Snow at the Podium, Rollback on the Rocks

PressThink: Ghost of Democracy in the Media Machine My homework: According to the National Archives publication the first White House Press Secretary was Cabinet member George B. Cortelyou, who invited the press into the White House, over the shooting of President William McKinley at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. A photo from there has him standing next to the President. Nine days later, VP Theodore Roosevelt, rushed down at night on a series of jitneys, would read the telegram in North Creek, NY (he had been at Tahawas climbing Mt. Marcy, please help save) that the President was dead, before boarding a special train for Buffalo, NY from the railhead. George B. Cortelyou, a shorthand teacher in NYC, secretary to three Presidents, held three Cabinet posts under McKinley and Roosevelt, was later a CEO of ConEdison in NYC, and the Chairman of the Republican Party. His house in Washington was recently featured in "Victorian Homes". Historians should look closer at his role in the events of the times. Posted by: George Myers, Jr. at April 29, 2006 11:39 AM

Save Whales From a Cruel End: Stop Whaling Now

Hi Friends, I have just read and signed the petition: "Save Whales From a Cruel End: Stop Whaling Now" In 1989, visiting Grand Manan Island, N.B., I saw two whales "parked" at the Whistle, where my Canadian cousin was a lighthouse keeper, across from Campobello Island. The woman shooting a crossbow to take right whale DNA samples of the right whale "pod" that swims from there to Florida, from Guelph U., told me she thinks they were meinke whales, the ones the Japanese whalers claim to be overabundant and hunt for meat. Thought I'd drop you a line about the "Whales of July". If you want sign the petition. It's reported we hauled three dead finback whales out of NYC harbor just before 9/11/01 from ship traffic no doubt. Hudson, NY, location of the national fireman's museum, is where whale oil was made for the northern tier of New York's cities historically. Thanks!

Hollywood Celebrity Corner

This is a nice site. Check out Jimmy "JJ" Walker and Soupy Sales and other really nice celebrities' history.

» 20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA - RINF Alternative News

Turcios' Modern Love

This might answer David Bowie where that where Picasso went.

Ritualistic Dancing Demonic Bunnies

Dublin, Ireland's Spray Park. My phone lost a dial tone yesterday fixed today. Maybe it was these guys.

Tribeca Kickoff: Apparently There Are Movies in Lower Manhattan

Thanks for the story. Horace Greeley, whose bronze statue is in New York City's City Hall Park (a small monument of Joseph Pulitzer nearby, and beneath them the remains of the cemetery from the "First Almshouse") whose sort of known for "Go west young man and grow up with the country" (most know it after some erstwhile editing) who lived where the Clinton's do, in Chappaqua, NY, and who lost a Presidential nomination to Abraham Lincoln, would have liked your story, IMHO. He, originally from New Hampshire (where another "Watergate" like scandal happened and is brewing, "phonegate"?) would have liked to hear about the "moving pictures" that entertain instead of P.T. Barnum's NY sideshow. There's just so much "newspaper row" once nearby his statue, can convey in print without the client's complaining. Once upon a time, Joseph Kennedy and family lived in Riverdale in the Bronx, and were going to invest in the motion picture business here until the Stock Market Crash and they, and a young JFK, moved away, according to the local newspaper there.

On "Blinding Bush With Science"

"You know, sometimes -- you might remember those days, when you were in middle school, people say, you know, science isn't cool," President G. Walker Bush, in Maryland said. "Science is not only cool, it's really important for the future of this country, and it's great to have people we call adjunct professors here, to help lend their real-life experiences to stimulate junior high students to the wonders of science."

When George W. Bush (and I) was in school, they were called Junior High Schools, but today "middle schools" and the grades are a little different. ("A school for students intermediate between elementary school and college; usually grades 9 to 12." WordWeb, which I think is a British definition what we call "High School" in the U.S.) and having adjunct professors was more than a little confusing. Middle School in the U.S., is usually grades 6 through 8 now, replacing the "junior high". This "Junior" Bush sounds a little confused, maybe he thought he was in England that day!

On "John Kerry Gets His Voice Back"

As an citizen "observer" of different anti-war events i.e., the War Moratorium, which brought many law-abiding citizens to Washington, D.C. one May Day, to protest with permits, a very short permit I might add; the doctor and nurse whose hospital was bombed in North Vietnam, protested with free speech on Madison Ave., in NYC; Mothers Against the War rallies; campus activities at Stony Brook University and Suffolk Community College, etc. I found John Kerry's speech a good summary of protest. Now how about the reported 20,000 JROTC programs in mostly poor high schools that cost $1 billion a year? They started in 1970, the year before John Kerry's testimony, one in my school in the town named after the Judge Selden who testified on behalf of Susan B. Anthony, who dressed as a man, had the gall to vote in an election and was tried for it (pre 1920). Is this "draft replacement" program fair and equal under the Constitution? They seemed to have appeared like the fog in the Carl Sandberg poem.

Biography for Gino Corrado

"Appeared uncredited as a waiter in both Citizen Kane (1941) and in Casablanca (1942), the only actor to appear in both films. He also appeared in two other legendary films: Gone with the Wind (1939) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)."

Bob Schieffer On Rumsfeld: "It Was Also This President Who Said, 'Brownie, You're Doing A Heckuva Job,'...Just Before Brownie Got Canned"...

Drew University,MAdison, NJ, where the head of the 9/11/01 Commission was just president, the former Governor of New Jersey, Tom Kean. I worked on the archaeology of Mead Hall after the fire. They say roses were first cultivated in America there. Woody Allen's wife went to school there. Helluva, NY makes alot of cheese. Mr. President you're doing a helluva job.

