Pay as you go roads

I wonder, Captain Hulbert grew up on the corner of the toll road Sag Harbor Turnpike, his father a cobbler in Bridgehampton, NY. He faked the British Navy by marching his men up one hill, and with coats reversed around the hill, no free provisioning there in Montauk! He served with the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont and submitted a flag design (like a star of David or Solomon's seal, a star at the center and one for each "corner") for the new republic, a 19th century "fake" in the Suffolk County Museum. I wonder if in part, our early revolt was fueled by over-charged toll roads, we built. Nature Conservancy owns some of the land it goes through today.

GQ slideshow of Iraq from soldiers in-the-field

Twenty years ago I surveyed Fort Drum, NY for archaeology, for the relocation of the US Army 10th Mountain Division, the one, former Senator Dole and Presidential candidate, was wounded in in Italy. It was moving from the Rocky Mountains, Camp Hale (Hale regretted he had only one life to lose for his country, before he was hung by the British Army in America, though many say "give") to the former active fire ranges in NY, where A-10 "Warthogs" tank-killers, practiced while we dug holes nearby. What a transformation! We went from Huey's to Blackhawks, Jeeps to Humvees, various tanks (Fort Knox "yanks in tanks" practiced there before meeting the "faux" Russian "phantom menace" at Fort Irwin in the California desert, who always won its said) to the Abrams M-1, Bradley vehicles (NYer Tim McVeigh, executed for the murder of six Federal agents in the Oklahoma City bombing, was a commander of one in "Desert Storm," the prequel to the war) laser M-16 practice shots disabling a tank, etc. I completed the survey under the field direction of a Delaware resident whose grandfather she said invented "Kevlar" used to "bulletproof" things and people and used to sew welders gloves. The company Envirosphere, a division of Ebasco, a Texas power plant builder, was then occupying five upper floors of the World Trade Center, taken down on 9/11/01, though they had relocated to South Orange, NJ for what it's worth. These GQ and other photos of the war show, that although we as an invading force (still I think over the Kuwaiti sucking Iraqi oil out from under their border, a line drawn in the sand by the British in the 1920's) appear bizarre even to me, are the same people often asked to fight for Presidential policies, often obscure, and in this case, perhaps, family held (among the Bushes). Germs, warfare In war, not all wounds are caused by bombs and bullets

Life Matters: The Stony Brook World Environmental Forum

The Stony Brook World Environmental Forum Convened By Richard Leakey May 6-8, 2005

Dear Senators Schumer and Clinton and Congressman Crowley

I urge you to vote against any budget resolution that includes reconciliation instructions that could lead to oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I am deeply opposed to oil development in the Arctic Refuge. America’s last unspoiled birthing ground for Arctic wildlife should not be sacrificed for the sake of a year’s worth of national energy — especially when we could save eleven times as much oil through an increase in fuel economy standards. I am especially outraged that Congressional leaders are attempting to include Arctic drilling in the federal budget bill. Please obey the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the American people who oppose this sneak attack. The fate of America’s premiere wildlife refuge should be decided by an open debate — not by a legislative ploy. Again, I urge you to oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in whatever manner the issue may arise: as part of the budget process or as a free-standing bill. Congress does not have a mandate to sacrifice the Arctic Refuge, and I will hold you accountable for your vote and your stewardship of this irreplaceable natural treasure. Yesterday, after the hand-holding "sheik" and kisses (Judas' gospel will be published by the Swiss next Easter, 2006) CNN put up the statistic of exactly who we rely on for oil. It was a close three-way, Canada, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia, and the commentator said the Saudi, the "sour crude" is the hardest to refine on demand. We should be talking to our neighbors, not drilling in the last wildlife we can still proudly point to. A view from Dyea, the "ghost-town" twin of Skagway, Alaska, site of the Arctic Brotherhood lodge in the Klondike Gold Rush Historical Park, where many, many tourists visit every year, ore came out of British Columbia for Japan, and where I worked in historical archaeology for the National Parks Service right after Mt. St. Helens blew up.

Do you remember, your President Nixon?

