Sent to SubArch (Underwater Archaeology)

For a number of years back starting in the 1950's, the unofficial record for a Great White Shark was about 26 feet found on Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick Canada in the Bay of Fundy where my grandfather, a Canadian World War I veteran (must have been one of the youngest) and later a US Merchant Mariner after his brother, once a Master Mariner and, because he was a pilot, was captain of the "S.S.City of Atlanta" in January 1942, which left from NYC, and was at the helm when torpedoed by U-123 off Cape Hatteras, with a loss of 43, he among them. The wreck is a "hazardous one" and the records appear to be in different locations due to the magnetic anomalies off Cape Hatteras. Now Grand Manan Island has four whale-watching boats, the "right whale" nursery is nearby the island, and harbor and white-striped porpoises (Passamaquoddy "skunkwahagen") are observed. James Audubon visited the federally protected Canadian bird reserve in the Charlotte Parish. I've never heard another shark story myself from there, perhaps someone else?

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Hemadrones? "Sounds oddly like 'Hemoglobin' which starred Rutger Hauer, partly filmed on Grand Manan Island, in the Bay of Fundy, off the US coast. Maybe he used one of those 'timelord' computer pay toilets they had outside NYC's 1999 City Hall, only to be removed in the restoration of the City Hall Park to it's, ah, 1870's elegance. I found a 'twin' burial, (I thought they were conjoined, they weren't, nah...) and made them move the location of the water fountain, I hope. The 17th century Almshouse burials haven't been chasing me around, no way..."

What's With the Big Blank Blog?

BAGnewsNotes: Certain Results

Long Island-Iran Connection I guess if I had 100 Grumman F-14 'Tomcats' (i.e., 'Top Gun' or is it 'Shogun'?) that I had bought while the Shah was in power and stopped his agents ('Savak' not the Vulcan of Star Trek) from operating with impunity in the U.S. of A. schools, and had had four thousand Grumman employees back then on my side training 'Anytime, baby' and 'Make My Day' (from their patch, an orange tiger kitty in boxing gloves in a 'ring' [isn't that square?]) fighter bomber pilots, I might exude a little confidence. Sitting with the F-14's test pilot on his birthday and hearing from the TV media that we were going to blow them all up if the then USSR made a move for Iran's border, the air-to-air missile technology on F-14's a 'secret', I still wonder today why did we sell it to them? I imagine they were wondering in Iraq too.

"Cow stickers"

One October I was doing some archaeology survey along the St. Lawrence Seaway, the locks, hydro power and dams we share with Canada, (one of Abbie Hoffman's haunts before his demise and the tribute at the Palladium in NYC, that was torn down for NYU dorms, recently in NBC news as they help free two murder suspects wrongly imprisoned) the NY power authority was looking to return some of the "taken" properties in construction back on to the tax roles (one place Waddington, NY its church originally endowed by Trinity Church in NYC has about 95% of its property off the tax records) and they had a TV ad for "cow stickers" in the local election. You, if you were for the candidate, were to come down and pick up "cow stickers" and place them all over the dairy cows northern New York is known for, though I'm not sure if it was "tongue in cheek" people are always looking at cows aren't they? And mooing? It was a wet fall.

Iranian Election (in part posted at Slate)