Warren G. Harding

Thank you for contributing to the IMDb. A detailed receipt for your update is included below. The information you supplied has been passed to the IMDb data managers for verification. Update summary Whirlpool (1934) Cast - Change Character Name: Harding, Warren G. Character: Himself, Presient Harding Attribute: (archive footage) New Character: Himself, President Harding

Earth Day, 1970

Way back before Earth Day, I graduated from the Wood Road Elementary School in Centereach. I would, however, on the condition that I attend Selden, NY's Newfield High School's half-day summer school "advanced placement" training in physics and math, be placed in advanced placement classes in Dawnwood Junior High in Centereach, NY. I decided to peddle my little monkeybars and banana seat bicycle there everyday, (have you seen the picture through a garden mirror ball of actress Heather Graham on one? like that) where we were taught the metric system, using McDonald's straws for a balance scale, and used a programmed math text in vinyl, which you hid and slid the answers to. There were so many kids, they went on split session in 7th grade and I was invited to the 9th grade Algebra class which met before the 7th graders started. The School Board would not allow the two or three of us in Mr. Guydeboroff's (ex EDO researcher I think) to take the 9th grade Algebra Regents, so we took a test anyway. I later substitute taught in the Middle Country School District in Social Studies, though I don't have an education certificate, which I enjoyed, though cleaning Unity Drive at night and being awake for substitute teaching a little trying. Earth Day at Newfield H.S. came with a new Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training unit in the school at the end of Marshall Drive, in Selden, which I found out later was named after a Judge Selden, who out of the acceptable judicial role, testified to Susan B. Anthony's character at a trial in Upstate New York, where she had dressed as a man and voted in an election, before women had the right to vote, not too long ago, and suffrage still being achieved in countries around the world. We went out into the grassed circle, where all the buses went around to pick up and discharge passengers and planted a tree that from my last visits there did not survive. Some arborists we are!

NASA: Venus Meets a Planet Named George

"Would you believe, in spite of all that watching, they missed one? There is a sixth planet you can see without a telescope, a planet named George." 04.11.2006

The Blog | David Mamet: Disons le Mot Dept: | The Huffington Post

Hurricane Rita musta' been the International Jesuit Conspiracy. (St. Rita's by the way was the poorest parish in NYC in the South Bronx, near where the US Capitol Dome was cast for Lincoln in the US Civil War, and assembled w/ horse and pulley for about $1 million. They went on to make steel kitchen cabinets.) There's a Lincoln Hospital there now where I once played.

The Blog | Martin Lewis: The Walrus Was George | The Huffington Post

Searching the data-banks at a record store, I found that Jimi Hendrix played bass on a Timothy Leary, Ph.D., album. I wish the "Lennons" had moved to Bellport like it was once suggested, not sure if it would have stopped anything. Mrs. Woody Guthrie has a small apartment in the Dakota near the ground floor and a folk singer friend who was trying to get Woody's papers researched said Mrs. Guthrie heard the unfortunate shots. I understand former President Clinton stopped there when in New York often, a friend of people in the building's association. He's only the second President to address the New York Historical Society, I dare the Bushes to.

Chinatown

Commissioner Ray Kelly Please help Chinatown recover from illegal parking by civil employees. The TA E-Bulletin informs me that conditions have become unacceptable. Here's another problem, Water Tunnel #3 is supposed to come up at 1 Police Plaza or "250 Water St." one to have been "Cabrini Park" the other a Milstein property in the Seaport. A parking plan now could help the future problem and help the businesses there back overcome the barricades from 9/11/01. Other parking on Houston and nearby on Bowery was removed, I did some archaeology research in 1999 there, former cemeteries after the Almshouse one in City Hall Park.

signandsight.com in New York

signandsight.com in New York (German Media in English) In cooperation with 2006 PEN WORLD VOICES signandsight.com presents The Limits of Tolerance? Multiculturalism Now Friday, April 28, 2006 at 6:00 PM Where: The New York Public Library, South Court Auditorium: 5th Ave. & 42nd St. (Enter on 5th Ave.)

Playbill Features: Courtroom Drama Descends on Broadway with Caine Mutiny Revival

Courtroom Drama Descends on Broadway with Caine Mutiny Revival By Matt Windman 24 Mar 2006 Just in time to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq War, Broadway will be setting up its own military tribunal with a revival of Herman Wouk's 1954 courtroom drama The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial at the Schoenfeld Theatre. Source: Playbill David Schwimmer reprises Henry Fonda's Broadway role, as Lieutenant Barney Greenwald, the Jewish defense attorney, played in the film version of the drama, by Jose Ferrer. Humphrey Bogart starred as Captain Queeg. (1954)

Confucius

from SHAO AND THE SOUTH III

"Chkk! chkk!" hopper-grass, nothing but grasshoppers hopping past; tell me how a lady can be gay if she sees no gentleman?

But when I've seen a man at rest, standing still, met at his post, my heart is no more tempest-toss'd.

Confucius to Cummings: An Anthology of Poetry. Ezra Pound - editor, Marcella Spann - editor. Publisher: New Directions. New York, 1964. p. 4. Source: Questia Online Library

From Red Ink and Rewrites Too

orthoepists A practitioner of orthoepy (especially one of the 17th or 18th century scholars who proposed to reform English spelling so it would reflect pronunciation more closely). Source: WordWeb (phonologists) gallant 1. A man of mettle or spirit; a gay; fashionable man; a young blood. 2. One fond of paying attention to ladies. 3. One who wooes; a lover; a suitor; in a bad sense, a seducer. In the first sense it is by some orthoepists (as in Shakespeare) accented on the first syllable. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) Published at the Centre for Cancer Education, University of Newcastle upon Tyne © Copyright 1997-2005 - The CancerWEB Project. All Rights Reserved.

The Blog | Howie Klein: Hearing Neil Young's New Album, Living With War | The Huffington Post

I was intrigued by this, Mr. Young was quite a vocal supporter of Senator McCain and in the NY Times Sunday mag. Someone was sick the night he and CSN were to play Buffalo, NY with the flu and we all had to go home from the War Memorial concert, though I've always listened. Interestingly Frank Sinatra had a top 10 and was chairman of the board at/on Reprise (the orange label, Jethro Tull too). His son was a regular fixture at a club on Bailey Ave. back then in Buffalo, NY. Anyway these uranium lying charges are quite devastating at DemocracyRising.US: http://democracyrising.us/content/view/269/164/...

