short notes:
will brady's ruminations
will brady's ruminations
2009-08-31
web surfing finds
the mind
Make better use of your brain. With the right balance of meditation, exercise, diet and recreation, we can discover easy ways to tap into more of our brains || SOURCE: Online Universities
Richard Lakeman's Hearing Voices and other extraordinary experiences. While searching for images to illustrate an earlier blog entry on this phenomena, I came across his page. I was particularly impressed with the articles he's published || SOURCE: Google Image Search the "testandcalc.com" image
Tidal Model, a philosophical approach to the discovery of mental health. By philosophical we mean, a way of thinking about how people might reclaim their personal story, as a first step towards recovering their lives || SOURCE: Richard Lakeman
commentary
Joe Bageant discusses How Health Care got lost in order to pay homage to Insurance company profits and executive perks || SOURCE: My own list of favorite links at Short Notes
Michael Crawford on Hearing Voices. One of the folks who speaks from experience. Quote:
visual artists
Josh Simpson, Contemporary Glass Design || SOURCE: My friends Ian + Isabella told me about this man's work
Zach Hyman, Photography. Zach has gotten a name for himself snapping nude shots in public venues. Recently one of his models was arrested for "lewd display" after stripping down at the Metropolitan Museum's Arts + Armour display. Not to worry. Zach was carrying bail money || SOURCE: Ron's Log
Cesar Alfonso, a Cuban born artist with disarmingly simple images || SOURCE: Google Image Search while looking for images on hearing voices, came across this Hearing Voices/ Oyendo image
Create TV, instructional programs provide advice on cooking, arts & crafts, gardening, home improvement and travel. || SOURCE: My friend Nick ["the Voice"] told me I just had to see the shows on painting wildlife in watercolor.
environment
DeZeen design magazine article: Shell by ARTechnic architects. Hyper modernist construction in the woods by a Japanese design team. Beautiful stuff. Quote:
Hell on Earth. Deviant Art contributor Vitaly S. Alexius captures gripping images from the dead city where rusted shipping vessels are torn apart. Quote:
Make better use of your brain. With the right balance of meditation, exercise, diet and recreation, we can discover easy ways to tap into more of our brains || SOURCE: Online Universities Richard Lakeman's Hearing Voices and other extraordinary experiences. While searching for images to illustrate an earlier blog entry on this phenomena, I came across his page. I was particularly impressed with the articles he's published || SOURCE: Google Image Search the "testandcalc.com" image Tidal Model, a philosophical approach to the discovery of mental health. By philosophical we mean, a way of thinking about how people might reclaim their personal story, as a first step towards recovering their lives || SOURCE: Richard Lakemancommentary
Joe Bageant discusses How Health Care got lost in order to pay homage to Insurance company profits and executive perks || SOURCE: My own list of favorite links at Short Notes Michael Crawford on Hearing Voices. One of the folks who speaks from experience. Quote:"Everyone has an inner voice that they talk to themselves with in their thoughts. Hearing voices is not like that. You can tell that your inner voice is your own thinking, that it's not something you're actually hearing someone saying. Auditory hallucinations sound like they're coming from "outside your head". Until you come to understand what they are, you cannot distinguish them from someone actually talking to you."|| SOURCE: Google web search
visual artists
Josh Simpson, Contemporary Glass Design || SOURCE: My friends Ian + Isabella told me about this man's work Zach Hyman, Photography. Zach has gotten a name for himself snapping nude shots in public venues. Recently one of his models was arrested for "lewd display" after stripping down at the Metropolitan Museum's Arts + Armour display. Not to worry. Zach was carrying bail money || SOURCE: Ron's Log Cesar Alfonso, a Cuban born artist with disarmingly simple images || SOURCE: Google Image Search while looking for images on hearing voices, came across this Hearing Voices/ Oyendo image Create TV, instructional programs provide advice on cooking, arts & crafts, gardening, home improvement and travel. || SOURCE: My friend Nick ["the Voice"] told me I just had to see the shows on painting wildlife in watercolor.environment
DeZeen design magazine article: Shell by ARTechnic architects. Hyper modernist construction in the woods by a Japanese design team. Beautiful stuff. Quote:“Being in sync with nature isn’t about yielding to nature – it’s about coexistence,” explains Kotaro Ide of ARTechnic. “The existence of the structure depends on its power to endure nature.”|| SOURCE: Found while conducting an image search for decorative letter-faces
Hell on Earth. Deviant Art contributor Vitaly S. Alexius captures gripping images from the dead city where rusted shipping vessels are torn apart. Quote:Absolutely haunting || SOURCE: Wood's Lot, still one of my favorite weblogs"There are places on our planet, which literally resemble hell on earth... a place that you’d think was conceived by minds of apocalyptic science fiction writers… but is however quite real…
A place, closed off to the tourists, a place where no photographers are allowed to go… and those that do, get their cameras taken away and arrested by the police…..
