entire Middle East, shall, for the survivors, result in similar discontinuities in acceptance and denial |
     And whether or not the souls departed, or damaged, went to fight to "Good War" or to wrest precious resources from others so a handful of greed mongers live richly is secondary, for the moment, to the fact that people died | People suffered, and suffer the rest of their lives | And in both instances, their efforts, even if not fully understood what role each played in the large scheme of things, were valiant |
     So today, we pay homage to the veterans | Rest easy soldiers | Your efforts do not go unappreciated |

¶ 21:00 0 comments

SOME SMART COOKIES

People with questionable decision-making skills |
     While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because, he explained, he didn't want the sun waking him up every morning. She asked, "Does the sun rise in the north?"
     When another person jumped in and explained that the sun rises in the east (and has for some time), she shook her head and said, "Oh, I don't keep up with that stuff."
===============
     I used to work in technical support for a 24x7 call center. One day I got a call from an InDUHvidual who asked what hours the call center was open. I told him, "The number you dialed is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week." He responded, "Is that Eastern or Pacific time?" Wanting to end the call quickly, I said, "Pacific.."
============
     So my colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria when we overheard one of the administrative assistants talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the shore. She drove down in a convertible, but "didn't think she'd get sunburned because the car was moving."
================
     I was in a high school advanced physics class and the teacher was talking about a new military weapon that uses sonic waves on the battlefield to burst enemy soldier's chests. One InDUHvidual in the class spoke up and said, "Well that's stupid! Why don't they just wear headphones?"
=============
     My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car. It's designed to cut through a seatbelt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the trunk.
=================
     My friends and I were on a beer run and noticed that the cases were discounted 10%. Since it was a big party, we bought two cases. The cashier multiplied two times 10% and gave us a 20% discount.
===============
     I couldn't find my luggage at the airport baggage area. So I went to the lost luggage office and told the woman there that my bags never showed up. She smiled and told me not to worry because they were trained professionals and I was in good hands. "Now," she asked me, "has your plane arrived yet?"
===============
My question: Do these people vote?

Thanks to: Ozzie Dangler

¶ 08:42 0 comments

2004-11-10

AFTERNOON REVERIES

Around Middletown

¶ 08:16 0 comments

2004-11-09

HOW THE VOTE REALLY WENT
NOTE to IE Users | You might have to scroll down the screen to see the image |

Proportionally, the size of the "red nation" is smaller than the physical size it takes up on the continent | Maybe this will be a comfort to some |
And I have a question, one that's nagged me all election season with the "Red State"/"Blue State" stuff | Hasn't anyone considered it the least bit ironic that the political party most closely identified with routing out commies in the 1950s is now firmly linked in the public minds as the REDS? | Isn't it about time for a little "RED baiting"?, albeit slightly redefined | Just wondering |

THANKS TO: Ron's Log, who in turn, pointed me to Essays & Effluvia

¶ 10:29 0 comments

BACK TO WORK

There's a pile of things to do after being out two weeks | Some people said they'd "...wait until Will gets back..." rather than talk with the staff who covered in my absence | That's a mixed blessing, to be sure |
     Yesterday, the tiny space I use as an office [and that also serves as the storage area for our program's records] was in even greater disarray than how I'd keep it |
     Here's what I missed:
        • A visit from CMMS [that's the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who wanted to know the details about why a person in the Addictions Services was able to commit suicide while at the facility | While here, they took the chance to peek about at other aspects of how the place is running | Administration was more tight-lipped than usual about the "exit interview" after being here a full week |
        • A Freedom of Information request seeking documentation of all grievances received since 2001 that complained about doctors, the treatment they provided or other aspects of how they interacted with patients |
     My co-workers told be they were glad to have me back | I told them I was happy to see them |