The Blog | Philip Slater: The Heart is at the Periphery | The Huffington Post

I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd someday make a comment to Philip Slater. I used to read the "Pursuit of Loneliness - American Culture at its Breaking Point" a number of years ago traveling to Irving Goffman's sociological "paradise" an island of about 3-4000 people, to Grand Manan Island in Canada, where I once considered living as an immigrant. My grandfather had come from that island and became an American, though he served in the Canadian Black Watch in WWI at 16 (I hope!). Four wars later he used to take us there as youngsters. Your point is well taken, the proposed static creation could harm the Union (many states up until just 100 years ago, 3 generations, weren't states at all) and I might think the "static" imposition of the lack of citizenry for some (blacks, from what was a large slave market, Mexico) actually tore the Nation apart, along with some other factors I've studied in my anthropology and historical archaeology you helped inspire me to. Thanks.

A Special Prosecutor Could Lead to an Impeachment

This looks very bad for the Administration:

• "Bush’s Uranium Lies: The Case for a Special Prosecutor that Could Lead to Impeachment"

At: DemocracyRising.US

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Once went to see this on Broadway (and the "Sound of Music" in a big theater) with the band, and Mr. Lafayette, our director and teacher. We were sort of fortunate we had a good music department, the director Mr. Trucello, went on to run the State music program in Albany, NY. With it I played a rented clarinet, the alto saxophone, the bass clarinet and the tenor saxophone. I had once wanted to play the bassoon, the teacher played "Flight of the Bumblebee" on a clarinet and handed us a trumpet. My dad worked nights so the trumpet was out and we rented a clarinet from (the only black one, the rest were metal for marching bands and brass band in general) the "Keyboard Corner" in nearby Ronkonkoma, New York ("big" lake there on a couple of towns, formerly four native American "groups".) The Devil and Miss Jones: What's your name? G. Walker Bush: Bush, B-U-S-H. G. Walker Bush. The Devil and Miss Jones: Well, why haven't I seen you before? G. Walker Bush: Well, ma'am, I'm not supposed to deliver the executive mail. That's his job. Bud Frump, F-R-U-M-P.

The Election Cycle Explained

Is that the mule that escaped off the "Twenty Mule Team Borax" sponsor that the late former Governor/President Ronald Reagan advertized? He used to do Arrow shirts too, in print, made in Waterford, near Troy, NY. First woman elected to a union, from the collar-workers in Troy, Kate Mullaney, was elected during the Haymarket Square riots in Chicago, in NYC's Germania Hall, sitting next to Susan B. Anthony. The hall was recently torn down next door to feminist Kate Millet's former abode on 295 Bowery. I wonder if she knew about Kate Mullaney, her place is on the National Register of Historic Places, Kate Millet's place lost the battle I was researching. Hope they put up a sign.

Fly the Friendly Skys...

Would you be aware that people in the Republic of Ireland are "mad as hell" and wearing black shamrocks to protest the use of two of its airports for "blackops" to torture citizens of foreign lands and were doing so on "Easter Sunday" one of the more important days of that republic's history? Did you know that two airports or more were used in Scotland also as reported in the "Scotsman" referring to the new evidence of torture produced by Amnesty International, a local chapter at Stony Brook University started by my housemate an Italian citizen whose father was at the Brookhaven National Laboratory a laser physics researcher?

Pulitzer Prizes 2006

"The 2006 Pulitzer Prizewinners and Nominated Finalists will be announced on Monday, April 17, 2006 at 3:00 p.m Eastern Daylight Time. Winners will be posted on this Website at 3:15 p.m. We do not announce finalists in advance." The Joseph Pulitzer Monument is in City Hall Park, near Horace Greeley's statue, where he sits on a small sofa, and underneath, lies the said remains of the "First Almshouse" cemetery, near the east entrance at the "foot" of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Unearthed War Relics See Battle Again

Unearthed War Relics See Battle Again Archaeologists Decry History Buffs' Digs By Brigid Schulte Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, April 16, 2006; Page A01 Comment: (to histarch) I recall stopping at the Hiwassee/Ocoee Scenic River State Park (Spring Creek Road PO Box 5 Delano, TN, near Etowah mounds in northern Georgia) a number of years ago and with only a few employees year-round its hard to watch everything the ranger there stated. There were looters in the mounds on the islands in the river with backhoes, he related which is a different type of activity than "relic hunting". Where I am I think we need better laws, for example in nearby Suffolk County, where traditional barn building is still a business (one old one on a register site had roman numerals marking the joins, it was "saved" to a county park, where it was burned by vandals) a man was having a barn built and a cellar dug for it and found a number of burials of native origin which technically I am given to understand have very few regulations in regard to procedure and treatment on private property. Another example was a "twin" adult burial I cleared in NYC's City Hall Park in the planned water fountain construction. I don't know how that was handled per se (I haven't been back there yet since 1999) I hope the fountain was moved, around the edge of the "First Almshouse" because there is no law I can read that says "if...then...". The first legal basis I know of, from research in the Bowery where the Methodists and Quaker burials were moved in the mid-nineteenth century, was when a burial left behind was found in the construction of the Courthouse on 2nd Ave and 2nd Street, which required a special vote in the State Legislature in Albany, NY giving the right to the Dept. of Education to remove and supervise. Unfortunately, the records of the proceedings of that session before the NY Legislature burned in an archives fire in the State Capital a number of years later, so only the actual law and its pronouncement has survived in the numerous publications of government by outside printing concerns. Today the courthouse is the Anthology Film Archives "Screening site and film preservation center, located at 2nd Ave and 2nd Street, New York, NY" supported by many in the media. It is across the street from "The New York City Marble Cemetery" which "...was begun in 1831 and was the second non-sectarian burial ground in the City opened to the public." In it was once ex-President James Monroe, who, after a vote in the Virginia legislature was finally interred in the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia sometime after July 2, 1858. Other notable people are interred there see: The New York City Marble Cemetery http://www.nycmc.org/history.html. One other example might be the Montaukett burial ground of which one burial was dug up and whose history in commemorated in the "Montauk Club" building in Brooklyn, NY, designed in a Venice, Italy building style, its terracotta entablature relief commemorates the meeting of Europeans with the Montaukett natives of eastern Long Island, New York. At one time building lots on the what became known as one of the cemeteries of theirs, were going in 1980's dollars, $1 million. Not knowing for sure, an archaeologist found one who had dug up the grave ("Contact period") and made an effort to screen the backfill pile for anything small that might have been missed, beads, etc., and the land was bought by Suffolk County and set-aside from development, another "undefined area" of the law. I am also given to understand, that abandoned cemeteries become the property and care of the Brookhaven Town in New York State, it's largest town in area, though I have not read the law, just cut the grass in one in the Bicentennial (1976) for their parks dept., in a summer job I won in a lottery. Perhaps a model for consideration there, where George Washington had his "Spy Nest".