Well here's what I learned. I was once, attached by classes, to the wife of the test pilot of the F-14 "Tomcat", she was in Iran, when we sold 100 Grumman F-14 "Tomcat" fighter bombers to the Shah of Iran. They used to be big on Long Island. She was teaching in the Anthropology Department at Stony Brook University, that just had a British anthropologist "back" from East Timor before the troubles there with Indonesia. Then there was a number of Iranian students who complained that the Shah's secret police, "Savak" were operating in the U.S. with impunity (? Kissenger said there was nothing he could do about it on record, I used to "Tootsie Taxi" "them" to the store from school). I met "Tom" the test pilot, on his birthday and that night we were told by TV media all "Tomcats" (congratulations Tom Cruise, "Topgun" F-14 pilot in the movie, President "what rush" Bush used to fly the F-102, though, an obsolete dog he thought it, left the Air Guard six months early for a Harvard MBA) would all be blown up if the USSR made a move for Iran's border (back then in 1979 or so was it?) since the air-to-air missile technology was secret. SO secret we gave it to the Iranians? Anyway, I read General Schwartzkopf's father as part of an American Expeditionary Force put the "Shah system" in power in the 1930's in troubled Iran. He was also in charge of the Federal investigation of the Charles Lindberg baby kidnapping ("Lucky" fell out of favor with FDR though contributed to research to protect our pilots, buried in Hawaii, for fraternizing with the Nazi's, as many Americans did, including the Bush's business interest, "strategic metals sales" shut down by the State Department after we were surprised by the German declaration of war on the US 15 days after Pearl Harbor, which was to have a declaration of war before it, held up in translation by an extremely long eulogy in Washington, D.C. one Sunday. So, I imagine President Carter had trouble thinking about sending in air-craft carriers to fly against what 90+ F-14's manned by recent U.S. trained "Top Gun" Iranian pilots? Where's that "October Surprise" when you need one? I think there is still more to it. The press reported Khomeini holding Reagan's personal bible as a gift. Well if that's true, I hope the moderates voice in Iran can be heard no matter what the outcome of the election. We need to heal some of the problems (the Aegis shootdown of their jetliner) that money can't really solve. Two F-14's buzzed the Army/Navy game at West Point a number of years ago in a snow squall, while I was working on the EPA cleanup of the NIKE missile battery (nickel and cadmium) contamination in Constitution Marsh or Foundry Cove where the rifled Parrott cannon was produced across the river in Cold Spring, NY. We relocated the prototype of the platform used to bombard Charleston, SC in 1863 with incendiaries called the "Swamp Angel". Can they really fly that low by law? I've seen what might have been the Massachusetts Air Guard's F-102 (current President's model once) fly over the West Meadow Beach one Fourth of July. Note: to check the veracity of this story, I present the shoulder patch I was given. It showed a small orange tiger striped cat in a boxing ring with gloves on. At the bottom it said "Anytime, baby". It was later replaced I think by the same cat but instead it said "Make my day". I think testing out on the island saw the last two "Tomcats" to fly over Long Island. They have had some "shoulder" problems swept wing as they are, and I think will be retired over the next few years. They also had had some problems with stall-spins that the government corrected after research at the super spiffy airframe research facility, whose name escapes me. I saw a video of it in Troy, NY on the TV news, that guy Brad Holbrook, who used to by in NYC TV, about air show crashes, falling and spinning, the day they shut Albany, NY, it was so hot. I was in Troy, NY collecting all the research reports in history and prehistory they had at the State Historic Preservation Office, for the PCB cleanup of the Hudson River at Fort Edward, which affects the spawning of the "stripers" (striped bass fish) so important to the fishermen of Long Island. I and another travelled to the State's Peebles Island Office which also shut down early (in Waterford, NY, where the Mohawk River joins the Hudson River, it's tidal to there). It was so hot one of the bridges couldn't close, once opened in Troy. The ice machines in the hotel refused to make ice.

Shinnecock and the Hamptons

Scotsman.com Sport - Golf - How Scots gave golf to America: "Next there was Willie Dunn. His first act was to set about transforming nearly 4,000 acres along Great Peconic Bay in New York State into America's first sophisticated golf course. With the help of 150 Indians from a nearby plantation, Dunn created a 12-hole wonder - the original Shinnecock Hills. When he'd finished he immediately sent for his two nephews, Seymour and John, and that was the way it worked, relation funding relation and friend funding friend on the expensive passage across the sea." (1890's ?) Yesterday I heard first on WSHU (Sacred Heart University, Fairfield, CT) that there was some new land claims by the Shinnecock of Long Island, who hold a Pow-Wow every Labor Day weekend. Then visiting my mother, read about it also in the newspaper "Newsday" though the article I thought a little one-sided sniping. I recall there has never been a bad incident recorded with the natives on Long Island in the history of the place, (i.e., from west to east: the Matinecock, Unkechaug, Shinnecock, Montauk, and perhaps the last of the Weckqueskecks in Nissequogue, [between Matinecock and Unkechaug] the first four still have some members and chiefs, the Matinecock chief, "Little Fox") with some others, i.e. Tobaccolot on the southshore, east of Patchogue, etc. Apparently the Shinnecock might hold up the sale of Southampton College (in dire straights) to Stony Brook University. They have some claim to its land and much of Southampton, NY, the "reservation" is on the south side of the Montauk Highway across from the college almost. One archaeology technician I worked with, once a DJ at Southampton College, worked summers in landscaping with the heritable (?) chief of the Shinnecock he told me. He provided background information to me about the Cold Spring, NY problems, a friend of his with the "Clearwater" organization provided him with all the background info they had gathered at public meetings, etc. Still 20 years later and nothing of PCB cleanup has been started in Fort Edward, NY, (where he also worked in archaeology) but Cold Spring, NY (cadmium and nickel) was cleaned up very rapidly. Well actually, done twice, the second time went, "dee dee mao".

