Are we destroying our water resources in our quest for development?

BBC NEWS | Have Your Say | Green Room: Water abuse is costing the Earth In Peru, there are areas where the only moisture comes in as a night fog in the mountainous desert environment. A Canadian invention, large sheets of plastic gauze-like "sails" if you will, collect moisture and store it for use harvested from the fog. It works well and perhaps could be used in other areas. Water quantity and quality are important issues, water poor Iraq has found out how important. Dams in adjacent countries threaten it's existence. George Myers, Bronx

One man holds the key to the hottest secret in our history

Taglines for Ground Zero (1987) Once you know the secret of Ground Zero, maybe the British will try to kill you, too.

Star Trek as a doctoral thesis

Newsvine - Star Trek as a doctoral thesis I was in an Introduction to Anthropology class, team taught by David Hicks (Timor) and William Arens (Sudan, author of "The Man Eating Myth") at Stony Brook University, and one of the texts was "the American Dimension Cultural Myths and Social Realities" (by Susan P. Montague and W. Arens c) 1976 Alfred Pub.). In Part 1: "Symbolic Analysis of Cultural Phenomena" after W. Arens' "Professional Football: An American Symbol and Ritual" was the essay, "A Structuralist Appreciation of "Star Trek"" by Peter J. Claus. It concludes: "Myth and "Star Trek" provide a model of real society in which the conflicts of life can be reasonably resolved precisely by adhering to values transcending nature, those same values that are so frail and elusive in the factual world." It seems like the right thing to do, to do the right thing.

West Point Foundry Parrott Rifles Revisited

MaritimeQuest - Daily Event for August 30 "August 30, 1943 the USS Hornet CV-12 was launched at Newport News. Laid down as Kearsarge she was renamed Hornet in honor of the Hornet CV-8 which was lost on Oct. 27, 1942." Hornet was the carrier that recovered the Apollo 11 space capsule on July 24, 1969 after the first moon landing. She also recovered Apollo 12 before heading into the reserve fleet and obscurity. Doomed to the cutting torch in 1993 Hornet was herself rescued when the company who bought her defaulted and the Navy repossessed the carrier and donated her as a museum ship. The Hornet is on display in Alameda, Ca." The USS Kearsarge sank the CSS Alabama off Cherbourg, France. At a Swiss court, millions of dollars were paid in damages by the British government, who had permitted the swift CSS Alabama to be built in one of its shipyards, against treaty. It sunk many ships. The cemetery in Cherbourg has some of the crew members of the CSS Alabama buried in it. Cherbourg-Octeville Site: The Wreck of the Alabama

Cleaning Up the Mess - Kevin Sites

"American Veteran Chuck Searcy came back to Vietnam to help clean up one of the country’s most bombed provinces. Ten years later, he's still here." - Yahoo News: Vietnam: Past And Present Edwin Newman, "a longtime television anchorman of NBC News" read my cousin George Murray's eulogy at the UN Chapel. He had directed "Huntley and Brinkley" and produced NBC News, often in Saigon and Houston. I wasn't at the eulogy, he had died in Mexico, where his wife was launching Avon cosmetics there. Mr. Newman read a letter George Murray had written canceling the report in preparation by an investigative journalist team in Vietnam, to gather the "common soldiers view" of the conflict there. It was canceled by "higher-ups". The "body counts" issue (orders for body bags watched) about which later General Westmoreland, after a NBC retrospective report on the Vietnam Conflict in 1982, (seven years after the withdrawal of the US from Vietnam) sued the entire NBC network for $100 million. The last time George Murray worked in television, he produced the 1976 Democratic and Republican conventions coverages for CBS. He had been a US Army Captain in the Korean War, a war technically still on, and at first was a film editor at NBC, over from the U.S. Army Signal Corps facility in New York City. "Film at 11".

Floydians

History: http://town.floyd.ny.us/content/History I am an archaeologist/anthropology from New York and worked at the William Floyd Manor on Long Island back in 1983 when it was first prepared to be opened to the public, then recently donated to the Fire Island National Seashore administered by the National Parks Service, Dept. of Interior part of the only federal "wilderness" in New York State. I worked as a volunteer for the Suffolk County Archaeology Association in mapping the basement and then for pay with the NPS as a crew member testing the areas to be repaired and/or to provide safe public access. It's quite an interpretative site last time I was there, e.g., subterranean ice house, corn crib, etc. The first space shuttle "Columbia" was launched while we worked there. Anyway, I hope you Floydians look it up or visit it sometime in Mastic/Shirley, NY if you haven't already! I noticed this small "error" in the "History" section and thought to bring it to your attention in case your site has been tampered with: "Floyd grew rapidly, becoming one of the most effluent of Oneida County towns, sending several men into higher county and state offices, and a magnet area for intellectually inclined Masonic, scholarly, political and anti-slavery activities." "effluent" should be "affluent" I once thought.