Iran Plans CBSNews: Blog

Read More On Seymour Once upon a time we sold 80 F-14 Tomcats to the Shah of Iran, and supplied 4000 Grumman employees in a compound to train the "Anytime, baby" pilots (on their patch, would have been 100, I recall). I can't for the life of me see why the U.S. can't see, when there was a loss of life of 1 million in the Iraq-Iran War, how between Bechtel, Inc. in Iraq and Grumman, Inc. in Iran (and what others in both) it can stand up as "blind justice" and ignore it's own involvement. I am still in shock, for example, of a news photo, whose caption had Khomeini holding the Ronald Reagan personal bible. Looks like a duck, walks like a duck must be a duck. Posted by georgejmyers at 8:46 PM : April 16, 2006

V-Day in NYC

V-DAY ANNOUNCES UNTIL THE VIOLENCE STOPS: NYC, A TWO-WEEK FESTIVAL BRINGING THE ISSUE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN CENTER STAGE JUNE 12-27

Google Earth Community: Just for the thrill of the hunt.

What Historical Significance? (04/01/06 location near Old Saybrook, CT.) Thanks, she was a wonderful actress and that area I've read is going to be preserved as a unit not broken up or "segmented" as an important historical community. Asking on April Fools Day was also a treat I read it is creeping into use in Japan. I saw the "Grateful Dead" in Buffalo, NY in 1973 on it? (started on 3/31/73). Nearby, is where David "Lion" Gardiner first settled, a royal fort architect, was watching to see what the Dutch were up to. He later settled Gardiner's Island, NY with family granted by the King of Scotland, James, and it is the last surviving manor in America over in New York (Long Island asked for protection from the Dutch and religious freedom, under the Hartford, now Connecticut jurisdiction. Since there has been no male heir as it was, the niece of Robert David Gardiner and her husband have control I think. One of the Gardiners was a US Senator from New York, blown up aboard the USS Princeton by the cannon "Peacemaker" made in NYC, saluting Mount Vernon on the Potomac. His daughter Julia, became President Tyler's second wife shortly thereafter, they were below decks at the time. She's said to have been the prettiest First Lady, and the Civil War ceased long enough to allow her safe passage through the siege of Richmond, Virginia when the former President Tyler expired there. Gloria Swanson once remarked it might have taken the actress Vivian Leigh to play her, but maybe Katherine Hepburn could have.

John Lennon's Imagine Mashed with George Bush

3. I think he would have approved, it was forward looking songs, he was often known for IMHO, too bad he ended up a statue at the Liverpool Airport instead of still writing and singing. New York, where he made his home, after the War of 1812, began many packet ships to Liverpool and back, one, run by the Quakers, the Black Ball line, is still seen in nautical paintings with a black circle in the ships mainsail, and a large black ball on a flagpole used to be raised and lowered in the Seaport when the ships arrived with the mail and other goods. I brought it up because John Lennon's father was in the merchant marines.

Fib - a Fibonacci poem

Fibonacci Poems Multiply on the Web After Blog's Invitation NY Times 0 1 A 1 plate 2 combed 3 trailed slipware 5 was in olden days 8 based on Fibonacci made square. Source: British Museum oversize book.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization (David Mamet cartoon)

I have just read the short story "Madonna of the Maquiladora" (Fictionwise www.Fictionwise.com ©2002 by Gregory Frost First published in Asimov's, May 2002) and thought to make a comment. My cousin, whose wife an executive introducing Avon products in Mexico, died while there he once directed "Huntley and Brinkley" and had other jobs, last with CBS as a producer for the conventions of 1976. Edwin Newmin read a eulogy in the UN Chapel, a letter notifying his crew in Vietnam, their long "common soldier's view" had been cancelled by higher-ups while at NBC, they later sued by General Westmoreland over "body counts".

About that time the "maquiladora" system I think started, "An assembly plant in Mexico (near the United States border); parts are shipped into Mexico and the finished product is shipped back across the border" many US companies jumped on the "bandwagon", (here a similar one in Ogdensburg, NY near where the Remington Art Museum is, with Canadian assemblies made in the U.S., "duty free" and shipped back into Canada) and there have been problems since. Some have to do with cleaning up pollution, and getting simple roads to places in Mexico to pick up trash near the border and the unregulated dumping in a few cases of toxic materials (which also happened from Canada while I was there in Ogdensberg, NY shovel testing for a new hospital in our once "mutual battlefield" next to the prison and state mental hospital, by-the-way can't be used above the first floor because of fire door codes and the expense of replacement). Perhaps, we should work something out in review of the "maquiladora" system we use with the Mexican authorities first.

The other door seems obvious, review all licensers of flight, now.

"Iran's nuclear announcement is pure PR move - Russian expert"

They said they would. Tom Gwynne, a former F-14 test pilot, VP of the "Cradle of Aviation Museum" on Long Island, NY says we sold Iran 80 F-14's (like Tom Cruise in "Top Gun") from the Grumman Corporation (like Tom Hanks in "Apollo 13") the other day in "Newsday" talking about the fiscal problems of the museum. I recall 4000 employees there in a compound before the Reagan Bible was in Khomeini's hands, according to a news photo. It would be a shame if this ended up painting the U.S. as a "belligerent". Many archaeology experiments often use radioactivity. I was an observer of one, where turquoise (originally "Turk stone") from ancient mines in the Southwest of the United States, were "neutron activated" from a nuclear pile at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (also on Long Island) and the trace elements recorded as "signatures" for further research of turquoise in Central America (no source there for it) and the authentication of artifacts. It has been expanded to other antiquities, i.e, the head of an emperor might be reconnected with a torso broken by an iconoclast. And that took about 20 years to get. Iran is extremely rich in archaeology sites, though I don't think Moses has been there though Abraham might have been. We wouldn't let the last pope visit the "Abraham" site in Iraq. Neutron Activation Archaeometry at the University of Missouri - Columbia

Civil Rights Violations

"It is a crime for one or more persons acting under color of law willfully to deprive or conspire to deprive another person of any right protected by the Constitution or laws of the United States."

