short notes:<br> will brady's ruminations: 2005/04/24

short notes:
will brady's ruminations

2005-04-30

ABU GRAHIB

It's been a whole year!

Not that we've forgotten or anything, more pictures of trailer park residents having fun

    Yeah, yeah, I'm stereotyping | Actually, the "trailer park" comment was a reference to Abu Grahib cover girl Lynndie England, who [by some accounts] was from a "mobile home park" | Incidentially, I wasn't the only one in blogland to make this comparison | Some were more detailed [and presumably more serious] than I, Dooney's Cafe being perhaps the most erudite, making comparisons between Abu Grahib torturers to the characters in Deliverance | Human Rights Watch has a philosophical timeline on how we got to that point | Mark Danner provides what he calls "the Hidden Story" |
    Meanwhile the US Army exonerates the top brass [I suppose they were shocked ...shocked!!! about this ever happening (yeah, right!)] while AlterNet notes the frame of mind characteristic of line soldiers at the Iraqi prison commonplace around the world... so why should foreign agents have all the fun, right? | CommonDreams thinks it's just more of Dubya's frat brat hi-jinks | No matter, all of it was wrong, no matter the motivation or the source social strata of who started it |
     Time shall tell...it really shall | Be patient my fellow humans, perhaps the best is yet to come |

CLARIFICATION: A reader asked "...I ...wondered why the put down of "trailer park residents", who are often low-income disenfranchised ...individuals for whom trailer park living is better than being homeless... That ...implication that prisoner abuse is what we might find as an activity of trailer park residents..." | The writer noted about having grown up poor and being aware of "insensitive" remarks about the poor | For what it's worth, I lived in trailer parks myself, first during the tender ages from 3 to 5 [when we had a outdoor chemical toilet, not indoor plumbing] and in my early twenties, where our trailer commanded a view of a beautiful privately owned golf course park residents were not allowed to use |
In case anyone else has similar misgivings, I recommend they take time to study my site more carefully and read the snide remark in context of the whole site | ....Okay, okay, I know. I'll lighten up now |

¶ 01:16 0 comments

2005-04-28

FRANK ZAPPA MUSIC FESITVAL
Online, this Sunday ~ 1 May 2005 | ON WPKN/FM |

A CAVEAT FROM WPKN: Please note that our current internet bandwidth limits the number of simultaneous listeners, which may make it difficult for you to log on from time to time. (So, if you can listen to us via the radio, please leave the access to our broadcast via the Internet to those who can't tune us in otherwise. Thanks!!!)

¶ 23:07 0 comments

IRAQ QUAGMIRE
These days I don't write much about Iraq | The main reason is because I don't have many connections to first-hand reports of what occurs in that embattled nation | I do link to others, such as Steve Gilliard's News Blog so it's not like there is no connect |
The other day, in my e-mail came an account from Boston, and a public forum where independent journalist Dahr Jamail spoke to an interested audience | Here's some of the points he noted:

• A hospital in Sadr City without food, no cancer drugs. The Ministry of Health was promised 1 billion dollars but have received nothing. Work on the building has been outside ~painting~ | Inside any kind of minimal care and service is lacking | The toilets in the Intensive Care Unit are holes in the ground, and utter filth |
• In Baghdad, a city of 5 million, there is electricity only one to three hours per day | Bechtel has received $3.8 billion dollars for water treatment plants, but very little water treatment has occured | Pictures showed water trickling in stench holes | Polluted water has caused serious disease, esp. in children, who have also been killed crossing roads to get water for their families |
• There is a gasoline crises, long lines, two days or more for gasoline. Burgeoning black market in petrol—meanwhile, the U.S. military orders its oil tankers (that have stalled due to mechanical failure) burned. One soldier was told by an Iraqi how that is to see they are spending hours and days waiting for gas to drive their cars.
• A chilling story about Mark Manning, a filmmaker from California who went to Fallujah for two weeks to see for himself what was happening. Within 12 hours after he arrived back in the US, all of his film and cameras were stolen from his hotel room. He was then called by someone who said "you'll never know, you're in a crowd, and a shot will be fired..." A few days later, after he stopped answering his cell phone due to the threatening calls, he was telephoned at his mother's home, where he had not been in two years |
• 12 independent journalists have been killed trying to report independently of the corporate media. This, despite the protestations recently regarding the Italian journalist and the Italian government’s refusal to accept the results of the U.S. military’s investigation (absolving the soldiers who fired on the vehicle).
• Anyone who reports the horrible truth gets the three pronged attack: discredit, dispute, destroy. GE owns 3 major news networks, and is directly profiting from this war.
• We are sitting on their oil, and we control its dispensation: Exxon's profits up 27% last year. It's doubtful we're in a hurry to start pumping