Pandas from PandaMagic

Sweet dreams on Flickr - Photo Sharing! Photo by Wolong Panda Club

PhysOrg.com Latest Physics News, Recent Technology Advances, etc.

How modern were European Neandertals? Why is it always European Neanderthals? I'm joking of course, but people should be reminded that so-named Neanderthals were also found in the Zagros Mountains of Iraq, in Shanidar Cave by Ralph Solecki, whom I had the please to meet once at Columbia University. Prior to that time there was a paper circulating at an American Association for the Advancement of Science of a juvenile jaw bone specimen found in Canada, washed out from an unknown strata, that was possibly of a Neanderthal and caused a stir, the so-called Tabor child.

Slate: Enter The Fray

Enter The Fray: Our Reader Discussion Forum Topic: Human Nature: Aug 28 2006 3:32PM Subject: The Case for Genital Mutilation From: GeorgeJMyersJr-2 Date: Aug 28 2006 3:32PM I recall the book in the Judeo-Christian Bible (but not the one Shakespeare might have had a hand in, the one that is named after the King of Scotland is it that granted Lion Gardiner Gardiners Island?) a chapter that's "St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians" (galaxy?) in which he states it didn't matter if you were circumcised or not, you could still be a Christian. Perhaps in response to Greco-Roman wrestling done nude where the circumcised were excluded I read, wrestling done in the nude at the Olympics. Aristotle remarked that the Olympics is between the people in it and should not be confused with the wider world, or something like that. Maybe he was looking to open a wrestling league? (Early Christian Writings)

Black history unearthed - The Boston Globe

Downtown Express report

African Burial Ground selects two firms to design center

By Janet Kwon

Two firms have been selected to design the African Burial Ground’s interpretive center in Lower Manhattan. Roberta Washington Associates of Manhattan will design the space at the 290 Broadway federal building and Amaze Design, Inc of Boston will produce a 15-minute film for the center as well as an oral history exhibit on the creation of the national monument at Duane and Elk Sts. About 20,000 Africans are believed to be buried at the former cemetery. ... “[The Interpretive Center] will provide information about the African Burial Ground and also about the rediscovery of the site in ‘91 and the community involvement and the activism that led to the awareness that we have today,” said Tara Morrison, an African Burial Ground spokesperson, referring to when the site was first discovered in 1991 during construction work for a federal building. President Bush designated the burial ground as a National Monument February of this year.

Historical Archaeology

Subject: Re: Concealed objects in buildings When briefed by the Fort Drum EOD (Explosive Ordnance Division, they say they were started by the British UXO, necessity in that case the "mother of invention") one of the problems they had was with the soldier who thought to bring something along or home as a souvenir (once used extensively by the NYS National Guard, currently the permanent cantonment of the US Army 10th Mountain Division) and then decided against it, left in a hidden place in the barracks structure. They performed periodic sweeps to find said objects, and perhaps part of the story to some of the objects found concealed in buildings as a behaviorist might think.

I hope it's not all connected...

Newsvine - 9/11 Investigative Journalist Beaten By Undercover Cops Imamu Amiri Baraka, formerly Leroi Jones, ("United States writer of poems and plays about racial conflict (born in 1934)" - WordWeb) once was a professor at Stony Brook University in New York when I was attending grad school in anthropology. He went on to the official State of New Jersey poet, until 9/11/01. He wrote a poem expressing what he had seen reported in the papers, which resulted in an outcry that had him removed from the position, over basically repeating what he read in a local paper in my opinion. I can't believe we are becoming so narrow minded over the written word that goons and henchmen are harassing writers. They removed the NJ position in Aug. 2003 around the time his daughter was found shot dead with a companion. Officials think the shooting and the controversy were "unrelated". Yeah right, like being castigated by New Jersey, and the rest of the nation, in the state whose Governor was appointed to be US EPA head (Christine Todd Whitman, eminently qualified?) by President Bush wouldn't have any effect on my family, how about yours? I hope this stops in Chicago, where Black Panthers were once regularly spied upon and didn't start in NJ.