April 12, 1961 The 108 minutes that changed the world

On April 12, 1961, all ears were turned to radios as Union Radio director Yuri Levitan, in his famous voice that became a symbol of Soviet victories, said: "the Soviet Union has orbited Earth's ever-first satellite vehicle, the Vostok, with a man onboard. The Vostok is piloted by Major Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin, a citizen of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics."

Beloit Daily News

Museum urges visitors to understand First Amendment CHICAGO (AP) - It's the kind of museum that features a copy of the Declaration of Independence, a high school yearbook from a Japanese-American internment camp and the cover of 2 Live Crew's album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be.” The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum

Further Rummy, drug war, etc.

Once upon a time I was reading the Whole Earth Catalog, and an Indira Incense Company in Texas offered a publication on the "Preparation of the Eucharist" it was titled, and on its cover, were drawn peyote mushrooms (or rotoscoped looking). In this slim magazine-size book, were the lab procedures, taken mostly from "Chemical Abstracts" then available on just about any college campus, listed with warnings, i.e., a seemingly harmless chemical, which however, if ever ordered will bring the DEA agents to one's abode quicker than the proverbial Dorothy gets to OZ. I'm not sure the point the incense company was making, many people don't know how it's made, perhaps once you see, in this case the chemistry, you'd be better off with incense. I still feel the former Chairman of NYU's Anthropology Dept, a Dr. Buttner-Janusch, may have been framed this way.

Good news from Saudi Arabia

"@ King Faisal Foundation is going to launch a private university next year, "to cause a change in Saudi Arabia," said Prince Bandar bin Saud bin Khalid, deputy managing director of the foundation. According to the him, the new university should be like MIT or the Cambridge of the Middle East. They will teach engineering, medicine, science and business technology, and will not offer any courses in Islamic or social studies. The interesting part of this news story is: Male and female medical students are going to study together. Now this is going to make some people lose their minds, isn't it? It is weird how the Sahat guys did open their fires on this story, yet." "Saudi Jeans" - blog One of my archaeology employer/supervisors who's retired now, grew up in Yellowstone. Her father was a consultant to the Saudi government to create a National Parks system over there. I recall in Stony Brook Graduate school looking at micro-fiche in the library of this gentleman in Florida who collected a fairly large number of projectile points or arrowheads from around a few of the "water holes" he came across on a survey of some sort, and he kept them up on a wall.

On Rummy, Meaningful Hallucinogenic Experiences, and Ending the Drug War

From the Huffington Post A few comments. Last fall I was working on the edge of the West Point Military Academy, former Mama Leone's Farm where I was told Eisenhower and others had had reunions. I was staying near the Stewart Air Guard (cargo planes) in Newburgh, NY where incidentally, according to Senator Hillary Clinton, reviewing the re-enactors, was where the "Newburgh Conspiracy" to make Washington "King" was thwarted among the officers of the American Revolution by George Washington. Nearby the troops over-wintered after the peace treaty was signed, just in case it was a ruse, the site of the New Windsor Cantonment, where a future Purple Heart center will be. Senator Clinton made the Post Office permanently print a Purple Heart stamp, and Bernadette Castro, who once ran for Senator of NY against Patrick Moynihan, announced the future center, she's in charge of NY Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation. The war against drugs should be against the narcomilitarism in the US military as evidenced in the 1/4 million "ecstasy" doses found smuggled by the Air Guard there in Newburgh, NY. It should open all the files it has on the experimentation on human subjects it has done in the US and abroad (it's said Anthony Burgess knew of some of them) and many of the proponents of drugs themselves were once subjects in experiments. After the government comes clean, we should try to come up with better legal policy that will no longer corrupt law officers, tempt felony murder, and create saner laws. I was once held at a US border "in concert" for what was down another passengers underpants, and I object to this type of law, while large recreational vehicles go by with thousands of "sport" ammunition rounds and large uninspected parts of boats and trailers. By: Arielman on April 12, 2006 at 11:43am

Terror is a one letter word...

W (1974) Movie description: Within 24-hours, three near-death accidents have occured. At the scene of each, the letter "W" was scrawled over the injured person. Cast: Dirk Benedict, Mel Ferrer, Michael Witney, Eugene Roche, Twiggy (Wikipedia)

Archaeological Thriller

Every Best Gift a tale of the Ages. The Neanderthal materials that Ralph Solecki, Ph.D, (I once worked for Joan Geismar in his lab) excavated in Shanidar Cave in the Zagros Mountains of Iraq are, with included forensics, available on the Smithsonian site. My former professor Elizabeth C. Stone, Ph.D., with whom I took classes and studied the excavations of Nuzi in Kirkuk, near Mosul, Iraq (northern area) that were done by Starr of Harvard (interestingly another faculty member at Stony Brook while I was there who was a social anthropologist who studied in southern Turkey, where George Bass and all those underwater archaeologists go, she helped start mediated legal hearings, i.e., before we get to court, lets see if we can work this out, in Suffolk County) in the 1930's that are known for a quantity of tablets found there, though the translations I've only seen in the Drew University library. There was an article in the NY Times a few days ago where the theft and repatriation of antiquities was edited from the couple of hours down to a printable size that she was in. She has been trying to attract funds to train Iraqi's to work on the collections there but reported to only have been able to get a one year's commitment from any of the large benefactors available for that. Donny George is in charge of the looted museum there under Saddam he was in a "Deep Purple" like cover band to supplement his income the NY Times reported. Anyway, the Empire State Building is lit in yellow and white tonight to celebrate spring.