Flag Day in the U.S.

Yesterday I read Carlos Santana was coming to Macy's Herald Square, to promote a line of women's shoe's, sales of which will be donated to charity, which he does alot of work in, distributing many, many small sums around the country. I read. Tomorrow he plays Madison Square Garden. My brother-in-law (Ginger's Victor) has worked for Macy's selling womens shoes for many years now! I feel blessed...though that's at Roosevelt Field he does that. I went by there yesterday listening to a Seattle "Heavy Soul" band "Maktub" (sounds like Mach 2) which means, in Arabic, roughly "your destiny" from a folktale, which springs the definition at the end. Jimi Hendrix's childhood home was saved from the "wrecking ball" (illegal in Manhattan still legal in the Bronx, how about Huntington, save John Coltrane's house?) and will be a community youth center. Nice news from the "Ghetto Fighters" who may have been some of Phil Spector's "wall of sound" people (different from Phil Lesh's "wall of sound" his book is out(?). Phil Spector, the music producer, played "Connection" in 1969 "Easy Rider" [working title "The Loners"] and is on trial for murder). I was listening to "Maktub" on WFUV of Fordham University (FM, streaming online, and now HD), where Alan Alda was once a DJ (he's in "Glengarry Glennross" on Broadway now about the real estate sales business) and since I haven't apparently been "dooced" (fired for a web blog) I am returning to work tomorrow, where the American and the Canadian flags are flown together, the Clarion at West Point, near Newburgh, NY about to be changed to somethng Suites. They say they have free WiFi in all the rooms. Listening to: "Carlos Santana Divine Light Reconstruction & Mix Translation: Bill Laswell. Music from Illuminations & Love Devotion Surrender." sonymusic.com c) 2001 Sony Music Entertainment. Manufactured by Columbia Records. legacyrecordings.com. I "won" it at iWon.com for $1(?).

Blade Runner

"DECKARD (V.O.) Every government that could was racing to populate their colonial territory. But emigrants needed incentive. Over-population and the greenhouse factor didn't seem to be enough; but owning a human look-a-like had lots of appeal. It was big industry, the competition was stiff and Tyrell was top of the line." BLADE RUNNER Screenplay by HAMPTON FANCHER July 24, 1980 Brighton Productions Inc. 1420 No. Beachwood Drive Hollywood, Calif. 90028

Scotsman.com News - International - Gun-toting CIA high-fliers draw fire

Only 26 planes bought since 9/11 for international "terrorist" investigations? Gee you'd think Congress might have balked, why 26, why not 100 really get WWIII on a roll.

Religious Right Hate Speech

"'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals." Dr. Paul Cameron, a "scientist" often quoted by religious right groups (see below), speaking at the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference

New York Daily News - World & National Report - Racing to salvage 140-year-old sub

Maritime archeologists are trying to save a Brooklyn-built Civil War era submarine that is slowly corroding in the surf off the coast of Panama.

BAGnewsNotes: Loaded Image

"As an anthropology grad student at NY's Stony Brook University, we had a number of people come and report to the club or to the class. One interesting guy spent a number of weeks with the pygmies in Africa, who were living in what is now the underbrush along a large road, where trucks are the main traffic. We had in class saw an interesting film of them making an exquisite rope bridge, and I think harvesting an elephant. They smoked quite a bit of African marijuana he related and provided some photos. Interestingly, we just had an 'anniversary' at the Bronx Zoo, 100 years ago they had placed a pygmy man, 'volunteer' in a cage there attracting public outcry as a boundary in the public's mind had been crossed in that institution that saved the American bison from extinction. I wish someone would research it, or is it that it is from Africa, that has people dead-set against the possible scientific benefit of it. One state changed its motto, 'Kentucky, the hemp state' where historically Americans farmed it for many materials, some used in WWII (parachute shroud lines, laces, etc.) The photo is on the wrong side of the Atlantic."