Today is the 90th Anniversary of the U.S. National Parks Service

"Today marks the 90th anniversary of the National Park Service. So it is only fitting that NPCA has chosen the Park Service's birthday to launch its new campaign, "All About Jack." This campaign is all about future generations--your children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews. What sort of legacy will we leave for our children?" National Parks Conservation Association (for 87 years) 1300 19th Street, NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20036 Visit NPCA on the web at http://www.npca.org. Watch "It's All About Jack" "To the sick the doctors wisely recommend a change of air and scenery. Thank Heaven, here is not all the world. The buckeye does not grow in New England, and the mockingbird is rarely heard here. The wild goose is more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou. Even the bison, to some extent, keeps pace with the seasons cropping the pastures of the Colorado only till a greener and sweeter grass awaits him by the Yellowstone. Yet we think that if rail fences are pulled down, and stone walls piled up on our farms, bounds are henceforth set to our lives and our fates decided. If you are chosen town clerk, forsooth, you cannot go to Tierra del Fuego this summer: but you may go to the land of infernal fire nevertheless. The universe is wider than our views of it." Henry David Thoreau from "Conclusion" in "Walden" 1854

My Dad was a Black Panther in Italy (WWII)

I just visited this page at http://www.nbc-2.com/ and wanted to share it with you, take a look: http://www.nbc-2.com/articles/readarticle.asp?articleid=8545 It's a bad news good news story you might have missed from Florida. I recall that a Vietnam veteran disappeared into the bush to study these last remaining panthers and made them the Florida Panther, a public item. The story was also associated with other "disillusioned" returning vets who it was reported "went native" disappeared into the wilderness in parts of the US, Crocodile Dundee like or maybe like some of the Seminole out Alligator Alley way (scary eyes in the water under a full moon there years past). We get "yellow fever" from "yellack" a native Floridian word I read for the illness associated with mosquitoes that's appeared up here and in DC on occasion, e.g., the summer White House of Martin Van Buren in Kinderhook, NY, I was to short-term work at but went to grad school. Some say "O.K." is from "Old Kinderhook" for "Where's the President?" "O.K." (yellow fever "Caused by a flavivirus transmitted by a mosquito Synonyms: black vomit, yellow jack" WordWeb) The good news is that mosquito numbers have not been this low in 20 years it's there reported (Collier County). A California study has shown killing their panthers doesn't stop the frequency of attacks, they range over huge areas. In Holderness, New Hampshire, at the Science Center, they have a wild animal exhibit in the woods, and many are behind a clear Plexiglas to view. I saw two panthers there very interesting. There's been sightings in the wild in New Hampshire of them too, one around the Ossipee Mountains, home of "Castle in the Clouds" on a former volcano ring dike, from a cataclysm in the distant geological past that they say blew with 10X the force of Mt. St. Helens, (the height of Mt. Everest?) I rode Greyhound through the swirling volcanic ash of Mt. St. Helens once on my way to Skagway, Alaska, stopped in George and Martha, Washington, picked up some of it. $99 anywhere in the country! The return trip skirted around it. I left Hauppauge for Seattle, damn the volcanoes, full speed ahead! Flew to Juneau, twin engine plane onto the grassy field of Skagway. Ferry back to Juneau. Today you can drive to Skagway! Revisit the days of '98 and the Klondike Gold Rush. Charlie Chaplin would laugh. It was laid out like New York City streets. Just saw this good music site from Moscow, Russia mp3sugar.com good collection I want to download John Coltrane's album "Interstellar Space" (1967) for 0.59 (copyright remuneration are paid it states)

The Expanding and Contracting Solar System

I said I had learned from an astronomer who was once astronomer Kohoutek's fiancée's "paramour" that the mnemonic to remember the planetary order was "Matilda Visits Early Monday Just Stays Until Noon Period." So much for Period or Pluto apparently. It was an interesting time to be in a university when I heard it, Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" series was on PBS, his "baby" the Viking planetary explorer landed on Mars and we almost had instant reports to our large "Planetary Atmospheres" undergraduate class. Later I was introduced to more archaeo-astronomy in graduate Archaeology in Anthropology seminar class, where it was shown from Mexico, stone "compass rose" like monuments were found that were used to "aim" the prehistoric architecture at the spring solstice resulting in a shaft of sunlight appearing in a subterranean structure to announce when to plant apparently in the dry climate. One of Stony Brook's early PhD's was in archaeo-astronomy, I recall reading, using a mainframe computer in 1971 or so, like some of the work at Stonehenge, to check out the astronomical alignments of large public architecture, here mostly mounds, found in North America often abandoned in the New World e.g., Etowah in Georgia, Cahokia in Illinois, Moundville in Alabama (which I've been to) and other large former settlements, found to have been, at the least, oriented to the transit of the Sun. The later public exhibitions of the first close-ups from the Voyager explorer's flyby of the planet Jupiter (not to be confused with Jupiter Hammon, said "considered the first Black writer to publish in America" who I think I read was from Long Island though lived in Connecticut) was also very interesting.

