The Emperor's New Clothes (2001)

Back in 1979, under the threat of a summer hurricane, it had been the wettest recorded year to date in Mississippi where I was working in archaeology on the new barge canal the US Congress picked over an "Energy Island" for NYC, I visited New Orleans to see a friend off from the LaSalle Hotel to the Yucatan. On that Sunday the "Times-Picayune" published a legend from outside of the city. It seems, Emperor Napoleon had a friend in the LaFitte's, Thomas Jefferson's wife related to them by marriage. The story was that Napoleon was allowed long walks, away from his guard, and sat on the beach. He was smuggled off the island of exile, leaving a large cross of sticks in his long coat and hat. He apparently however was ill and had a heart attack within sight of the Yucatan, Mexico and was buried under another name in the LaFitte cemetery. How long, of course, becomes the question maybe he was removed maybe he's still there. The French are going to do a DNA analysis on his remains in Paris to make sure. There was always some problem with the official autopsy, reviewed by the Scottish Medical Association around 1973 (also researched by others). For sure, however, there is a bust of Thomas Jefferson in the LaFitte Vineyards in France where he visited and they say he had a talent for wine tasting and appreciation. I once introduced the Bordeaux wines at the Buffalo University back in 1974 on the new Amherst, NY campus, in an I.M. Pei designed dormitory, after or before "Watergate" and "Winegate". The hurricane fizzled out after 4" of rain, during the "Arab" oil embargo. I returned to work on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Barge Canal, which runs from the Tennessee River to Mobile, Alabama, staying in Columbus and Belmont, Mississippi. Elvis Presley's father died that summer. This film has some of the elements in it. The Emperor's New Clothes (2001) Comment: It was reported that Monica Lewinsky lived in the Watergate complex, next door to Bob and Libby Dole. Mark Russell, who performed his political satire at "Washington’s Shoreham Hotel in a popular act attended by politicians, the media and tourists" was transmitted later from the new theater at Buffalo University on PBS, he a native of Buffalo. It is part of a dormitory complex designed by Davis-Brody, who built "Waterside" and other low and middle income housing in NYC often "promised" in return for expensive high-rise "deals". Just before 9/11/01 it was discussed that the World Trade Center was going to be up for sale and a certain "windfall" would accrue from its sale as part of New York City's share in it. The various candidates for Mayor were asked on television (the primary was held around 9/11) what they would do with the money. One candidate said he would build the 40,000 low and middle income housing units that were promised in the original compromise made in constructing the World Trade Center, outside the building codes of NYC, and NOT in the South Street Seaport, as orginally planned. So the Port Authority really is an 'emperor' of sorts to some.

Have you heard about the Nyxem E Worm?

This **** points to a good site for info about XP. I ran the tool with my virii checker AntiVir on (free for personal use) and up popped a couple of other things I had it delete (key logger, JOKE/RaPster). AntiVir PersonalProducts GmbH D-90471 Nuremberg, Lina-Ammon-Straße 19a Germany

"Seaport of the Pharaohs to the Land of Punt: Recent Excavations in Wadi Gawasis"

Some social anthropology: (don't shoot!) There is also the American football term, which is to drop the ball and kick it before it hits the ground, which was once before different, a "drop kick" kicked after it bounced up off the ground (country-western novelty song: "Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life" has me confused). The "punt" has become synonymous for the "fourth down" kicked ball at the other team, when the previous efforts failed to advance the ball the required 10 yards in four downs, though the punt is still optional. The "punt" drop kick is much easier to control and goes usually much further than the bounced "drop kick" it replaced. I was working for a CRM firm just off Wall Street in NYC recently, and they are in the building next to the "Irish Punt" (the restaurant is at 40 Exchange Place) a restaurant, next door, in the building used in a recent film, "Wolves of Wall Street" offered by William Shatner's Sci-Fi/horror monthly DVD selection. I read that the "punt" was the national unit of currency in Ireland, like a "dollar" until now the "eu" is in use, Ireland in the European Union, its unit of currency now used there. Of course, a "punt" is also a small boat which is what I thought the restaurant was named after. It's amazing the intact artifacts they have found in the caves there, with ropes, etc. reported in the press, on the former "Arabian Gulf" on some older maps, the "Red Sea" on most today (though some have suggested the "Persian Gulf" should be rightfully renamed the "Arabian Gulf"). To Punt is where ancient Egyptians voyaged to some locations where they traded for exotic items, many of the real locations, still a mystery today. Perhaps to Axum's coastal trade site (in "American Antiquity" a geoarchaeological analysis) Oman, Yemen and the mysterious Socotra or Soqotra (Arabic Suquá¹­ra), where Alexander the Great its recorded obtained botanicals, in the Indian Ocean between Africa and the Arabian peninsula.

First it was Lincoln now Roosevelt...

Hollywoodreporter.com

'Museum' instates Williams Robin Williams has signed on to play Theodore Roosevelt in the Ben Stiller starrer "Night at the Museum" for 20th Century Fox.

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project

Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
Department of Special Collections
Donald C. Davidson Library, University of California, Santa Barbara

Interesting site with a connection to NPS Edison National Historic Site in New Jersey (under construction).