More of the story

It sometimes seems that way. At the former immigration processing place, Castle Clinton, down in Battery Park, where I was at the end of last year monitoring a new subway tunnel through the park to the Staten Island Ferry (2005) was a model of the "Turtle" just before 9/11/01 put there by the History Channel who promised a much better replica to follow, which the Australian Navy loves to describe as the world's first armed submarine used in naval operations. Also about the day or two before 9/11/01 a French parasailer got tangled up in the Statue Of Liberty's torch, trying to get the best "shot" of it in his camera (the first electrically lit lighthouse in the world they say on the "Snapple" bottle-cap 1898 I think) and the NYC police had to untangle him from the torch! My grandmother Margaret Gregory, before she married my real estate reporter grandfather Joseph Myers and had eleven kids, my Dad the youngest born on the table at 660 Water Street on the day after Christmas, "Boxing Day" in jolly old England, was a nanny to the caretaker on "Bedloe's Island" and they used to call her "Bedloe's Nanny" which strangely no one knows in New York where Bedloe actually came from I read. They had to move in the 1930's and NYC's first public "projects" were built there the Alfred E. Smith Houses (still there, he was the first Catholic high level politician grew-up on Peck Slip in the Seaport nearby).

I got canned from the 3:30pm to 12:00am midnight monitoring the subway trench job back in December for having a blog! A subcontractor for the MTA, Dewberry, but they didn't tell me what for just the why. The section there of subway is so curved only the first 4 cars have access to the platform for the Staten Island Ferry (grandpa joke: Henry Hudson sails into NY harbor with the Dutch crew, he being English. Looks over "Is that an island?" Dutch crewman writes down "Staten Island") which probably had some people very flustered on 9/11/01 as they were leaving. New Ferry Terminal is quite nice escalators and Labrador retrievers I noticed, and snack stands, etc.

I finally made it back to the Grand Manan group and read the LPG stuff very interesting. I guess that Iran/Soviet report has people spooked. The German submarine in August 1918 showed up and after putting the crew off of a three masted I think put an explosive charge in the depths of the hold and blew it up and sank, quite, what would you say "civilly" it was reported years ago in the "Quoddy Tides". WWII wasn't very civil at all, and Grand Mananer, from Castalia, Leman Urquhart, Master Mariner, and Savannah, Georgia harbor pilot, was lost with 42 others when the "SS City of Atlanta" was torpedoed by U-123 off of Avon, NC Cape Hatteras in early January of 1942. He was my grandfather Lawrence Urquhart's brother.

That's Castle Clinton not "Fort". "Fort Apache" looks nothing like it once did. All those places President Carter visited are all fixed up. The bank nearby it was said to have been, where the rush to take all the money out of banks started, causing a bank collapse that contributed to the start of the Great Depression. That was nearby "Fort Apache" according to a City Planner who took us on the "Old Croton Aqueduct" walk on Saturdays different sections up to the dam.

Fort Williams is on Governors Island they were twins sort of. I’ve heard “castle” are all stone, and “forts” much more wood. I worked there four days once digging deep holes with a backhoe before it was turned over to the City for an offer of $1 by then President William Jefferson Clinton, who lives in Chappaqua, NY where Horace Greeley, a once Presidential candidate himself who offered to buy out the Confederacy, is attributed with the expression "Go west young man and grow up with the country." There's a statue of him sitting on a sofa (bronze) in City Hall Park (and a statue of Nathan Hale moved to the front since and a Joseph Pulitzer marker near Greeley) I spent a month or two excavating human burials (delineating them more where they were, from the "First Almshouse" it's thought) under the Horace Greeley statue which they cleaned up too that summer of 1999.

CBSNews.com: Blog Do We Need Another Woodward?

I woke up one morning to P.M. Blair warning Americans they could lose some of their rights over this war which still strikes me strange considering the source (and not because his family photos ended up at the local chemists and back again). There have been recommendations ignored on both side of the "pond" I personally checked in and out of the West Point Military Academy many times and few times at the Picatinney Arsenal, NJ just after Anthrax Day 1 if you will. I haven't read Woodward's book and he didn't disclose "Deep Throat" <- he did that himself. I did however read the "Washington Post" paper's book on anthrax research, (Conscientious Objectors were recently given medals for their participation in anthrax experiments, what a Draft Board huh? Better than bombsight maintenance, and smoke-jumping) which I understand Judith Miller of the "NY Times" was trying to "duplicate" if you will, with similar research into the government's, once Nixon ordered moratorium, on some part of chemical and biological weapons, which may in part why she ended up in the clink perhaps this suspicious citizen thinks. Another Bob Woodward? I guess, he helped make former President Richard Nixon rich, which I sometimes think, having met one of the executive secretaries of the former advertising agency that one of the Watergate co-conspirators worked for (J. Walter Thompson) was their intent, another would make George W Bush rich when he writes his "masterpiece".

Randall's Island Water Park name

Also once the East River was called the Sound River since that's where it goes, through Hellgate. The Zum Zum restaurants in NYC used to serve Hell and Dunkel beer (light and dark, in Bavaria). I read because of the rocks the tidal water were turned white, hence the term (before it was blasted away, in a record setting explosion). An experimental underwater electrical generator is being tested, recently a whole dam for electricity proposed across the river, the eastside first settled, because prevailing winds allowed sailing ships on and off the shore without a tow into the river.

The Page Six Mogul Index

8. It could be a diversion, away from Zuckerman’s “deal” with Lewinsky, for a new apartment out of the Wartergate and into the limerence apartment in his new building off of Irving (Washington) Place, where the Spanish “war boys” (Elihu Root and the 3 Cabinet posts holder, Chairman of the Republican Party, George B. Cortelyou, early CEO of ConEdison, and First White House Press Secretary, “How’s McKinley?”) had their ‘hood.

Grad student completes milestone glacier study

Alaska’s glaciers are getting smaller, fast...

CBSNews.com: Blog

I was summarily fired for having a blog. I am not anonymous nor do I choose to be, most of the time. I wasn't told what part of it I was fired for, only, that having one was enough to fire me. I was next to the damaged "Sphere" in NYC's Battery Park, and its "Eternal Flame" for those that died in the World Trade Center collapse, monitoring a new subway tunnel through the park, finding old batteries, from whence NYC had armaments on its shores, and cannons were once "up the spout" and fired. Swing Shift for the MTA subcontractor Dewberry, from out-of-state. See that "Wired" piece on contracts in NYC? They all go to out of city firms after the Giuliani moratorium on minority contracts. Within %5 should be given to NYers, and minority firms, but "low bid wins" by law, and they don't. The American Association for the Advancement of Science states this anonymous posting is OK, I suppose I should hide like a good "anchoress".