NYT photo by Mr. Chin

Not From Nuzi, I thought the photo a reminder of a theft that sparks a who-dunnit and the woman is being offered a reward (as many of the prisoners of Gitmo were sold to US according to recent press sources, for $5,000 to $8,000) for further information. She shuns the idea and points the little boy at the soldier by his behind, trying to remind him he was once like him, bare-ass naked poor. Ironically, Gitmo is just around the corner from Christopher Columbus' Cape Maysi, which he discovered and where the infamous American yacht "Wanderer" which took slaves from Africa in 1858, and landed on Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1858, (Wikipedia) even visited by a British blockade officer, sank in a storm after the American Civil War, involved in the fruit trade. It was built in Setauket, NY and outfitted with water tanks for the trans-Atlantic crossing in Port Jefferson, NY. Posted by: George Myers | June 7, 2005 06:08 PM

Your horse naturally won

Ten or so years ago I had the privilege of using a cesium proton magnetometer on a historic site in Saratoga Springs, NY. The EPA required an archaeology survey of the Superfund Priority Site, a former "city gas" production facility across from "Red Spring #1" on Excelsior Ave. in and under an active Niagara-Mohawk work/office yard. The company I worked for was sub-contracted be another company looking at contamination of the Groton, CT Navy sub properties, currently in the news "to be closed". A large water control feature ran under the "gas light" production facility emptying storm water into the nearby lake. The idea, despite the large current natural gas line under the facility, was to try to document the extent of the remains there without disturbing the active facility. The cesium proton magnetometer had a harness which held a small flip top computer running MS software, a car "starter switch" to take the readings (came also with software to sort out the up one line down another sequencing, could also be used in "timer" mode taking readings as one walked across various landscapes) and was the size of a small beverage can on the end of a short light aluminum rod, very efficient. Just before I was exposed to this (103 one summer day) it, I saw what I think may have been the same equipment being used by Australian archaeologists in Southeast Asia tracking down the origin of the "celadon" ceramic story, partly deduced from underwater archeology research. They found whole acres I think of kilns buried beneath about 2 meters I think of alluvium, which they found with the magnetometer, as firing earths creates magnetic anomalies. We used it to find the former "gasholder" base (it's twin still stood and eventually was placed on the US "National Register of Historic Places") and the various maps and photos were "ground truthed" from the survey, and shown to be still extant, in ruins, one brick "ring" the concrete block office building was cracking over (nearby fault line also, divides the Taconic from the Adirondack regions) as the site settled. It has almost all the stages of gas/electric production on site, too. However, I can't recall who made it. It came in a white "photon torpedo" looking case (aka "Star Trek") via parcel post, and was repaired once while we used it quite quickly. Any Aussie's know the thing's name? I should have said that "city gas" comes from coal. Coal is "cooked" and the gas stored in large chambers which ran inside large brick cylinders, an iron vessel floating up and down on water on wheels and interior tracks as the pressure was created and relieved, into the "city gas" system, mostly for lighting. A by-product is "coal tar" which can be pretty nasty stuff in water sources, though it was the catalytic conversion of coal tar which produced aspirin and aniline dyes in Germany creating a boom in their economy before World War I. A brick "gasholder" in Troy, NY is the symbol of the "Society For Industrial Archeology" of which I am a member. George Myers, Jr. Many shovel tests later..

In Canada, "Ground Zed"

Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 6:07 PM Subject: 2 Columbus Circle Hello! I have worked in NYC archaeology for a number of years, my former Mount Sinai Harbor, NY field-school aide Sherene Baugher, Ph.D. was NYC's first Landmarks Preservation Commission Archaeologist! I have worked on a number of sites (finding the 1730's ship hulk at 175 Water Street in winter, working a number of times in City Hall Park, last time investigating the Almshouse burial ground there, the restoration there had some design changes, the water fountain moved to preserve two of the city's ancestors buried together, various investigations on Staten Island and the other boroughs. I have also worked on the research in the Bowery and at 250 Water Street, the historic Seaport District, a parking lot currently that has been the site of many political fights between the needs of the landowner (Milstein) and the needs of NYC, the water tunnel can come up either there or at One Police Plaza. Did you know that the City of New York was built around Columbus Circle as "0,0" for all the surveys for new buildings in the 19th and 20th century? All directions at that "ground zero" were measured in positive feet from there, plus feet North, East, West, South. I discovered it, creating a mapping survey for Riverdale Park and Wave Hill's tree locations in the Bronx, NY. I think if the Landmarks Preservation Commission cannot abide by "due process" by giving the 2 Columbus Circle building a hearing, at the very least, the Commission is creating a dangerous precedent, as it, in my opinion, already has, by posting the name of the developer (Avalon, Inc.) on it's own web-site about Bowery development, (on the site of three cemeteries I and a colleague investigated for Parsons Inc. which still needs to be addressed, never provided a copy of the submitted work) and the citizenry should be worried if they too, are being given a "bum's rush". The US Constitution states that every case over $20 can be heard in a jury trial, and a building near the former "mathematical" center of our city should at least be granted a hearing. Sincerely, George J. Myers, Jr. BA Anthropology