Today we shall travel to Bangladesh, Chittagong. Chittagong has a territory of 144 000 км² and population of 144 million people."
Labels: art and artists, brain damage, environment, hearing voices, learning, mind, visual arts
¶ 08:56 0 comments
2008-01-09
environment
Eco-criminals seize arctic refuge for polar bears with the stroke of a pen. Not that the Bushco corporate criminals give a fig but only days before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is due to decide if the polar bear should be listed under the Endangered Species Act due to severe habitat loss from melting sea ice in Alaska's Arctic Ocean caused by global warming the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency within the Department of Interior (DOI), issued its Final Notice of Intent for the Chukchi Lease Sale 193 opening approximately 29.7 million acres of the pristine Chukchi Sea to oil and gas activities on January 2.
Perhaps they figure it doesn't matter since many polar bears are already dying from heat exhaustion.
Yet another reason why I believe that when the dust settles on this time in history, GWB's biggest legacy with not be his military adventure into Iraq but his scandalous refusal to do anything about the impact of global climate change.
Eco-criminals seize arctic refuge for polar bears with the stroke of a pen. Not that the Bushco corporate criminals give a fig but only days before the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is due to decide if the polar bear should be listed under the Endangered Species Act due to severe habitat loss from melting sea ice in Alaska's Arctic Ocean caused by global warming the Minerals Management Service (MMS), an agency within the Department of Interior (DOI), issued its Final Notice of Intent for the Chukchi Lease Sale 193 opening approximately 29.7 million acres of the pristine Chukchi Sea to oil and gas activities on January 2.
Perhaps they figure it doesn't matter since many polar bears are already dying from heat exhaustion.
Yet another reason why I believe that when the dust settles on this time in history, GWB's biggest legacy with not be his military adventure into Iraq but his scandalous refusal to do anything about the impact of global climate change.
PIX CREDIT: John Pitcher from Science News |
Labels: arctic, Big Oil, Bushco, endangered species, environment, environmntal crimes, global warming, polar bears
¶ 07:38 0 comments
2007-12-14
local history
When the CT Yankee Nuclear Power Plant was dismantled they sent a lot of nuclear waste down river on barges. I don't know where radioactive waste went... almost don't want to. But it went without any untoward effects, locally at least. But there was an "almost"...
The "almost" was observed by only a handful of people. Had there been an actual mishap, as it were, it would have made international news. It didn't. The event took place some four years ago now, hard to think it was that long ago. Here is what it was, which brings me to the pictures.
The picture above I took while leaving for work that morning. A barge was headed downriver toward the swing bridge [seen in the second picture], not even two miles south from where it is in the picture above.
Now, a barge's travel time is lumbering, but it doesn't take long to travel the distance from where I'd seen it to the bridge. I knew the
bridge would be swung open and a long wait would be in store so I missed the actual event by taking a different route to work. However, there were maybe 30 or so people, including a couple of state police, some town workers, the bridge operator and a handful of locals did witness the "almost" event.
Simply put, the bridge's operating mechanism failed to work. Cold winds, winter weather, whatever, had frozen the bearing housing in place and the swing bridge wouldn't budge. The bridge remained closed. The bridge man then came down from the control room and, with a sledgehammer or pipe, banged furiously on the equipment to dislodge it to get the bridge open.
Still nothing, yet the barge, and it's attendant tug boat was headed closer with every minute. |
People watched in suspense and disbelief. Most of us know that you can't mess with a barge of any type. The bridge is always opened in advance. The bridgeman went up and down slam-banging on the bearing mechanism two more times as the barge drew closer.
On the east side of the river is a rock cliff and when the bridge failed to open, the tug crew tried to redirect the barge toward the cliff. The crew succeeded, and their efforts were met with a resounding slam of metal hull against rock. This slowed down the barge just enough. For no sooner did the barge slam against the cliff, that the bridge once more began to rotate out across the waters.
The tug then remaneuvered the barge and soon the load of toxic nuclear waste was once again on its journey elsewhere. perhaps the Carolinas. I really don't know.
After the bridge was returned to its normal position, the bridgeman came down from his perch and walked over to the town hall. His face was flush, and he was heard saying that the governor owed him a tall stiff drink at the end of the day.