"Not as a Stranger" (1955)

Interesting film, some think dated, however, the topics of gall bladders and ulcers are still relevant I thought, no doctor, though studied in anthropology. Ulcers since (Sinatra says call the common cold a virus and you'll make more money is kind of funny) have been shown in many cases to be caused by pylori bacteria and can be treated with antibiotics I've read. In "Man's Presumptuous Brain" by Dr. Simmeons, he thinks that our evolutionary past, in the lower parts of the brain (the page Sinatra has to read after the book is thrown at him) may have an unconscious control on the "sphincter of Oddi" on the common bile duct, that developed, to suspend digestion when "fight or flight" was necessary in the past, so more or less energy was used in survival, fighting or running. They have actually since developed a monitoring device for the smooth muscle in the bile duct, where many stones develop in some people, and causes the removal of the gall bladder, one of the most common surgeries done. I think they were smart to run it after today's comedy from Britain.

Re: Boston, I love that dirty water...

Here's the kicker: The former Governor of Massachusetts, William Weld is maybe running against Senator Hillary Clinton in NY State. Wikipedia says he's running for Governor. He came from Smithtown! Out on the isle of Long! His family owned the now Suffolk County Blydenburgh Park on the lake in Smithtown I used to camp by with Explorer Post 222 of Lake Grove (we used to meet in the Wing Street School, since renamed). It was then called, The Weld Estate, (recently found with West Nile virus sites, a friend lives on it watching it and doing some archaeology stuff for the County. His Dad worked in Smithtown Highway for many years got sick of plowing snow, retired to Florida). Governor Weld stepped down from office under President William Clinton to be the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, thought to be a no-brain nomination. Senate up and balked and bawled. Weld no longer Republican Governor, now not Democrat President Ambassador to Mexico. No no no we can't have that! So he works too, in NYC (as does Prez Clinton him in Harlem, Weld on Wall St.?) They donated the Weld Estate I think to Suffolk County, I think more likely, maybe taxes. He's under investigation for being on the board/running a high-priced vocational school, like $29,000 a year gets you a good tech job in St. Louis, Missouri. Bologna! It was a little water-powered industrial mill once, run by Blydenburghs? I took out a rowboat there once. My former alumni archaeology employer had their archaeology lab there after the Social Science Building opened at Stony Brook University, moving the Anthropology Dept. out of Graduate Chemistry and they weren't given any room for Long Island Archaeology I think.

Walter Cronkite remarries

According to David Letterman, Walter Cronkite remarried one of Carly Simon's sisters. He is an "Overseer" of the National Maritime Historical Society based in Peekskill, NY, where the current governor of New York State was once mayor, and his family had a roadside farmstand. Of course Walter Cronkite is a famous television journalist, commentator and writer. One of my worst memories of him was returning from an "empty" clarinet lesson, off stage at the Wood Road elementary school, Mr. Abrams hadn't showed, and returning with rented "licorice stick" back to Mr. Hoff's class, wondering why the TV was on again (we used to have current event quizzes after the "Today" show news with Frank Blair) only to hear that President Kennedy had been shot in Dallas that afternoon. I recall the empty chairs and Mr. Cronkite removing his glasses after having to tell the audience that President Kennedy was dead. A more fond memory of him has to do with an earlier taped and replayed broadcast of the building and inauguration of the St. Lawrence Seaway, a system of locks and dams on the northern border of New York State and Ontario, Canada. Where we once fought each other, (over and over, beginning in the Revolutionary War blowing full-scale into the War of 1812, where the United States Navy actually started, on the Great Lakes, and the invasion of "Toronto" resulted in the invasion of Baltimore, MD and the burning of the White House by the British, inspiring the U.S. National Anthem about Fort McHenry where I've dug for the National Parks Service, and where small skirmishes, and clandestine Irish independence inspired rebellion went on until Canada gained its independence under Queen Victoria, around 1867) we built together a monumental system that creates electric power and allows trade with deep harbor ports around the world from all the lakes in the Great Lakes. The "official" story is replayed with Walter Cronkite's narration, and image there at the Eisenhower Locks, near Massena, NY, of the enormous effort made, much of it in winter, to build the system. I worked in the archaeological testing of some of the properties taken, no longer needed, to be returned to "tax rolls" in the N.Y. jurisdiction by the power authority. I rented 4 wheel drives in nearby Ottawa, Canada (pre-SUV) and we were once thought to be possible "beaver poachers" by a federal wild-life officer, and an impending Canadian gasline survey by others. More recently (he is the voice of Ben Franklin on the animated Revolutionary War retelling, first on PBS and currently on regular TV. Dustin Hoffman is in it too and others) is a letter he wrote to the "N.Y. Times", (I am using it as a bookmark in "Military Organization and Society" by Stanislav Andreski, 1971, with a forward by a noted anthropologist A.R. Radcliffe-Brown). In a letter titled "Military Censorship In the Gulf War" he wrote:

To the Editor: Re "Report Revives Criticism of General's Attack on Iraqis at End of the Persian Gulf War" (news article May 15): The controversy over the actions of Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey's 24th Infantry Division after the cease-fire in the Persian Gulf war points up again the serious fallacy of the Pentagon's censorship policy in that conflict.
That policy severely restricted the right of reporters and photographers to accompany our troops into action, as had been the permitted in all our previous wars. This denial prevented the American people from getting an impartial report on the war.
The American people, whose sons and daughters fought that war and whose money financed it, were denied the information in which they were entitled by the military's restrictive policy. This not only shielded possible military mistakes but also limited reports of individual heroism. As the members of a supposedly democratic government, we lost both ways. WALTER CRONKITE New York, May 15, 2000

I wish him well in his new marriage, and thank him for speaking up on our behalf, when sometimes, we just don't have the facts.