Raining cats and dogs

Back in the 1970's I had a fieldschool in "Long Island Prehistory" taught by R. M. Gramly, Ph.D., Margaret Gwynne, now Ph.D. (her dissertation was on the human ecology of the Mount Sinai Harbor where the excavations went on) and Sherene Baugher, Ph.D. (her dissertation on the Prall Site in former Tory capital of Staten Island, Richmondtown, now a "little Williamsburg," she became NYC Landmark's Commission's first official archaeologist) we found I think two dog burials in the scallop shell midden on the harbor. One I recall was very "cute" the small dog with its head resting on its front paws. Along with the scallop shell (the bay kind that swim and can be get caught in nets, instead of dragged off the bottom, the larger scallop, sometimes notoriously substituted with cookie cutter "skate") James Gibb of the SHA I recall removed them and one of them travelled to Massachusetts. There were also sturgeon carapace in the midden, which are finally being brought back to the Hudson River estuary. I was told in the Messina, NY Museum the St. Lawrence River also had 10 foot long ones before the locks and dams of the St. Lawrence Seaway, doing survey along there a number of years ago in the "Algonquin to Adirondacks" ecology. On 6/6/05, Joe Dent wrote: > on 6/5/05 2:39 PM, Matthew Sterner at msterner@sricrm.com wrote: > > > Dog burials are actually not uncommon on prehistoric sites here in the > > Southwest. Not sure about cats though. Will have to ask a couple of > > colleagues and get back to the list on that one! > > > > mas > > I seem to recall the story surrounding one plague in Europe. As told, or written, the cats were blamed for the sickness (achoo achoo we all fall down) carried by rodents. The cats were slaughtered in a belief that they were the disease vector, which, in what might be described as only a human weakness, led to increasing vermin levels and the incidence of plague victims. I think it is from the epidemiological literature (the "tea pump" case the more famous one).

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"Whew...let's the Navy off the 'tale' hook. But not the Bushes: Sr. fired the head of the Navy for 'tailhook' and, 'JR' the head of the Army for being on the board of Enron? Posted by: George Myers, Jr. at May 31, 2005 12:41 PM"

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"Just a historical note: The Water Gate was a real place in New Amsterdam (now NYC) and it opened at sunrise and closed at dusk in the 'timber wall' that became 'Wall Street'. The English opened a warehouse just to the north of it, where the first ferry went to Brooklyn too, after purchasing, the marshal's (Du Troix) property and orchard. It was opened as the 'Allerton Warehouse' by a Puritan of the Plymouth Colony, coming over on the Mayflower with the Presbyterians, Pilgrims and others, and who create trade between Maine, NY and had a house in New Haven, Connecticut where Isaac Allerton's remains are in the cemetery maintained by Yale University. Anyway the neighborhood became a great place for hardware and leather (FDR's kin) in the 17th and 18th century. Posted by: George Myers, Jr. at May 31, 2005 07:26 PM"

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"Oh, I left out the slave market at the foor of Wall Street that once operated. What I find totally inconguous is that in the Watergate Complex in D.C., as far as I remember, the Lewinsky's lived next to the Dole's in the apartment complex, at least as it was reported in the press. I sort of follow those things as the Doles bought a judge's place they always liked on Lake Winnepeasauki, NH in Wolfeboro, and former Vice President Quayle was seen at some of the lunch places there it was reported in their press, and it was rumored that Tom Selleck had bought a farm just across the water from them, a friend of the Dole's. Anyone heard that one? Posted by: George Myers, Jr. at May 31, 2005 08:14 PM"

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"'Libel of the Dead' 'In general, there can be no defamation of the dead. No one can sue on behalf of a deceased individual on the basis of false and defamatory statements made about that individual. Some states, however, permit an ongoing libel suit to continue after the death of the complaining person.' 'The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual, Used by more than 1,000,000 journalists' - Norm Goldstein editor. c)1994 The Associated Press. Posted by: George J. Myers, Jr. at May 31, 2005 09:21 PM"