I wish that I could say that this one barge was the only time that nuclear waste was taken from the old Connecticut Yankee site. It wasn't. A lot of waste removed was transported in trucks like this one on the right. It went down two lane roads rather like any other semi rig making a haul. The trucks went out with such regularity that I only needed to keep the camera in the truck to catch this shot.
Other waste remains on-site, buried in casks and entombed in concrete. I don't know how long that protection shall last.
But the main plant is gone now. Those of us who sat for years consciously not thinking about its presence, have resumed pretending that nothing risky remains in its wake.
When the CT Yankee Nuclear Power Plant was dismantled they sent a lot of nuclear waste down river on barges. I don't know where radioactive waste went... almost don't want to. But it went without any untoward effects, locally at least. But there was an "almost"...The "almost" was observed by only a handful of people. Had there been an actual mishap, as it were, it would have made international news. It didn't. The event took place some four years ago now, hard to think it was that long ago. Here is what it was, which brings me to the pictures.
The picture above I took while leaving for work that morning. A barge was headed downriver toward the swing bridge [seen in the second picture], not even two miles south from where it is in the picture above.
Now, a barge's travel time is lumbering, but it doesn't take long to travel the distance from where I'd seen it to the bridge. I knew the
bridge would be swung open and a long wait would be in store so I missed the actual event by taking a different route to work. However, there were maybe 30 or so people, including a couple of state police, some town workers, the bridge operator and a handful of locals did witness the "almost" event.Simply put, the bridge's operating mechanism failed to work. Cold winds, winter weather, whatever, had frozen the bearing housing in place and the swing bridge wouldn't budge. The bridge remained closed. The bridge man then came down from the control room and, with a sledgehammer or pipe, banged furiously on the equipment to dislodge it to get the bridge open.
Still nothing, yet the barge, and it's attendant tug boat was headed closer with every minute. | People watched in suspense and disbelief. Most of us know that you can't mess with a barge of any type. The bridge is always opened in advance. The bridgeman went up and down slam-banging on the bearing mechanism two more times as the barge drew closer.
On the east side of the river is a rock cliff and when the bridge failed to open, the tug crew tried to redirect the barge toward the cliff. The crew succeeded, and their efforts were met with a resounding slam of metal hull against rock. This slowed down the barge just enough. For no sooner did the barge slam against the cliff, that the bridge once more began to rotate out across the waters.
The tug then remaneuvered the barge and soon the load of toxic nuclear waste was once again on its journey elsewhere. perhaps the Carolinas. I really don't know.
After the bridge was returned to its normal position, the bridgeman came down from his perch and walked over to the town hall. His face was flush, and he was heard saying that the governor owed him a tall stiff drink at the end of the day.
I wish that I could say that this one barge was the only time that nuclear waste was taken from the old Connecticut Yankee site. It wasn't. A lot of waste removed was transported in trucks like this one on the right. It went down two lane roads rather like any other semi rig making a haul. The trucks went out with such regularity that I only needed to keep the camera in the truck to catch this shot.Other waste remains on-site, buried in casks and entombed in concrete. I don't know how long that protection shall last.
But the main plant is gone now. Those of us who sat for years consciously not thinking about its presence, have resumed pretending that nothing risky remains in its wake.
Labels: Connecticut Yankee, East Haddam bridge, environment, hazardous materials, nuclear power, nuclear waste
¶ 14:10 0 comments
2007-02-09
blips + updates
environment: Status report on Connecticut's Eight-Mile River | On Monday, February 12th at 11 am, Freshman Congressman Joe Courtney [CT-D 2nd District] will announce the introduction of his first bill to Congress: Eightmile Wild & Scenic River designation. This will be followed by an opportunity to discuss with the Congressman the Eightmile project and other environmental issues facing the region today. The event is to be held at the Red Mill at Moulsons Pond, 26 Mt. Archer Rd, Lyme, CT.
The Eightmile is an exceptional natural and cultural resource. Residents of East Haddam, Old Lyme, Salem and Colchester have been seeking to have Connecticut's Eight Mile River designated as a Wild and Scenic river for several years now. The effort has had considerable support from elected officials of all political persuasions. Congressman Courtney is quickly picking up on the good work done by former Representative Rob Simmons. Find out more about this effort...
homeless outreach: Advocate for the homeless and champion of social justice Abbe Pierre died recently | He was 94. Born as Henri-Antoine Groués to a moneyed family, he learned early on of the his moral obligation to help the poor.
He became a Capuchin monk while in his teens; worked with the French Resistance against the Nazi occupiers in the 1930s and 1940s, hiding Jewsih children whose parents had been arrested. After World War II he became active at helping the poor, founding the Emmaus movement pushing for affordable housing and laws preventing landlords from evicting poor tenants during the winter months.