"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." - Henry Kissinger

Oklahoma City University Law Review Volume 24, Number 3 (1999) reprinted by permission Oklahoma City University Law Review THE PRESIDENT'S EMERGENCY WAR POWERS AND THE EROSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES IN PYNCHON'S VINELAND DAVID THOREEN

Book Review of "Murder at the President's Door" by William Harrington

Save the Florida manatee!

Petition the delisting of the manatee. Rising sealevel, rising wake, protect everything, slow it down. Who's up for tag research? We lose finback whales in NYC harbor 3 before 9/11/01.

Port Chester, NY march

Port Chester is having protest marches today against a proposed law to make it a felony to be in the United States illegally. CBS bottom scroll. Newspaper columnist and TV variety show host Ed Sullivan had his first show around here, perhaps only once, in the once beautiful RKO Chester in West Farms, the Bronx, which became the Alps Hotel, then a warehouse and in part a Howard Johnson motel now, near the Cross Bronx Expressway to the George Washington Bridge. So I was told by someone indirectly working on the redesign of the highway near there, we in the former right-of-way condemnation for an Interstate-95 extension. The GW bridge ribbon-cutting was done by "John Vernou Bouvier III (1892-?1957) who was a Wall Street stockbroker who was the father of the late former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and her younger sister, Lee Radziwill." (Wikipedia) Interestingly, recent local history reports in the news that the Joseph Kennedy family lived here in the Bronx, in Riverdale. He was interested in investing in the film industry here in NYC, but they moved away after the Stock Market Crash of 1929. The young future President, John F. Kennedy, played here, and later other members of the family lived in nearby Bronxville for a number of years. A developmental center for children is named for one of them is also nearby, not far from the Bronx Zoo.

Cybill Sheperd Actress

Recent(?) interview of Cybill Shepherd by Joyce Faulkner and other really neat interviews, i.e. Tommy Chong, Danny Aiello and others.

No Nation - Illumine (A Rock Opera)

Thank you former US Senator Gary Hart

Thank you for printing and citing those important writings. As an historical archaeologist I have worked on the William Floyd Manor, in Mastic on Long Island, who signed the Declaration of Independence first in New York state, fourth on the list to become the new nation, and at the Rufus King Manor Park in Jamaica, Queens, NY who was the "last Federalist" and our first Ambassador to Great Britain after the American Revolution. Some of the Federalists, who predominately published in New York City I am given to understand, were from the Nation's first Federal Capital, New York City where I am from, though born in the borough of the Bronx where the current Capitol Dome was founded, in the South Bronx, then assembled in the District of Columbia during the Civil War, an important symbol of unity thought by President Lincoln, costing a little over $1 million, a small price to pay for what it has come to symbolize to the world, a unity of government, that was not torn asunder. I have also worked in Fort McHenry, Baltimore, Maryland, where, in retaliation for the invasion and burning of what has become Toronto, we were besieged and the White House set on fire in the War of 1812, over which, our national anthem was written. I ask that the current administration stand down from its imposed regency, creating a "star chamber" above the law and the civil rule we have encoded in our laws that preserves the power of the people from the seizure of power from the legislature and the judiciary as it is becoming clearer that the executive branch has over-stepped its legally permitted area of operations. We cannot have secret purchases of airplanes to clandestinely transport citizens of other countries without legal representation without ourselves being accused as "Barbary(ic) pirates".

Today is in the year 1006 EVFS

"What is EVFS? EVFS stands for "etter Vinlands fyrste sjå" which means "after the first sighting of Vinland", in Norwegian." Found looking for "Egg Tide".

Red Rum Redact

Red Rum, England's Hero "Red Rum is the only horse in the history of the Grand National Steeplechase to win the race three times, and to make that feat further astonishing, he ran in it two other times and was second." 1965-1995

Human rights group details new claims on CIA 'torture flights'

"FRESH evidence has emerged of the brutality involved in the CIA's programme of extraordinary rendition and its use of Scottish airports as stopping-off points for aircraft involved in the controversial programme."

Yankee Stadium deal clears City Council

I don't see why they can't just build a shell around Yankee Stadium and put a dome over it, make a year-round venue, with the new transportation hub it would have a better effect instead of screwing up the Grand Concourse, the "Bonfire of the Vanities" Bronx County Courthouse ("heh judge if my warrant doesn't say borough of THE Bronx, is it legal?") and take another part of a public park away from the Bronx (part of Van Cortland Park, where the money was exchanged for the Lindbergh baby is being used in two locations for the water Tunnel #3 chamber and the filtration plant in the golf course) a part to be taken from McCombs Dam Park (he designed the George Washington authorized Montauk Lighthouse, NYC City Hall and the dam that was once there in the Bronx) setting a dangerous precedent, perhaps. What's next? Onetime mayoral candidate Abe Herschfeld, a parking garage tycoon, was it, thought they should just cover Yankee Stadium and had plans drawn up for the revitalization of the neighborhood.

Spielberg To Create A Reality Show?

3. That sounds interesting, also like some weird rumor. We have the software game of "film industry" and the Lego like thingie for the kids. Maybe it would include past stories of production, like Marilyn Monroe's mom working in film-editing, or the row over labor at Disney's animation studio, those artists that used to fill in between the major artists cels, etc., and what editing was like? A cousin in editing filled in for the sick news director of "Huntley and Brinkley" (funny how network news has come back to its original format, about 15 minutes the networks will let them have after commercials) and went on to direct and produce television news for NBC and CBS. "Film at eleven" was quite a promise! Like the kid's book, "T.V. Humphrey" a trip around a studio, could be a good thing. Maybe it would help bring post-production to NYC, a pet project of the actor Mr. Aiello, and others. Posted at 5:35PM on Apr 5th 2006 by George Myers, Jr. 3 stars

Tartan Day turns into party week in New York

"A NUMBER of events will take place in New York from April 1 to April 8 as Tartan Day this year evolves into Tartan Week for the first time." Scotsman and: Scotland's important role in New York City memorial "...67 Britons who died in the New York City tragedy..."