Another somewhat "surreal" photo (I followed the saga of the Dali "sick day" painting of the "crucifixion" that was copied and stolen by some of "New York's Boldest" the correction officers off on that island made of household cinder and ash around 1903, Riker's Island. They hold court for infractions there still in the Bronx, harking back to when a ferry rode there like Alcatraz, now a motor causeway to Queens, stray cats love to traverse according to a study printed in the NY Times where they were fixed before becoming a serious problem, but I digress, they were caught stealing the wall mounted painting by Dali) with Air Force One (ordered by Pres. Reagan but he never flew on) kissing up in the neck of DeLay as if an eye trick of foreground-background or "gestalt". Is Air Force One larger or smaller than Mr. DeLay? It never would happen with the 727 (707?) and Richard Nixon, I think, he was never that far from it.

El Niño

It was announced on the Bloomberg News section of the "Weather Channel" that Australian researchers have said "el nino" the weather changing phenomenon, will recur this year with about 86 percent certainty by July and 100% certainty by September 2005, as I remember, waking up in a Super 8 Motel in Newburgh, NY, (next to Stewart airport, where last week two servicemen were caught with over 1/4 million tablets of "Ecstasy" in their luggage returning from Germany on a cargo plane.) It was reported that Australia, is where "el niño" starts. In anthropology graduate school (1978-1982) we were considering studying the problem, first named by the coastal fishing people of Peru. It has been somewhat regarded as having to do with "Christmas" though I never heard it called that in "Planetary Atmospheres" or in the author's class of "Peru Before the Incas," Edward Lanning, of Columbia University and Stony Brook University. As he described it, it resulted from the terrible rains and landslides that occurred, the burying "refuse" of plants and culture, smelling like a baby's diaper, therefore referred to as "el Niño" which since has had a "la Niña " part of the cycle added to it. It perhaps, a part of a cycle involving the Humboldt Current, off South America, and controls upwelling currents, and therefore changes the distance to and amount of available anchovy fish there. It was thought it might have had cycles that might be discerned from the archaeological/environmental record in Peru.

The Japan Times Online

Recent pack of dogs exhibit in Tokyo is really about Antarctica? "Good, better, best, never let it rest Until your good is better, and your better is your best." On the end of the water tanks in one of Australia's Antarctica research sites, my mother Adelaide Urquhart is fond of saying.

The Japan Times Online

I have been on Adria Hill, NY (between Central Valley and Kiryas Joel) and came on this interesting article on PCB in Japan (supposedly banned there since 1972) and reminded me of the many years it has been a battle to get it out of the Hudson River and the biosphere, this Earth Day (I planted a tree at my high school the first Earth Day in 1970, at Newfield H.S. Selden, NY), they have still not have started, though I have worked on and off the problem indirectly since the early 1980's in archaeology. My last task was to collect all the CRM reports at the State Historic Preservation Office (they closed Albany, NY that day because the heat threatened a "black-out") to be integrated into the most recent clean-up plan, and the one to be implemented.

Seagliders

To think they almost shut down the Iridium satellite network! Wonderful oceanography tool. I once created bathymetry from digitized historical soundings (on old maps) from around Cold Spring, (across from West Point, NY) Foundry Cove (re-contoured contracted modern bathymetry) and Constitution Island, NY (nearby "World's End" a deep, deep hole in the very deep sediment of the Hudson River) for an EPA sampling, testing and remediation, I heard to have started when someone at Earth and Space Sciences at Stony Brook University, NY wanted a comparative "study marsh" to the Flax Pond (on the Long Island Sound) it holds in a 99 year lease. It was found, that, what heavy metals were supposed to have been cleaned up, weren't, hence the second clean-up, which may still result in a third, as the NY State levels of parts per liter differ from the US government's acceptable levels perhaps or as it was.

Re: Driving the Process

I once rode a bike, an Ariel bike, (a) Norwegian would. They called them "square four" a "gentleman's bike" and sold them to say, If we all rode bikes, maybe the Bush, would be OK. He, once flew a jet, maybe it ran out of gas, where he points to today, But, as we can see, we all drive big, gas loving "jeeps", that give me the creeps, (a) Norwegian would. Posted by: George Myers | April 13, 2005 11:47 AM So an Israeli and a Texan were talking one day. The Texan tells the Israeli, "I can drive from sun-up to sundown and never see the end of my property." The Israeli says to the Texan, "I had a car like that. I got rid of it." Posted by: George Myers | April 13, 2005 02:33 PM

"Kurds on the Bus"