¶ 09:15 0 comments

2004-11-07

WEBSITE MAINTENANCE

New Web Links Page Unveiled | It's taken a long time to do this, and I knew it needed to be done, because my old links pages have become totally unmanagable | It's actually been available with the link from the right side of this page for about fopur days now | I just never made it official |
     The structure is simple | Find the subject of interest, click on the appropriate letter, and you'll find links on a particular topic |
     Those items listed reflect my own interests and specific sites I've found while searching different topics | I welcome suggestions but don't ask me to do research on subjects not already listed |
     You'll find some pages have not been completed | Likewise certain topic heads haven't been filled in yet | I'm still transferring things | Since I had the past week off from work, the process has gone along at a nice pace | This will slow down come Monday [tomorrow]
     I want to mention a couple of other sites that drew my attention during this process | First and foremost, Innvista a site developed by a family of four in their free time, sharing links and resources as they learn them | Additionally, the web presence of About, Wikipedia and Questia for their easy to navigate reference sites |
     That said, here's my new Web Links Page | Let me know what you think |

¶ 22:36 0 comments

NEWS BLIPS

Counterpunch speculates on Life Without Arafat | If Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's illness and unexpected departure to France represents the end of an era... it is because the absence of Arafat, even as a living symbol, is a matter of great consequence. But we must not indulge in misrepresenting the Palestinian struggle by reducing it to the legacy of one man.
Arafat -- whether deliberately or not -- managed to associate himself with every hardship faced by Palestinians over the decades. From his early years as a student activist in Cairo, in 1949, to the momentous formation of the Fatah movement in 1965, Arafat was always present | His legacy is one of undiluted symbolism -- a symbolism at once substantial and meaningful | THE FULL STORY |

State of Emergency declared in Iraq | BAGHDAD, Iraq — The government declared a 60-day state of emergency throughout most of the country Sunday, as U.S. and Iraqi forces prepared for an expected all-out assault on rebels in Fallujah. Insurgents escalated a wave of violence that has killed more than 50 people the past two days | Heavy explosions were heard in Baghdad as government spokesman Thair Hassan al-Naqeeb announced the state of emergency over the entire country except Kurdish areas in the north. | NEWSMAX: THE FULL STORY |

Archer Daniels Midland trade with Cuba boosted | HAVANA - Cuba agreed at an international trade fair in Havana this week to buy nearly $100 million in food products from several countries, including about $30 million from the United States | Many agribusiness giants at the fair have made a large percentage of the American farm sales since Cuba in 2001 began taking advantage of an exception to the U.S. trade embargo that allows the transactions on a cash basis | THE FULL STORY |

Pfizer's Celebrex Linked to Deaths | Documents from Canadian health authorities show that Pfizer Inc.'s painkiller Celebrex is suspected of contributing to at least 14 deaths and other heart and brain side effects, according to the National Post newspaper in Toronto. The documents include more than 100 adverse-reaction reports on Celebrex over the past five years, including five strokes and 19 cases of heart attack, cardiac arrest or heart failure. | THE FULL STORY [P.S. Check out the Celebrex adverts on the sidebar]

Britain's largest drug company unveils plan to push 'happy' pills | Health campaigners accuse the firm, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), of putting profit before the therapeutic needs of patients by attempting to broaden the market for the drug which has been linked to a spate of suicides | THE FULL STORY |

Extremist William Pryor may gain permanent U.S. judgeship | Senator Jeff Sessions said he expects the White House to renominate Pryor to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which would trigger another debate in the Senate about whether to confirm Pryor for the lifetime post.
Pryor, Alabama's former attorney general, was placed on the bench by President Bush during a holiday break in February after opponents in the Senate prevented his confirmation from coming to a floor vote. His term expires at the end of next year unless the Senate acts.
Pryor has advocated the view that the Constitution should not apply to some of the most critical issues pertaining to individual rights and freedoms | That these matters should be decided by the states, based on majority vote, regardless of whether constitutional rights are violated. Pryor’s ideology would effectively advocate an America in which individual citizens may have fewer constitutional rights depending on where they live | THE FULL STORY [P.S. More about Willim Pryor] |

¶ 11:27 0 comments