In 1992 he refused to accept France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, because of that government's abysmal treatment of the poor. In an interview before he died he admitted one regret, "Everything I was not able to do. Read his obituray from The Guardian...
Thanks to Moyra Peralta and Alice Earl for reminding me of his passing.
drug wars: FDA gives Big Pharma a break on testing | AlterNet reports that the FDA has admitted that pharmaceutical companies it is supposed to regulate have not yet made good on hundreds of promises to test the safety of drugs already approved for the market.
According to a notice published Friday by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), from October 2005 through September 2006, companies had yet to initiate 71 percent of outstanding "post-market" safety evaluations that companies have promised to undertake for currently approved products they are already selling to consumers. Read the rest of the story...
families: Gay Marriage | NVSH, a grouped based in the Netherlands, has an analysis on the arguement about gay marriage. It's not just about "conservatives" versus "progressives"; it's about the entire set of emotional baggage that huans have about not just marriage, but sexuality in general. Read the rest of the page...
whimsey: Ian's Shoelace Site | Lest my readers think I obsess only about things that are weighty and serious, I had to stop by and wander about Ian's extensive information trove on what some disparagingly referr to as "kindergarten knowledge".
Who'd have thought there was so much technical knowledge and creativity tied up in shoelaces? Most people figure they learned all they needed to know about shoelaces in kindergarten! Ian's Shoelace Site contains all sorts of shoelace information, some of it useful, some just for fun. If you wear shoes with laces (or anything else that does up with laces), you're bound to find something here that they don't teach in kindergarten. Update yourself of everything you've been missing...
Thanks to Lee Fleming, the author of Neurotwitch for exposing me to this lore.
environment: Status report on Connecticut's Eight-Mile River | On Monday, February 12th at 11 am, Freshman Congressman Joe Courtney [CT-D 2nd District] will announce the introduction of his first bill to Congress: Eightmile Wild & Scenic River designation. This will be followed by an opportunity to discuss with the Congressman the Eightmile project and other environmental issues facing the region today. The event is to be held at the Red Mill at Moulsons Pond, 26 Mt. Archer Rd, Lyme, CT. The Eightmile is an exceptional natural and cultural resource. Residents of East Haddam, Old Lyme, Salem and Colchester have been seeking to have Connecticut's Eight Mile River designated as a Wild and Scenic river for several years now. The effort has had considerable support from elected officials of all political persuasions. Congressman Courtney is quickly picking up on the good work done by former Representative Rob Simmons. Find out more about this effort...
homeless outreach: Advocate for the homeless and champion of social justice Abbe Pierre died recently | He was 94. Born as Henri-Antoine Groués to a moneyed family, he learned early on of the his moral obligation to help the poor. He became a Capuchin monk while in his teens; worked with the French Resistance against the Nazi occupiers in the 1930s and 1940s, hiding Jewsih children whose parents had been arrested. After World War II he became active at helping the poor, founding the Emmaus movement pushing for affordable housing and laws preventing landlords from evicting poor tenants during the winter months.
In 1992 he refused to accept France's highest award, the Legion of Honor, because of that government's abysmal treatment of the poor. In an interview before he died he admitted one regret, "Everything I was not able to do. Read his obituray from The Guardian...
Thanks to Moyra Peralta and Alice Earl for reminding me of his passing.
drug wars: FDA gives Big Pharma a break on testing | AlterNet reports that the FDA has admitted that pharmaceutical companies it is supposed to regulate have not yet made good on hundreds of promises to test the safety of drugs already approved for the market.
According to a notice published Friday by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), from October 2005 through September 2006, companies had yet to initiate 71 percent of outstanding "post-market" safety evaluations that companies have promised to undertake for currently approved products they are already selling to consumers. Read the rest of the story...
families: Gay Marriage | NVSH, a grouped based in the Netherlands, has an analysis on the arguement about gay marriage. It's not just about "conservatives" versus "progressives"; it's about the entire set of emotional baggage that huans have about not just marriage, but sexuality in general. Read the rest of the page...
whimsey: Ian's Shoelace Site | Lest my readers think I obsess only about things that are weighty and serious, I had to stop by and wander about Ian's extensive information trove on what some disparagingly referr to as "kindergarten knowledge".Who'd have thought there was so much technical knowledge and creativity tied up in shoelaces? Most people figure they learned all they needed to know about shoelaces in kindergarten! Ian's Shoelace Site contains all sorts of shoelace information, some of it useful, some just for fun. If you wear shoes with laces (or anything else that does up with laces), you're bound to find something here that they don't teach in kindergarten. Update yourself of everything you've been missing...