Geospatial poll

Geospatial poll I've used IDRISI, AutoCad, QuikSurf, Surfer, Rolleimetric MR2 close-range photogrammetry, GTCO 48" tablet, and other software as it began from 1989-1994 for archaeology for the EPA's evaluation of archaeological potential and other clients needs for mitigation and feel it would then put archaeology in the subset "architecture/engineering" when for what I was paid, it should be in "seasonal laborer". 8/16/2006 9:01:54 AM

Why Not Impeachment?

The Blog Bill Maher: Why Not Impeachment? The Huffington Post Apocalyptical, the President did encourage the Congress to declare war to "Beat the Devil" and is perhaps NOT innocent of "yellow cake" planting scandal perhaps, after all Geronimo's skull is still allegedly at Yale "unpatriated" to the sovereign people President Bush refers too, in this case the Apache, who have extended kinships across hundreds of miles, according to a University of Chicago Professor Morris Opler,Ph.D., who wrote 4 briefs, three of which were presented to the US Supreme Court over the rights of Americans interred during WWII. He might, just hasn't been caught. Big Apple magic.

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

"When Famous Beats First" - U.S. News and World Report

This just in from 2005...

Long-lost Jacques Cartier settlement rediscovered at Quebec City How archeologists unearthed Cartier's lost fort Rare plate confirms site as North America's first French settlement

Governors Island in the New York Times

Sleeping Beauty February 6, 2006 It was once proposed that a new TV tower be built there to replace the one after 9/11/01. It was supported by some in that media. It used vertical cables "woven" around a few disks held in tension, an observation deck would be near the base of the antenna section of the tower. The cables below were to be wound through the top and bottom disks or decks, leaving airy space between them and the slim tower. There was sort of a similar structure in the Smithaven Mall on Long Island once (sans tower), clear strands of plastic "wire" woven around top and bottom holders which light flowed through and what appeared to be glycerin dripped along the curve of the lines. It was at what was the Abraham & Strauss large department store end ("the giant Brooklyn-based department store"). A large Alexander Calder mobile was once selected for the middle "pool" of the mall but the jets of water to have been thrown against it would have wet too many of the pedestrians and it lay out in the parking lot until recently purchased I read in Newsday.

Dispatch From Ground Zero

The Architectural Record "Five years is enough time for builders to construct a small city in China. In lower Manhattan, it’s only the first chapter for the big pit at Ground Zero. But finally it has begun to stir, with leaders coming together and construction starting for real." The link is to article and slide-show of the recent stirrings in the big pit. My grandfather Joseph Myers was a real estate reporter in lower Manhattan (they lived near where the Alfred E. Smith Houses are now, I think the first city-built public housing was put up in the 1930s also nearby thanks to Smith. My father was born at 660 Water Street, on the day after Christmas, under those "projects" now) and worked for the "New York Record" I think or the "Real Estate Times" as it became known (?). The family of eleven children moved to the Bronx in the 1930s, when the buildings went up. My grandmother was once a nanny on Bedloe's Island for the caretaker of the Statue of Liberty. "Congress officially changed the name from Bedloe's Island to Liberty Island in 1956" - WordWeb 4.5a New York State Parks :: Governor Alfred E. Smith/Sunken Meadow State Park ALFRED E. SMITH STATUE - Historical Sign

Screenwriter Feels Rotten About U-571 Alterations

Maybe we should thank Mr. Mick Jagger for putting the facts out for us the public to think about, which is where I heard about it first. Maybe also we should thank the post office that sent an enigma to the wrong address and MI6 (?) had one for a weekend, delivered on time without suspicion. One of the American code crackers states in a book about the Norse rune stone allegedly found in Maine, that the ecclesiastics that began accompanying voyages started coding observations after Iceland became the first Christian nation around 1000 CE (Common or Christian era) and the Spirit Pond stone might be one of the as late as the early 14th century last "Norse" visits to the New World. ("Norse mythology: The mythology of Scandinavia (shared in part by Britain and Germany) until the establishment of Christianity." -WordWeb). The site was test excavated by an archaeology team and archaeologist who is a petroglyph researcher, sponsored by the State of Maine I heard. Northeast Anthropology

Governors Island Redux

Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2000 13:10:49 EST

Sender: Archaeology List

Subject: Re: [Story taken from todays news stories.]