"The Century" (1999)

"Peter Jennings: Lindbergh's celebrity would haunt him for the rest of this life, in 1933 when his infant son was kidnapped and murdered and when he was branded an anti-semite for comments he made about American Jews and Nazi Germany." "The Century" (1999)

I was in North Creek, NY when I heard Peter Jennings had died, where VP Teddy Roosevelt was by telegram told he was now the President after President McKinley passed away from the gunshot at the Panamerican Exposition in Buffalo, NY eight days prior. He had been climbing Tahawas (Mt. Marcy) and was rushed by buckboards through the night down from there to North Creek, after news that the President, had taken a turn for the worse, by Elihu Root, Secretary of War and former resident of Irving Place, in NYC and where he boarded a special train for Buffalo, NY there, informed by telegram from the Secretary of State that the President was dead. Peter Jennings was a wonderful reporter and humanitarian.
However, I read, that the Lindbergh federal investigation was handled by General Schwartzkopf's (gulf war fame, anti-land mine petition signer) father, who was put in charge of the New Jersey investigation. I also read in a NY "Daily News" reader comment that his father was also in charge(?) of the American Expeditionary forces that put the "shah" system in place in Iran in the 1930's. So in the spirit of reportage, I write this in response to Mr. Jennings quote. "Lucky" (in that he walked away from many crashes) Lindbergh is buried out in Hawaii, and he contributed to the science of aviation during WWII, having once flown solo from "Roosevelt Field" on Long Island, the stated "cradle of aviation" to France.

Mozart's 250th Birthday!

Interesting, I've been listening to the Wikipedia's Mozart selections and the scientific analysis of paintings of him provided by the NOM: "Neuroscience of Music" in Sweden. The BBC had a quiz, presenting 10 snippets, asking whether you could tell Mozart from Beethoven, Haydn, etc. Then I see they have one that asks if you can tell the difference between Mozart and Salieri! I am also listening to "ReadPlease" speak a controversial "Voyages of Verrazano" I got over at the Gutenberg Project (free texts no longer or never were under copywrite) which has been around since the beginning of personal computers. And looking at the Art of Rhodes...wow at "Lost Trails".

Happy Chinese New Year!

Year Of The Dog As China Anchors At 7 World Trade NYO - The Financial Press

To Boldly Go...

Chicago Tribune | Co. to Develop 'Star Trek' Video Games

"Co. to Develop 'Star Trek' Video Games

By MATT SLAGLE
AP Technology Writer
Published January 25, 2006, 6:28 PM CST

DALLAS -- The "Star Trek" series, now relegated to video rentals and television reruns, plans to beam up some new video games later this year.

In an exclusive licensing deal announced this week with CBS Corp.'s CBS Communications Group, Bethesda Softworks LLC will publish Trek games for consoles, handheld systems and personal computers. Terms weren't disclosed. "

Today in European History

Today in history January 26, 1554:

Thomas Wyatt rebellion apparently on behalf of the future Queen Elizabeth I?:

"On January 26 Wyatt occupied Rochester, and issued a proclamation to the county."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_the_younger

However, when the people of Maidstone rebelled against the crown in support of Thomas Wyatt in 1554, this charter was revoked, although a new charter was established five years later, when Maidstone was created a borough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidstone

There's a place out on the east shore of Three Mile Harbor on Long Island named Maidstone that always has me wondering. Freetown at the base of the harbor was of free slaves and natives. I tested on the west shore, near a former boys camp a couple of years ago, there was girls camp at Maidstone, across the Peconic Bay from Cartwright Island attached sort of to Gardiners Island, the last surviving English manor in North America.

They say the Jones Act might stop the Rochester, NY highspeed ferry from coming to NYC, we can't go from US port to US port on foreign built ships, but can go back and forth to Toronto, Canada on the Australian built ship.

New planet news: My alma mater Stony Brook University was involved in some of the first "sightings" way out there. Fiber optic connecting two telescopes may increase resolving power by 10. It might be interesting to see if Internet2 hooks up more, however the optic cable has to be "matched". My astronomy professor there dated Kohoutek's wife before she married him. That comet sort of whizzed out as a public event. Uhura's brother (Nichelle Nichols of "Star Trek" fame) however died at the "Heaven's Gate" debacle. They had "alien abduction insurance" from England, I doubt they'll be offering that again!

Happy Australia Day! (1788)

"In the 1990 gulf war, the United States unveiled its stealth bomber; an $11 billion plane that had been designed "invisible." Three years later, scientists at Australia's CSIRO unveiled the Jindalee Radar System; a $1.5 million dollar invention that, by being by being able to detect the stealth bomber, transformed the $11 billion aircraft into nothing more than an unusual looking plane."

Australian Science

NYC's Battery Park: "Up the spout" at the foot of Broadway

UP THE SPOUT - a slang term, "up the spout" was sometimes used to indicate that a round was ready to be fired from any weapon; typically a piece or a battery, when ready to fire, is considered "in battery," and when all cannons were ready to fire, they were said to be "up the spout".

http://www.angelfire.com/me/reenact/terms.html

BBC: Revisiting the South

How the South belatedly won America's civil war?
Well, part of this seems right. I live in the Bronx where the US Capitol dome was forged and erected for a little over $1 million during the Civil War, Lincoln, not the first Republican, thought it a symbolic "unifier". Senator Hillary Clinton, from Chicago, now New York State Senator was present, along with one other woman at the Watergate hearings, about executive privilege, and the withholding of information. I for one think claiming the "South won" inconsistent with the devastation it suffered then and the devastation it is currently experiencing. I'm not sure why people keep bringing up New York's senator as a "whipping girl".