WAR CORRESPONDENTS: To Hell and Back withS.B. Documentary-Maker Mark Manning | Empire Notes also reports on Iraq War | PIX CREDITS: hula hoop Instructional Technology, Tank Angleterre | THANKS TO: Cathy McLaughlin |

¶ 09:06 0 comments

TRANSPARENCY
House Ethics Committee blinks | Restores old ethics rules | What? Are the voters upset about hypocrisy, fraud and blatent power mongering or something | I'm skeptical that the change is some new-found vote of conscience |
Ah well, you takes 'em as you can gets 'em | What's the next step?

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FDR's BILL OF RIGHTS
Franklin Delano Roosevelt | Here's a list of moral values statements that made him a "traitor to his class" | Would that we had such humane insurrection today |

• The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;
• The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
• The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
• The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
• The right of every family to a decent home;
• The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
• The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
• The right to a good education.

He also said: "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
Read the entire speech | The second quote comes from FDR's 1937 Inaugural Speech | Which make it all the more odd that Dubya and his ilk are so fond of referencing him | Too bad they don't see that what they ought to be doing is to emulate him |

SEE: The FDR Monument | CREDIT: from Shameless Agitator |

¶ 04:13 0 comments

PAYING ATTENTION

reminds me of the time, years ago, when I wondered what I looked like without facial hair | I was about 26 or 27 | Until then I had been furr-faced since age 19 | Under the influence of what were then mandatory social lubricants of the time, and when a houseful of company was over, I carefully shaved off the hair on one side of my face | Everybody though I looked better with, at the very least, my mustache | Of course this meant I'd have to shave the rest off just to be able to grow it back | So I did | I've not been absent of facial hair since |
I wish Joel good fortune in his surgical adventure; remain curious as to what his depilated state might look like and wish him speedy return of his facial hair | Really, seriously, I already look forward to his adventurous recounts | Godspeed my friend |

JOEL'S WEBLOG is Pax Nortana

¶ 02:52 0 comments

2005-04-27

GARDENING

It's that time of year again | Time to plot out what goes where | Well, actually, what little that has been sketched out here is really no different than in past years, but it's a start |
     It could still frost here, so I can't do much more than turn over the ground, see about getting plants going in a cold frame, and figure on what I have to buy against what seeds I've got on hand |
     I want to watch for invasives and weeds and determine where and what to companion plant, so as to minimize using pesticides and chemicals |
     Finally I want to think about plants that can be grown in containers, for those I can place about the rest of the yard with ease, thereby increasing the season's crop | More to come |

¶ 08:38 0 comments

GRAFFITI

[1] ~ Boston, USA - Spotter: Jonathan McIntosh || [2] ~ Spotter: kenith_keniff

[3] ~ Chlsea, NYC - Spotter: Will Brady || [4] ~ Houston St, NYC - Spotter: Hamish Robertson

CREDITS: [1, 2 + 4] Pictures of Walls ~ A Gallery of Grime | Other great graffiti sites include fi5e [a blog about graffiti] and Shapeless Mass's Graffiti pictures |