Interesting contrasts

"I'm just an art bum" actor/artist Dennis Hopper's Art Show reviewed in the "Guardian Unlimited" Donald Trump's Mountain Spring Water "Official bottled water company of the Lakewood BlueClaws (Minor League Baseball Team for the Philadelphia Phillies) Electric Ladyland clothing stores (not the "Electric Ladyland Studios" built by Jimi Hendrix in NYC) Gene Roddenberry's 1956-1957 TV series "West Point" (aka "The West Point Story" "Dramatic series of actual people and events at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York.") Assistant Director: Erich von Stroheim Jr. who was the uncredited baby in "Easy Street" 1917 and directed other films like "Medium Cool" ("The whole world is watching, the whole world...")

Kid Dynomite!

There is something strange about this. An "inventor" of the "dynamite gun" made from sections of pipe, was from Vermont where he demonstrated the weapon. He was assassinated on a street in Holland, "Time" magazine reported. The reason I remember it was 1) at the time I was working in the archaeology of the West Point Foundry (across the river from the Academy) in Cold Spring, NY where such a weapon was earlier designed, made from some of the many cast building supports it was casting still found inside NYC buildings, fired a wooden block a number of miles up the Hudson River from a barge, as shown in an old stereopair photo, 2) the "dynamite gun" has been reported in the press as being confiscated on its way to Iraq, maybe Libya, etc., and usually looks like a pile of pipeline pipes onboard a ship.

Plundering grave sites!

Underwater Archaeology forum: I have worked in Ralph Solecki, Ph.D.'s lab, the archaeologist who discovered the Neandthal burials in Shanidar Cave in Iraq, to whom a tribute was made in the introduction of the novel "Clan of the Cave Bear". However, I was working on the bottles and other debris left behind at a small dam site for a chair factory in Bergenfield, NJ, Coopers Dam, still repairing chairs I might add, I had one rocking chair seat "rewickered" there while working for Joan Geismar, Ph.D., who was examining the buried remains that were in the ground as the small earthen dam was replaced. Whew! I still remember the Tiffany glass Ralph Solecki had in his lab from bushel baskets of it dumped on one of the sites he was looking at in Queens I think. My point is that often the jobs I have had to examine or work on in regards to human burials have been in the redesign of progress, not as an actual research aim, the "potters field" or earlier the "almshouse cemetery" or more recently the "work farm" and other burial grounds that have had to have had someone document their extent and sometimes the damage to them as research reveals sometimes corruption and other vagaries of government recording (or lack thereof) of the burials. One person was even asked to excavate perhaps a saint, before being placed below the altar in the vault of St. Patricks Cathedral in New York City! So, it seems that archaeologists are being used in a more "applied" setting and assisting forensics and government often rather than settling academic "rows" one I've been to and out of over mortuary practices, gustatory cannibalism, and the man-eating myth.

We found out where all of President Clinton's can go!

"Gee, I couldn't work for mega-UPS unless I produced my father's retirement papers (no nepotism) yet this guy hires his daughter's boyfriend as a personal aide? Sounds icestuous, Big Daddy! What's he running, the best little dollhouse in Texas?" "Yeah but come on, what was Chelsea Clinton about 16 when the plane crashed into the White House? (see Maureen Dowd's 1994 report in the "N.Y. Times" published September 13, 1994 still online). Whatya sayin' she was goin' out with tha pilot?" Bush Went After Daughter's "Misbehaving" Boyfriend...

New York State of Professional Journalist

"(6) "Professional journalist" shall mean one who, for gain or livelihood, is engaged in gathering, preparing, collecting, writing, editing, filming, taping or photographing of news intended for a newspaper, magazine, news agency, press association or wire service or other professional medium or agency which has as one of its regular functions the processing and researching of news intended for dissemination to the public; such person shall be someone performing said function either as a regular employee or as one otherwise professionally affiliated for gain or livelihood with such medium of communication." - Shield Laws by State and Territory

The man behind the cameras - The Boston!Globe

"What's in the collection of Jack Naylor? What's not? Now his 30,000-piece treasure-trove is for sale." He went to the Bronx, New York Fordham University.

Film Blog Group Hug: What's Wrong with Theaters

4. Try infra-red headsets ("Variety" reported to be used for "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man" about 1979 or 1980)? Some enhanced imaging? (2 1/2 D)? More "educational" films, i.e., "The Will Rogers Follies" or more Shakespeare? To help with curriculas, like more "excellent adventures"?

CBSNews.com: Blog

I have an observation regarding reporters. I was working with a professional archaeologist for the Queens Historical Association, in the Moore-Jackson Cemetery, where we examined the curious headstones, and found whether they were placed there during the Great Depression by the WPA. As we were testing a number of NYC reporters showed up, and some local public school classes came out to help too. However, as far as I know, the reporters didn't get back, the cemetery, somewhere contains the remains of the people who owned the house, from its crossroads, the British Army had beat General George Washington in the first American Revolution battle, "The Battle of Long Island" (and the "Night Before Christmas" relation Moore, which the NY Times reported might have been copied from a ditty imploring newspaper subscribers to tip the deliverers at holiday time). I suppose what I am saying is the reporters needed more time more info to make a better story. In "Paerdegat Woods" another part of this battle, Donald Trump's father built many houses, hired an historian, gave everyone a copy when they moved in, and the "Brooklyn Eagle" newspaper (where author Walt Whitman was once editor) called the elder "Blitzkrieg Trump" around the time of WWII. They thought a better survey could have been made in case combatants had fallen there, and today we could have better reports from the troops in Iraq from "Blitzkrieg Bush".

Hinchey, Lowey want GE to get going on the Hudson River cleanup

Over twenty years after the first designed cleanup, the Connecticut based General Electric, Inc., GE, ("we bring good things to life") is still trying to not clean up the source of PCB contamination they caused in the Upper Hudson River, holding us and the natural world "hostage". Contamination resulted in regulations about striped bass, an anadromous fish, that on Long Island can only be kept if its over 24 inches long (and other proscriptions against consuming fish from the river, once a month, etc.) Songwriter/musician Billy Joel once got arrested on purpose for having a 23 1/2" fish to draw attention to the plight of the fishermen out on the East End of Long Island, where he also builds boats.