HuffPost Exclusive: New Video Shows Computer Bush to Deliver State of the Union

Well I only had to log in once so the NSA is probably not taking any "calls". Strangely this wonderful piece of documentary reminded me to wish Elijah Wood a happy 25th birthday on second viewing, (he played Frodo, Bilbo's nephew in "The...Ring") The "State of the Union" might remind US to bring the "national" back to the "National Guard" and leave out the "inter". It started in NYC, the Guard when it was the US capital, (the Capitol dome was forged in the Bronx, put up in the Civil War for a million, replaced the "hat box"). Thanx for the tour of CGI.

Hadrian's Cycleway "Coast to Coast - the Roman Way"

Interesting bikeway through Roman/British history to open this year.

Centre of Britain in the gallery.

Use of a total station in vessel recording

While employed at Grossman & Associates, around 1993, we had the opportunity to record the tidal remains of two 40'-50' (?) large centerboard Hudson River cargo haulers inside a NY State Park, Bear Mountain, site of two nearby Revolutionary War forts, Clinton and Montgomery. The remains were also photographed using the Rolleimetric close-range photogrammetric camera system, from overhead as was possible, though the photos were never formally rectified (placed on a digitizing tablet, combined with survey data and used to document specific distances in 3D, as used in accident reconstruction, power plant "reporting", etc.). The complications of the mud and wood, along with the iron rods joining timbers together used like "trenails" (treenails, wooden pegs, in this case replaced by thick iron rod without thread and nuts in the centerboard "box" and elsewhere) made the definition of the elements, chased by tide below the Bear Mountain Bridge, the Hudson River is visibly tidal (drowned estuary) to Albany, NY and navigable to Troy, NY difficult to photograph as a close-range photogrammetric "object" without real serious engineering supports. Using a Sokkia total-station (then Sokkisha) allowed the sighting in of the remaining ends of the frames (they themselves "split" and joined horizontally by iron rod, keeping a curve for the outside planking once attached, and the creation of the schematic which could not be reduced to fit in the National Maritime Historical Society article on it, thought the copy I believe was sent to NY State Office Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, its commissioner Bernadette Castro, part of the NYC furniture business. It is the only one that I have done. Since, new total stations have "laser" ranging in them (though called that previously, they were more like "night vision scopes in the infra-red than "lasers") and one example to show that utility (could I have used that, as often the guy holding the "mirror" or reflecting prism, is the last one to actually produce the resulting documentation) was documenting an historic ship at dockside, to determine deformations etc., in it's "fearful symmetry". Posted to Underwater Archaeology yesterday.

Water Babies and Coram, Long Island, NY?

This is an interesting play it seems. There was once a "Tea Room" in Coram, NY out on Long Island, about the middle, where Eleanor Roosevelt stopped during the Great Depression. The wooden house, now with a sign for the "Tea Room" was, its said, a place where needy people or families could go to get some assistance, at least a cup of tea, and built in the 18th century. It burned down, or was burned down in a controlled fire by the local volunteer fire department, it was often flooded. Coram was also an important site in the American Revolution, the British forces stockpiled hay there from all-over, burned in a Patriot raid, its said. There was a dirt airfield there. I wonder if Eleanor Roosevelt, then the First Lady, flew in and out or came by car. Next door was a brick building that was once the local justice and post office that is now also gone. The bricks for it were made from clay dug out of the ground across the street. My brother and friends once rented and lived in the "Tea Room" house, which at the time, I don't believe they or I knew its former reputation. It was also visited by now investigative reporter, Lou Young, with CBS News in NYC.

Coram Boy, a CurtainUp London review

USA Today

Last year I was at a motel that gave out the "USA Today" with every breakfast. I found myself longing for the local newspaper, which, in the new crossroads (no sidewalks!) of Newburgh, NY (a conspiracy there, to make George Washington "king" which he squelched, was reported, cited by Senator Hillary Clinton, inspecting re-enactors) and Stewart International Airport, had stories USA T. just wouldn't cover, i.e, the Maharishi buying a natural farm in nearby Goshen of "black earth" to raise organics and train others to, a huge "ecstasy bust" at the National Air Guard, where huge transport jets land, the lack of dam inspectors and the recent floods, the nearby Orange County Choppers, etc. It might be the "neighborhood" I spent the time in, i.e, nearby the West Point Military Academy, and where Thomas Jefferson sponsored one of the first U.S. science expeditions, to dig up the remains of a wooly mammoth found nearby, which he asked Lewis and Clark to look out for! I've found that, the USA Today actually compels me to read other papers, knowing it's "played right down the middle". Could also be the nature of my travel, digging holes and screening dirt for archaeology compliance. By George Myers 5:01PM on 21 Jan 06

MediaShift . Comfort Media::USA Today Rules the Travel World | PBS

Recent Research from Louisiana State University

Early maize (Zea mays L.) cultivation in Mexico: Dating sedimentary pollen records and its implications

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) -- Selected Abstracts

Looking for a studio?

"More recently Miramax and Robert DeNiro owned the site and planned to create a movie studio, but the partnership sold the 18-acre property in February 2005 to Homes for America, a residential development firm."