A number of years ago I studied Anthropology at Stony Brook University Graduate School (went AWL Absent With Leave) and I studied the ancient city of Nuzi in Kirkuk, near Mosul, excavated by Starr of Harvard in the 1930's, with Elizabeth Stone, who became a MacArthur Scholar, studying women's roles in the ancient Middle East. That area then was a crossroads of many peoples (Hittites, Hurrians, the locals and the Sumerians) in an ancient kingdom of Mitanni, whose capital, something like Washanunni, has never been found. The clay tablets of Nuzi were considered important to the understanding of the ancient "cradle of civilization" though we also used Redman's book on the Levant (also the name of President Reagan's Press Secretary, the first Press Secretary George B. Cortelyou, a relation of mine was once married to, the first woman, Dee Dee Myers) and I must say I am very disappointed by our American (and others?) lack of preparation and consideration for the World Heritage of the "Fertile Crescent" it represents to so many school children, like myself. If as reported it has been purposely "desecrated" (as in Babylon) for military psycho-ops I think we should be extremely mad at those responsible, so to show the Kurds, who live in three countries, that we at least will police our own.

Wilhelm Gustloff - The Greatest Ship Disaster and Sinking in History

For Gunter Grass: Fiddler Crabwalk

Very interesting site. My Canadian-American grandad's brother, Leman Chapman Urquhart, was captain of the "City of Atlanta" sunk in Jan. 1942 off Avon, NC, Cape Hatteras, with three survivors of 46 (?) aboard (not he) by U123. Here's all his and their graves' record shows:

RECRD 674 VESSLTERMS CITY OF ATLANTA CHART 11520 AREA D
CARTOCODE 0999 SNDINGCODE DEPTH 0
NATIVLAT 35/23/28.00 NATIVLON 075/20/14.00
LAT83 35/23/28.64 LONG83 075/20/12.52
LATDEC 35.391288888889 LONDEC 75.336811111111
NATIVDATUM 6
History HISTORY
NM16/42--DANGEROUS WK REPORTED AT LAT.36-10N, LONG.75-16W.
NM31/44
NM DATED 8/15/55
DESCRIPTION
24 NO.409; CARGO, 5269 GT, SUNK 1/19/42 BY SUBMARINE; POSITION ACCURACY
35-23-50N, LONGITUDE 75-20-46W.
WITHIN 1 MILE AT 35-23-28N, 75-20-14W; WD CLEARED TO 57 FT.
(SOURCE UNK).
27 NO.306; FREIGHTER, 5269 GT; SUNK 1/19/42; C&GS REPORTED WIRE DRAG LD
OF 41 FT., 7/24/44; POS.35-23-48N, 75-16-42W.
177 NO.409, CGS WD ON 7/24/44 OBTAINED 41 FT LD. CHARTED A DANGEROUS SUNKEN
WRECK 6 3/4 FM. REP.
SURVEY REQUIREMENTS
NOT DETERMINED
YEARSUNK SYSTEMNUM 653
GPQUALITY Low
GPSOURCE NA
REFERENCE: 11 20

There are Legends and There are Legends

"They tried to blow up my daddy in a car." yeah I guess Bush II has a powerful message. I am not sure if this picture was before or after the US government let the Vatican know it would not allow the Pope to visit the grave of Abraham, the "father" of Judeo-Christian tradition and belief located in Iraq, (the "Germans" have just recently found ancient Sumer, "Uruk" from which Iraq comes from and perhaps the grave of Gilgamesh, his epic, the oldest known story in the Western world) and perhaps why the Third World hates us. Che has streets named after him, and recently I think exhumed and reburied in Mexico, where he is still revered. Perhaps a bit of PR on both sides here, Cuba wanting to stay in the embargo fight Mexico has with us, they not wanting their trade decisions dictated by the US (or its citizens summarily executed without a Mexican legal defense, stopped by the World Court, reported by Toby Sterling to "The New York Sun", 2/6/2003, a paper my father once carried the four color plates for the Sunday funnies to the printers for, its building now a NYC Landmark).