Thanks to Lee Fleming, the author of Neurotwitch for exposing me to this lore.
Labels: environment, homelessness, news, notables, sexuality
¶ 10:32 0 comments
2006-08-03
environment | electric cars
Nissan Motors is ordering the return of an experimental | hyper-mini electric car from municipalities they had leased to. The cars' cost per mile to operate is one-third that of their internal combustion equivalents. These energy efficient 2-seater vehicles have been used for basic transportation around citgies where they had been used. Nissan is one of a handful of complanies who had built these eperimental vehicles.
But before you rush to blame big automakers for cancelling this endeavor, consider the following: Operating the vehicles required special exemptions from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], which will no longer be available.
Reports Tony Pearson, manager of technologies and motorsports for Nissan's North American division, "This whole program is being brought to a close."
NHTSA conducted studies on crash safety that indicated that, while the risk of damage and injury increased as the weight of a vehicle was lowered, "...they also produced the ...findings that vehicle weight reductions do not increase fatality risk in car-to-car or LTV-to-LTV crashes and even reduce fatality risk in pedestrian crashes." They conducted another series of studies [Peter O’Reilly: Occupant protection studies] but the focus was more on whether or not little cars could sustain head-on collisions from SUVs, Hummers and other mega-fuel hogs than on larger issues, such as fuel efficiency and climate change.
So, once again, short-sighted thinking rules the day.
Nissan Motors is ordering the return of an experimental | hyper-mini electric car from municipalities they had leased to. The cars' cost per mile to operate is one-third that of their internal combustion equivalents. These energy efficient 2-seater vehicles have been used for basic transportation around citgies where they had been used. Nissan is one of a handful of complanies who had built these eperimental vehicles. But before you rush to blame big automakers for cancelling this endeavor, consider the following: Operating the vehicles required special exemptions from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], which will no longer be available.
Reports Tony Pearson, manager of technologies and motorsports for Nissan's North American division, "This whole program is being brought to a close."
NHTSA conducted studies on crash safety that indicated that, while the risk of damage and injury increased as the weight of a vehicle was lowered, "...they also produced the ...findings that vehicle weight reductions do not increase fatality risk in car-to-car or LTV-to-LTV crashes and even reduce fatality risk in pedestrian crashes." They conducted another series of studies [Peter O’Reilly: Occupant protection studies] but the focus was more on whether or not little cars could sustain head-on collisions from SUVs, Hummers and other mega-fuel hogs than on larger issues, such as fuel efficiency and climate change.
So, once again, short-sighted thinking rules the day.
SEE: Yahoo's Renewable Energy Dioscussion group for more details on saving energy resources. It's where I learned about the hyperminis |
Labels: energy, environment, transportation
¶ 07:21 2 comments
environment | climate change
A Camp for Climate Action is scheduled to take place in Megawatt Valley, outside of Leeds, in Great Britain. This I learned from erstwhile anarchist and fellow traveler Durruti over at Love and Rage.
There ought to be more of these kinds of actions internationally. Could be there are ~ though the corporate media likely would not publicize such endeavors. Therefore, it's up to us to start the probverbial ball rolling.
Here's a list of workshop topics posted at the Call fo Action webpage:
• Understanding climate change - the science and the impacts
• The causes of climate change - who are the climate criminals?
• What to do about climate change - radical grassroots solutions on a personal, local community and international level
• What to do about Climate Change - the establishment perspective. Technocratic solutions for a brave new world?
• Building our movement - skills for the climate activist/campaigner
Some may consider this pie in the sky and unrealsitic. What is more unrealistic is to sit and do nothing.
A Camp for Climate Action is scheduled to take place in Megawatt Valley, outside of Leeds, in Great Britain. This I learned from erstwhile anarchist and fellow traveler Durruti over at Love and Rage. There ought to be more of these kinds of actions internationally. Could be there are ~ though the corporate media likely would not publicize such endeavors. Therefore, it's up to us to start the probverbial ball rolling.
Here's a list of workshop topics posted at the Call fo Action webpage:
• Understanding climate change - the science and the impacts
• The causes of climate change - who are the climate criminals?
• What to do about climate change - radical grassroots solutions on a personal, local community and international level
• What to do about Climate Change - the establishment perspective. Technocratic solutions for a brave new world?
• Building our movement - skills for the climate activist/campaigner
Some may consider this pie in the sky and unrealsitic. What is more unrealistic is to sit and do nothing.
Labels: climate change, environment, iraq, war profiteers
¶ 06:52 0 comments