Hudson Valley Ruins: Hudson Valley Demolition Alert

Graduate School at Stony Brook University

I just recalled too, that it seems false to think it was the only source. A retired teacher from the Vera Cruz, Pennsylvania area, across from Jasper Park, an ancient cryptocrystalline quartz mine near Allentown, once showed me some carborundum nodules from nearby, along with a "Folsom" looking projectile point he found in the cornfield next door ("The Paleo-American culture of Central America and North America; distinguished chiefly by a thin finely made flint projectile point having the shape of a leaf"), across the street from Jasper Park that the U of Penn. dated to at least 10,000 years old. He was nice. I wrote a proposed reinvestigation of the area for a graduate proposal writing class for a NSF reviewer and Peruvianist archaeologist Edward Lanning, to open some test squares down the road a piece, at the Seem Seed Farm, to whom I also had spoken, as another extension of the Penn. Turnpike was coming through, and I had worked in the nearby Hopewell Village Foundry, staying at the Geigertown Youth Hostel, it could be done cheap. One of the first archaeology articles in the American Anthropologist, which began in the early 20th century, was on the Vera Cruz jasper mines near Emmaus, PA. I had visited it also with a Welsh woman from Uruguay who was attending the university whom I also worked with in Mississippi, Mary FitzHerbert.

President John Tyler, buried in the Hollywood Cemetery, passed away today.

This Day in History 1862 Julia Gardiner's husband, former President John Tyler dies. She had a premonition and had ridden all night up on horseback from his plantation, Sherwood Forest, in tidewater Virginia, where they had danced the "Virginia Reel" and arrived in Richmond, VA to his great consternation. He was in charge of Richmond, VA in the American Civil War, and collapsed on the steps of the headquarters, the Richmond Hotel, I think Mr. Robert Gardiner said. In 1639, Lion Gardiner, a British royal fortress architect, here appraising the Dutch and their loose sales of arms and fortifications (or lack thereof), acquired Gardiners Island, after leaving the hostilities in Old Saybrook, CT. It's said that the 17,000 acres granted them on the larger Long Island, were given them after they negotiated a return of a Montaukett princess, then about to be married, who had been kidnapped by the Naragansett, who reside in Rhode Island, for which 100,000 fathoms of "wampum" had been demanded. Recently, the studios of Pinewood West, a British film making studio with the tallest soundstage in New York State (40' high, "A room or studio that is usually soundproof, used for the production of movies"), had its premises blessed by one of the natives, Princess Thunderbird. Mr. Gardiner also once had the "Gardiner Manor Mall" in Bayshore, where a friend, Mindy Washington, was once his book-keeper. She went on to work for the Peconic Land Trust, which attempts to negotiate for the preservation of environmentally sensitive habitats on the eastern end of Long Island.

Question for "60 Minutes"

CBSNews.com: Blog
I'd like to ask "Who's buried under the Horace Greeley and Joseph Pulitzer monuments in NYC's "City Hall Park" but I already sort of know that firsthand, the people from the "First Almshouse". The question I have for "60 minutes" (my cousin George Murray, started out at 15 minutes of "Huntley and Brinkley" ended up producer of CBS convention coverage 1976) is, if diplomats of the U.N. are "bugged", defense attorneys of Gitmo jailbirds, hundreds of U.S. citizens that led to "deadends" (grew up on one after the projects) and who knows what others all without warrants (oh no we use warrants said the President - Randi Rhodes taped statement of his used on yesterday's show) how can we believe that the press is still "free"? Silly question, asking if you keep "safe" communications, but I imagine you might turn into "Danger Man" (in the U.S. the show was called "Secret Agent Man") which Tony Blair warned us about, maybe lose our rights. Posted by georgejmyers at 11:26 AM : January 18, 2006

New Flags in the NYC Parks

City Laws P.O.W./M.I.A. Flags (INTRO 52-A) Introduced: 2003 Passed City Council: May 14, 2003 Passed Mayor: May 23, 2003 This law requires the Parks Department to fly a black Prisoner of War/Missing in Action flag in 800 public places. Because of the city's fiscal crisis, the council is giving the Parks Department three years to implement the plan. The POW/MIA flags will cost the city $10,000 in the first year, and the council is asking flag manufacturers for donations.

NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC)

Calling all preservationists! Nearly two weeks into his second term, Mayor Bloomberg has made the single most critical decision for the future of our city’s historic neighborhoods. That is to re-appoint Robert B. Tierney as Chair of the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Tierney’s confirmation hearing will take place on Wednesday, January 18, at 11:00 AM before the City Council’s Rules, Privileges & Elections Committee (City Hall, 2nd Floor). Please plan to attend! Your presence will demonstrate how much preservationists care about who is chosen to lead the agency – the only agency – with the mandate to protect our most beloved landmarks in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island. No public testimony will be taken on the 18th, but please contact your local council member and urge them to attend and ask questions (for contact information, go to Gotham Gazette). If you would like your own questions submitted to committee chair Leroy G. Comrie (Queens), please send them to us at landmarkwest@landmarkwest.org and we will pass them on. Please underscore your concern about the LPC’s dire need to improve its processes for… a) deciding which buildings and neighborhoods do and do not get public designation hearings, b) collaborating with organizations and individual citizens working to preserve their communities, c) interacting with the City Council and other city agencies to promote landmark designation and protection, …as well as addressing the broad range of complaints that many of you raised at an unprecedented three oversight hearings that you attended over the past 18 months. Remember, at the end of 2005, over 60 organizations were so frustrated that they (you!) had endorsed changing the Landmarks Law itself. Those problems have not gone away. The responsibility for those problems rests squarely on Tierney’s shoulders. It’s up to us preservationists to hold him accountable. See you on the 18th.