¶ 02:58 0 comments

2005-04-26

SUSTAINABLE URBAN PLANNING

Highline Park / New York City | Making productive use of underused space, the Highline Project converts an 1.5 mile [2.41 k] stretch of an elevated railway and coverts it into a public access park and walkway |
The High Line runs through three of Manhattan's neighborhoods: South Hell's Kitchen/Hudson Yards, West Chelsea, and the Gansevoort Market Historic District | When the High Line was built in the 1930s, these neighborhoods were dominated by industrial and transportation uses | Now many of the warehouses and factories have been converted to art galleries, design studios,

retailers, restaurants, museums, and residences | It has support of people who live in the area, fits in with a national trend of adaptive re-use of old railbeds as walking trails, and could serve as an unhurried pedestrian corridor in an otherwise [at street level] harried and congested space |
Lest fears arise that such an endeavor would be [perish the thought] bad for business, the planning process has been thoughtful to incorporate how commercial efforts located in proximity to the new walkway could be included | What's to lose?

MORE INFO?: Click on either picture | The greenway phot on the left connects to the Friends of the Highline website | The conceptual sketch, on th elower right, links to a page that provides connections to some of the many design ideas created in the visioning of this project | CREDIT: One of Cool Hunting's 13 Favorite Links |

¶ 21:59 1 comments

SOCIAL INJUSTICE

Picture Credit: Gabrielle Reilly

It staggers the imagination that someone would intentionally smuggle 4 kilos of marijuana [worth $60,000 AU dollars] in an unlocked suitcase into a country, Indonesia, where it could be obtained for almost a song | Yet this is what swim suit model and

lefty social activist Gabrielle Reilly [aka her birth name of Schapelle Corby] has been charged with | She faces a maximum punishment of death by firing squad after 4.1 kg of cannabis were found | That said, there's also a number of unanswered questions as to whether or not she actually knew the drugs were in her luggage when she arrived in Bali |
     According to The Age "Corby's lawyers revealed a ...man had come forward and signed a statement naming three baggage handlers he says planted the drugs in Corby's unlocked bag" | Chief lawyer Lely Sri Rahaya Lubis said the three baggage handlers had since been jailed in Australia, while the man who made the statement was also in prison |
     Australian Prime Minster John Howard has said this of the matter "...I am following it. I've taken a personal interest, in the sense that I have been concerned, on the face of it, about some aspects of it. I choose my words very carefully because I have to respect the legal system of another country..." | Regrettable indeed that the head of one of the most influential nations on the planet is afraid to speak up to obvious injustices |
     Gabrielle Reilly's website says this about her motivations for political activism:

Gabrielle is involved in politics and organizations dealing with many issues on national and foreign policy in the US, attending meetings and forums with the leaders of America. From being on the inside of American politics, having an extensive understanding of the issues and then seeing what is reported in the paper, Gabrielle knows how completely bias and inaccurate many of the accounts are of both the US and the Bush Administration.
This misunderstanding of the US is what passionately drives Gabrielle to speak to the international community. The more the international community hates America, the more terrorists are recruited, the more innocent civilians around the world die as a result of terrorist attacks and war. Gabrielle ideals are still the same as they were when she ran as a child with the village children in Papua New Guinea, global peace and goodwill to mankind. The same values the US holds dearly that tend to be so misrepresented in the media.

Underscoring the whole scenario is the absurdity and rank injustice behind the creation of some of international laws regarding recreational drugs | Combine this with Ms. Reilly's political perspectives, unpopular with Anglo planetary rulers, and the impact is crushing |
Ask the Australian Government and Prime Minister John Howard to act on this bizarre turn of events |

CREDITS: Yahoo Group Patrick Crusade | PATRICK is an acronym for "People Aligned To Replace Injustice & Cruelty with Knowledge," a human rights group dedicated to the protection of human rights for all people | Committed to making peaceful change in policies, at educating those who are unaware of the injustices and human rights abuses that occur daily in The Courts and Criminal Justice systems |