Amplitude Adjustment

It reminds me of a morning in 1983 in an officer's trailer park, at Fort Drum, NY when an earthquake in the nearby Adirondacks rattled our waking slumber, next to the Black River. Nearby is the Wheeler-Sack airfield, and I thought a large helicopter was directly over the roof, in that in-between-time between waking and rising. We were working for Envirosphere, a part of Ebasco, Texas power-plant builders in five upper floors of the former World Trade Center, doing the archaeology clearance for the new year round facility for the newly located US Army 10th Mountain Division, from Camp Hale, CO, the one Senator Bob Dole served in. One officer was showing me a brochure for the Bradley fighting vehicle and telling me they might recode ordnance to "high explosive" for powder blue, though powder blue had been dummy rounds to keep people out of what is (or was) a number of active fire zones for tanks, then A-10's and other operations, that kept their EOD busy, (explosive ordnance division or UXO unexploded ordnance, I think they call the original workers in Britain). The Black River was the last link in the Erie Canal and the only major river in New York State that flows north. At first I thought the photo was an audio signal.

Columbia Spectator - Same Occupation, Softer Opposition

Same Occupation, Softer Opposition Professors from around Columbia Speak Out Against Iraq War in a Subdued Panel By Margaret Hunt Gram Spectator Senior Staff Writer March 30, 2005

Let the truth be told

I have been using computers since the IBM XT and the Compaq, "suitcase" in the archaeology of New Amsterdam in NYC until the present, even in close-range photogrammetry by Rollei, after the Canadian forensics team was yelled at for a US crash in Gander, Newfoundland, got covered in a blizzard. (Note: their MR2 software came from the Brunswick, Germany factory in 1990 or so with a "blackjack" virus. They have become employee owned, partnered with Samsung of Korea since). I had the opportunity from my phone line in the Bronx, NY to gather some old recordings from Morpheus and thought some had come either directly from vinyl or off the radio, (The FUGS, Brewer and Shipley, etc.) well one day as I was contemplating Congressman Berman of California's proposal to allow hacking and destroying "copyrighter" content using hacking, which the industry spends millions to prevent, I got an "axon-b" virus variant, that destroyed all my songs, some authored by a musician friend, and the statement "I also fxxked the RIAA" leaving only the album "art" files that Microsoft player collects off the Internet for titles. I hope it wasn't a test of Lord Berman's kung fu. (Note: majorgeeks said they thought it may have come from a "worm".)

Great new translation of Jules Verne's "The Mysterious Island"

The site ( http://jv.gilead.org.il/kravitz/ ) has the original illustrations. One of Jules Verne's futuristic works was discovered fairly recently and I think about to be published, a "city of tomorrow" story.

Ever wonder what archaeology isn't?

Re: Field Technicians Needed I had field-school in New York and "Long Island Archaeology" taught by R. M. Gramly, PhD., of Harvard University (and other undergrad archaeology classes with him at Stony Brook University) in 1977, with Margaret Gwynne, who since, a PhD. awarded, is a Stony Brook U. faculty member. Also assisting in the field-school was Sherene Baugher, PhD., who was the first New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission Archaeologist, now at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Safety is often overlooked where information about properties, available along the lines of a historic map and "title search," could help determine its past use. An employee's "right to know" should extend into the past workplaces from current workplace rules. What a site was or is (i.e., full of lead paint. i.e."Bridge Shop" in Cold Spring, NY, Hudson River site of the 19th c. West Point Foundry, producers of cannons and shells, etc., or contains "depleted uranium" from ammo on a former jet [A-10] target range at Fort Drum, NY I've worked next to) we should know. Findings of illegal dumping, also should be treated in a safe manner, along with "call before you dig" street markings provided free by the various utilities in business in many communities. I feel it important that archaeology helps provide the ecology of a place which may include the recognition of endangered resources found in the course of testing. For example, in my experience, next to National Register nominated schoolhouses in Farmingville, NY, a nesting pair of hawks, were reported by a crew member to authorities. Those events are not regulated, (unless a part of the planning process) coming from a resident, though may be attributed to archaeology, even if it's company is from outside a locality, as many of the jobs are done today it seems, though I would leverage local archaeology over minimum bid structure if I could. Monitoring of excavations, I feel, needs to be implemented, plans get changed, and finalized, impacts may occur with unintended consequences. Testing can only reach shallow depths, (i.e., small "percolation tests" for drainage on Long Island, with a formula for proposed land-cover, creates the sized excavation of "recharge basins") and the finalized designs should be part of archaeology testing and geology. New York City, has required deep borings for many years, prior to substantial building and sometimes coordinated with archaeology (i.e., "Love Lane" site in downtown Brooklyn, NY.) ...and we don't get paid if it rains.

LOUIS XIV Best Little Secrets Are Kept

Great music, sounds a bit like David Bowie and T-Rex. A Diamond Star Halo.