2 Columbus Circle and the Right Stuff

Thirty years ago, I attended a lecture or presentation by Tom Wolfe and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy at the Student Union at the State University at Buffalo, in Buffalo, NY on the Main campus, before half of it was moved to the suburban campus in nearby Amherst, NY. They both talked about "urban riots in America" and the topic of the riots of the 1960's (about which a Federal commission also convened) was well covered by both, though not well attended, an interesting lecture from prominent participant observers in American culture. Since, unfortunately, there have been more, and the scars of the earlier ones, now forty years ago, apparently have not wholly healed, though there may be very different "reasons" for them. I want to just say that, if we cannot show our highest ideals, hopes and aspirations for the processes involved in preservation, how can others not draw a wider conclusion about the whole "system" of our government. The vigilance we should have in the interest of our past should exhibit a concern for "due process" that would be extended to us citizens also. The inability to deal with the "objects" of our culture can be seen as the inability to create equality and fairness in our democratic participation. A few years before I left to attend school in Buffalo, NY my classmates were beginning their education, with state Regents scholarships and fencing scholarships, at NYU, an athletic endeavor we finally have had some success in, the women winning in the Olympics, where earlier fencer Peter Westbrook, won a Bronze medal. I was in the "Tweed Courthouse" a number of years ago, when it was slated to become a museum of the City of New York, that stopped and now the Dept of Education headquarters, after an extensive restoration, which I had some roles in as an archaeological technician. US Pan-Pacific athletes were then being celebrated in a photo exhibit in which he was shown. He has a school for "ghetto" kids in fencing he maintains, and produces competitors. All fencing is regulated by rules, and people win fairly. We should have the same intensity for the rules and procedures in our business dealings with parts of our city's culture held important by its citizens. Sincerely, George J. Myers, Jr. BA Anthropology Stony Brook University Home of the W. Averell Harriman College for Urban Studies. Named for the United States financier who negotiated a treaty with the Soviet Union banning tests of nuclear weapons (1891-1986).

And the last annual Hudson Valley Archaeology meeting was in 1984

Archaeological Resources Assessment Report for Phase 1 Dredge Areas, prepared for GE

I found this surprise (Adobe file online) from a former employer, who had me come down in the middle of the day to fill out a form at 1 Penn Plaza (or was it 2?) URS on the day the Yankees had a pennant parade in Manhattan. They did some testing around Co-op City, which has been replaced by a better impact in a to-be-developed "Greenway" along the Hutchinson River edge just a couple of hundred or so feet over, for the steam and power tunnel conduit upgrades.

Funny thing is, the earlier research was done by me for TAMS at mid-town now Earth Tech a division of that newspaper selling conglomerate TYCO, in the news all the time it seems for CEO's spending too much on parties in Sardinia, $4000 showerhead, etc. They called me down too in the middle of the day, while President Bush was visiting St. Patricks Cathedral, where my bus stops for their offices then nearby to pick up the maps to go to Peebles Island on a "raid" to get all the CRM site reports ever done for that section of the Hudson River. Greenhouse Consultants Inc. back in 1983 or so "won" a proposal war to do the job at "Fort Edward" for the containment in clay for eternity of the PCB's to be dredged "real soon now". Grossman & Associates, another former employer, dug at Little Wood Creek in Fort Edward, NY (the largest site excavated in the region) and is mentioned in the document. He went to work on it after leaving Greenhouse Consultants, signing a non-competitive agreement to get out of Mr. Greenhouse's prior contract I guess he had signed. Funny too, it seems vice versa occurred.

Si, here it is. I read the TAMS one, which ironically had no cultural resources in it and GE suggested that it should be included! That was, TAMS built dams and their first report was about the proposed construction not the impacts, which the public was given only 30 days to comment on. I got a prerecorded message to write about it from some of the Hudson River environmental groups, (Clearwater, etc. I worked a summer on water quality with NYPIRG and we had Pete Seegar sing us a concert at the end of the canvassing in Riverhead, NY still trying to preserve that arts venue an old theater in the middle of its town) and I think it was successful, the public got a little more time to read the like I imagine 6" thick document judging how large it was online.

This report also refers to a lot of information I would not have been able to get a handle on for current research in the upper Hudson valley. There is also a "district" in Warrensburg, birthplace of aviator and Arctic explorer Floyd Bennett (the large airport in Brooklyn named after him now part of Gateway National Park stretching from there across to Staten Island where I worked for Panamerican Consultants on part of it to Sandy Hook and the seashore of New Jersey) that is in the National Register listing at NY's SHPO online that is very detailed about settlement, though I'm not sure how important it is. I read settled by loggers from the north in 1790's (not from Lake George, etc.) maybe like around Fort Drum, NY the "North Woods" quasi-settled by French, what would be today Canadians. That would certainly be true for some of the Adirondacks too, perhaps. There is a movement, "A to A" from Algonquin Provincial Park to Adirondack Park to preserve the wildlife and beauty on both sides of the St. Lawrence River where Greenhouse has also had me work, the St. Lawrence Seaway, Ogdensburg, etc.

There's a severe "flood watch" weather alert for northern NY today, which has very few actual dam inspectors, cut back at the state level.

Stewart Too Old for Trekking ?

4. This reminds me of the salary ? on one of the films. It seemed they had to pay Stewart alot to be in "Nemesis"? Like paying Robert Redford to recite the "Hail Mary" in "A Bridge Too Far" (which it seemed in "Brothers in Arms" some people were also a bit teed-off about). Anyway, I read he's a dean or something at the school in his town in the British Midlands or something. I'm a Castle Pontefract fan, Britons had a vote in the 17th century whether to dismantle it, and it was taken down, an archaeological site now. (Out damn helluva spot). Sci-Fi blog had it Shatner has to come back! The films have come a long way since a double feature at the drive-in with "Airplane" in the Bronx. Interesting to see what might still come from it. Posted at 5:40PM on Jan 10th 2006 by George Myers, Jr. 3 stars Pontefract is the center of the licorice universe!