¶ 07:35 0 comments

2005-04-25

ECONOMIC TREASON

Redefines the meaning of "Sleazy"
Clcik on the image to "open" the briefcase

Honestly, you don't want to watch or listen to the contents if you have even the slightest of queasy stomachs, but you know what, you really ought to

CREDIT TO: Turnspit Daily

¶ 22:51 0 comments

2005-04-24

HOMEFRONT
The electrician shows when he does and the replacement for our Georgia O'Keefe Tree has finally arrived | Far less dramatic, and considerably uglier

the new "tree" stands tall between ours and the neighbor's properties | First there is the very mundane setting up of equipment, followed by boring out a new hole for the replacement |
The neighbor comes out to watch the whole event; he's got off from work this day |

Me, I'm getting ready to leave, but they show up early enough for me to keep track of part of the event | Besides, I want to

document the next chapter in this saga |
The digging seems uneventful enough, save for the fact that they run afoul of some 10" diameter roots, which causes a little bit of a slowdown | The workmen are

swift and efficient | They'd done this before, you can tell | Of course, knowing this makes me no less nervous when the boom bounces the power lines to the house up and down,

but I feign being unperturbed |
One of the workmen and I talk casually about going off-grid; he seems to know a bit about solar technology, mentions a friend who got PV cells off the internet fairly cheap "...you can buy them on E-Bay" he remarks |

I talk about how, back in the 1970s, when I lived in the Adirondacks, my neighbor, a Clarkson University electrical engineer, conducted a study ~assuming 60% cloud cover all year long~ and then determined that socal heating was cost competitive with the most expensive heating fuel available | He seemed impressed | That said, We're still on the grid, and the treated green pole is no replacement for Georgia O'Keefe's tree | But life goes on |

INFO ON GETTING OFF GRID: Two starting points include Rebel Wolf's Energy Self-Sufficieny Newsletter and the outcomes of a PV Workshop that was sponsored by the Maine Solar Energy Association |

¶ 18:54 0 comments

EARTH DAY

Every Day is Earth Day
click on the wombat

Get to Know Your Neighbors | We are all part of a larger global community and it behooves us to know one another and to learn how to get along with each other |
The Foundation for Global Community provides a model for programs and projects that can be emulated around the planet, and in your own back yard | Relying less on ruthless competitiveness, less upon thoughtless ravaging of our resources, a different paradigm |
Their site is worth the visit

CREDITS: The link to the wombat was found at The Dirt Cheap Builder |

¶ 16:49 0 comments

HOMEFRONT

UPCOMING EVENT: A talk on the "WPA and Stonework Construction in Devils' Hopyard State Park " [East Haddam/Hadlyme, CT] 4th May 2005, 1900 hrs [7:00 p.m.] + Annual Meeting for the Friends of Devil's Hopyard | To be held at the Hadlyme Meeting House | e-mail me for details |

Rebuilding stone walls | Last year I noted how we plan on bumping out the wall to expand one of the first floor rooms by about 6 feet | To do this, however, we have to move the stone walls on the north side of the house |
So here's the plan | Starting with what we've got [these top two pictures] tearing down the walls and rebuilding as the lower two pictures show | No, we won't actaully do the heavy lifting | We'll rely upon a father & son stonemason team, Robert + Gregg [they are camera shy] becuase we've always

been impressed with the quality of workmanship they have provided in the past | We just have to be ready for their schedule, not ours | On a prior occasion, they'd stopped by to review our stonebuilding needs | Then we didn't hear from them for ages until, suddenly one late Spring snowy morning, Robert called at 5:45 a.m. to let us know he'd be over to start that day | We love the work they do, however, so it's worth the wait | Nevertheless, we hope they can start on it soon...

SOME STONEWORK SITES: Slipform Masonry | ImproveNet's Stone Masonry and Brick Laying message board | Tooldudes' Drywall Tool Source | Quikrete's DIY Stone Walls project | AND ABOUT STONEMASONRY: The Stone Foundation | What Stonemasons do | PUBLISHERS: Donhead Books, which publishes technical books on building conservation, preservation and heritage |

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