Some archaeology

Wonkette, Politics for People with Dirty Minds: Sheryl Crow says the Bushes want to control oil-producing countries: "Now, if we pull out [of Iraq] we are going to leave a complete and total mess. We don't even know who we're fighting over there." [NYDN] I hope its not like the Hunts, who almost took over the whole silver business. Those matches too, Hunts, tomatos, before the matchbook striker was put on the back, used to stick to your fingers and I once had a whole book go up on a street in Woodstock, NY. Owww!

Warning: large parenthetical ahead!

I worked with an archaeologist from Texas, Bill Crow, a former Vietnam "Huey" chopper pilot, (the helicopter was actually called an "Iroquois" in production , but "politically correct" I guess troops altered its model letters into "Huey". Coincidentally the current archaeologist in Albany, Paul Huey, for many years has worked in the early history of New York State in mostly historical archaeology, who was almost unceremoniously dumped out by the current administration, but protest prevailed. There was this site in Albany, NY "Beaverwick", that was being trashed by the NY Dormitory Authority (a building arm of the state) that an ambassador of Holland wrote to New York about, asking "what are you doing with our history?" a few years just before 9/11/01. The Governor, George Pataki, and a US Presidential candidate, from the Bear Mountain Parkway Farmstand in Peekskill, also its former Mayor, was away in Hungary researching his family roots and Catholic "orthodoxy" and was not available. A judge found in favor of the archaeologists and a fairly substantial amount of money was awarded to the local chapter of the NY State Archaeological Association, which has chapters around New York State. One, across from the Custer Institute, an astronomical observatory (a college minor of mine) in Southold out on the North Fork of Long Island, was left endowed with "company stock" and even has its own small building to house the collections of artifacts, often found in the farmlands of eastern Long Island. There is also an armored tank museum there.) and Anthony Tripp, Ph.D., a paleo-sedimentologist from Texas A&M at the Cold Spring, NY "Marathon Battery EPA National Priority Superfund" clean-up site, (batteries for Nikes) and also there with Gordon Watts of Tidewater Research in North Carolina who first located the "USS Monitor" wreck in a NC State survey off the coast of Cape Hatteras, where my grandfather's brother, captain of the ship passenger and freighter the "S.S. City of Atlanta" lies after torpedoed by "U-123" in the early weeks of the "Battle of the Atlantic" in WWII. I wonder if Sheryl and Bill know each other? Heh, Tony thanks for the 2nd Ave Deli trip, its been torn down!

Thank Gog for Allof

Today is part of a three day Arab holiday here in NYC when we don't have to move all our cars from one side of the street to another. There often is not enough room, and we double-park until the parking restrictions are over. If you don't move your car the ticket is $55. If you do move it, and many double-park until the time to move them back, for the 1 1/2 hours, for sanitation to sweep the street usually, and don't get to your car by the exact minutes, the fine is $115 for double-parking. You think this is fair? The people who make an effort to aid the city are often screwed over a couple of minutes, and of course the City can just say...what...it's illegal to double park. If they ticketed all the conscientious people who can't find enough parking, and are "allowed" to double-park, there would be a wide-scale uproar. Because of a few minutes over the 1 1/2 hours they do ticket the double-parked cars moved, often next to neighbors they may know. Thankfully we get a break now and then for religious holidays? They just rescinded a Sunday ticketing, back to "parking rules in effect, except Sunday" too they brought out a couple of years ago. Freedom of religion here also means having days one doesn't have to move a car.

Before there was Kong, there was Congorilla

Also if you look over at the Martin and Osa Safari Museum: "KONG is KING But CONGORILLA Ruled the Box Office First! Set Course for Cinematic Thrills! Friday April 21th" They were early aviators and film-makers and Osa wrote the book "I Married Adventure". They were the first to maybe even see orangutans from the West in the 1930's. They held records for flying over Africa and Indonesia in old airplanes. Ironically, Martin Johnson died in a commercial airline crash. Recently there has been some sightings of very large chimpanzees in remote areas of the African jungle.

One of the ships my grandfather served on

"Admiral E. W. Eberle (AP-123) was laid down on 15 February 1943 under a Maritime Commission contract (MC hull 681) by the Bethlehem Steel Corp., Alameda, Calif.; launched on 14 June 1944; sponsored by Mrs. Earl Warren, the wife of the Governor of California who later became Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; and acquired by the Navy and commissioned on 24 January 1945, Capt. G. C. Carlstedt, USCG, in command." Later renamed the "General Simon B. Buckner" when an ARMY ship. At sometime, it was cut in two and lengthened I read. My grand-dad was once apparently one of the youngest in the Canadian Black Watch in WWI and one of the older in service of the U.S. Merchant Marine.

Before there was Kong, there was Ingagi

Teddy Roosevelt also explored the Amazon. For his activities, which he thought many of the species were about to be exterminated, he was outfitted with a special gun order from Winchester arms company ("the gun that won the west"). Its said many of the specimens he shot went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. His grand-daughter, Anna Roosevelt, of the Chicago Field Museum, is an archaeologist and has done research on the mound builders on Marajo ("largest littoral island in the world" - Wikipedia) in the Amazon River in the "E.U. do Brasil", which she was assisted once by a public archaeology company I worked for.

Conspiracy theorists, rejoice!

3. Another one was Marvin Kittman's the TV critic. The telescope on the assassination rifle was cited in, according to his statements from the Marines who range-fired the weapon, was that it was focused on Jackie Kennedy, whom Marina Oswald (from Russia with love) was obsessed with (or someone else). He wrote it in "Newsday" formerly edited by Isaac Asimov's brother. Or someone else. Perhaps the scope was deliberately tampered with? I don't know another one of those theories. Posted at 12:55PM on Jan 5th 2006 by George Myers, Jr. 3 stars

Films of people in the news

Eyes Wide Shut NATO il QUATTRO LUGLIO War of the Worlds My favorite Tom Cruise films. The Peacemaker Moulin Rouge! Cold Mountain My favorite (I didn't know she was born in Honolulu, Hawaii) Nicole Kidman films.

The Blog | Richard Lewis: I Know Nothing About Politics and Proud to Finally Admit It... | The Huffington Post

"I read Bill Clinton (who collected 1/2 as much salary as the 365 days at Crawford, 'TX' (THX!!#*) only sent two emails in his Presidency. Boy this email stuff has really taken off! Spamming is illegal in Australia, we should have the same, and share the control of the Internet with others in the cyberworld. On the other hand, ('...there are different fingers.' Steve Wright, another comedian) Bill Clinton was the second President to address the New-York Historical Society (some months before 9/11) which considering the import of events that followed, perhaps the sitting President (on National Maritime Day would be OK) could have or will have a follow-up. President G.W.B. and Senator Kerry shared the same debating coach I heard today. There are many in Ohio who think there was some 'monkey business' in the election. Gee Watergate came back, what about the POTUS firing the head of the Army, on the board of Enron? Fort Hamilton (an induction center in NYC) lost $10 million in Enron supplied (or lack thereof) of energy supplies. What's with these little itsy bitsy Tabasco bottles in the MRE's? I want an investigation into the military's nepotistic provisioning, that provides hot sauce but not enough armor. I work in archaeology, and have recently worked at West Point, the West Point Foundry, found the 'Swamp Angel' prototype, in Cold Spring, NY, the Picatinney Arsenal in NJ, Fort Drum, NY before it was the 10th Mountain's, Fort McHenry, MD (them's were British rockets fired at us providing the 'red glare') and elsewhere."

Upcoming online journalism events

Feds: Shinnecocks not a tribe

Growing up we heard the Feds recognize Unkechaug but New York State does not and vice versa for the Shinnecock. Or was it the opposite? Anyway some of their words were recorded by one of the Founding Fathers when they visited at the "Declaration of Independence" signer William Floyd's Manor, in whose house the British kept horses, and cut all his wood, according to history. Ironically, the U.S. Department of Commerce used to promote the Shinnecock Pow-Wow held around Labor Day weekend as one of the greater affairs of the United States. A Shinnecock casino might keep people away from the NY State Lottery and the Connecticut casinos whose high-speed boat from Manhattan was canceled.

German Media Reporting U.S. Plans For Attack On Iran... | The Huffington Post

I once was sitting with the test pilot of the F-14 Grumman "Tomcat" ("Anytime, baby") on his birthday during the Iranian hostage crisis. While watching the TV (Ishi, the last Californian Indian was on, which is another story, his wife is an anthropologist) came, "We interrupt this program to tell you if the USSR makes a move for the Iranian/Soviet border we will blow up all the F-14's on the ground. The air-to-air missile technology is considered to be extremely important, and would upset the balance of power." Well, in review, we sold 100 F-14 fighter-bombers (like Tom Cruise's in "Top Gun" a film which dramatically increased Holland's air force recruitment as his co-star looked remarkably like their princess it was stated) and over 4,000 Americans had been in Iran to train their pilots and support personnel. I watched the last two fly on Long Island "the cradle of flight" testing some property out there near the Calverton Navy Airbase, where as a youngster I had attended an airshow with the Grumman's LEM "kiddies" and where across the road from where Grumman used to have its company picnics, a national veterans cemetery is today, where my father is buried. Is this really necessary? An Israeli fighter pilot, who was one of the pilots that flew that tight formation through international airspace, and that looked like a commercial airliner on radar, to bomb the French built nuclear power plant in Iraq years ago, was aboard our Columbia shuttle craft, which fell to earth, when the orbiter disintegrated, his notebook partially survived and is being preserved. His life (and the others aboard the spacecraft "Columbia") was an example of international cooperation that transcends what is solved with the use of armed force. The test pilots wife also reported in our anthropology department about living in the then Shah's Iran, who I read was part of a system put there in part by U.S. General Schwartzkopf's father, in an American Expeditionary Force (later appointed in charge of the federal investigation of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial in New Jersey).

To Steve Martin's new column at Huffington Post

Thanks for pointing out something humorous. It was like Novacaine, which wasn't very but interesting. Let's see 365 days at Crawford, TX plus one leap second, at double Bill Clinton's salary, plus the fillings and the root canal...ahhhh! Couldn't we have "sweet air" or the Australian nerve block with lidocaine (sports medicines) (which I'd recommend having been one of the first in Stony Brook's Dental School to have it I think) they barbecue at the polling place. Alec Baldwin says for a few Democrat Senators we could impeach Vice President Cheney. There I feel better I was on the swing shift at the Amish market for 9:00pm lunch and they had one of those huge TV's with Bill O'Reilly said "...remember the spin stops here" next thing I know, I was out of work for having a blog! Jeese louise! In Castle Clinton's Park!