I thank you for the response. The questions revolve around things that are both private and public in the current political climate as you observe. The interesting points have actually resulted in progress toward the recognition of off-reservation and reservation based native Americans in the particular case I was indirectly referring to, at least according to the press I read after (I am not affiliated with any group or cause, though a former program director of an archaeological society).

My criticism, and I agree about collectors, however, is not specific. In my experience, sites have been taken away, written up by those not even on site, without consultation with those that excavated it, and the experts find the more important materials after the archaeologists are done. It's not collectors in my experience, but perhaps and in fact people who know what they're looking for so to speak. It makes me very red, on many not just a few occasions, to report here that it happens and probably will go on happening. Not the "wayward" collector wandering over the archaeological landscape, nor the local activist who wants the development that obstructs perceived serenity and contemplation from Nature, no, real experts who go on to reconstruct bateaux at Mystic Seaport (terrible fire in town there yesterday, not suspicious) naval history that would have otherwise been overlooked by archaeologists. This reflects poorly on the field, specifically when much ecological data can be ascertained with imagination and training from just about any site in my opinion, the lack thereof is mute testimony to the inroads archaeology was supposed to make for other sciences.

If this seems caustic, it is not its intent. I have watched collections go out the door over money and politics some only to be abandoned in the process. That is why some are proposing a permanent space for collections be established on Governors Island, here in NYC as a permanent repository for collected materials, to enable future, as yet unknown uses for collected material and data that researchers may need for perhaps legal and scientific evidence.

See: Bateaux and 'Battoe Men': An American Colonial Response to the Problem of Logistics in Mountain Warfare

National Aviation Day

Today is National Aviation Day in the United States. It is held on Orville Wright's birthday, one of the two Dayton, Ohio area bicycle mechanics who invented a type of flying that came to be taught on Governors Island in the harbor of New York City, launched from a catapult, for the US military.

I hear they're looking to replace the steam-driven catapult on US air-craft carriers with some sort of mag-lev device. Did you hear they found the one air-craft carrier the Nazi's built? Polish underwater geological survey, found it in deep water. The Russians claim, it was theirs after the war, used it for target practice and sunk it. Quite a ship it seems in photos and fast, it would have been, except for a fickle leader, and quite a threat. I wonder if it had any plane launchers on it?

Speaking of flight, I was once to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio, working nearby in Kettering, over some problems of a research park to be made on a former Shaker "farm" named after their original site in Watervliet, NY, "conscientious objectors" in the 18th century until even now, a few still exist in Maine. Today there is an arms research center and arsenal there, there since the 19th century.

It is amazing to think, on one of the US Apollo missions to the Moon, a small piece of wood from the original Wright Flyer that was launched and flown at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was left there on the Moon.

Brain damage smoking those rugs...Brewer and Shipley

I once saw "Jimi Plays Berkeley" and "Pink Floyd at Pompeii" (or Vesuvius, Herculaneum?) in the Huntington Arts Center maybe there's a track from the film(s). They used to tour together in the 1960s (very tough schedule I thought having more recently read it) and thought I saw Mr. Jimi in a sidewalk cafe in Woodstock, NY in 1968, when I was washing dishes at Camp Timber Lake, Allaben, NY, (1940s USGS "Camp Allegro"). I found out later he was renting a place and a New Paltz professor's Mom, then in real estate, was showing the place, saw him and a "Janis Joplin look-a-like" she said, they thought they weren't going to be disturbed and were a little teed off. I am a recent listener and want to thank you for the effort, though then more a Jethro Tull fan at the time (TWJT on records) and Audience. I am in the Bronx, NY.

Sort of posted to "Brain Damage" the definitive Pink Floyd radio station

Very interesting prototype...

Brownian Emotion » A Live Motion Portable 3D Video Camera

Mechanic's Institute Press Release: Historic Preservation

MECHANIC'S INSTITUTE

Founded in 1820

Supported by the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York

20 West 44^th Street New York City, N.Y. 10036

Telephone: (212) 840-7648

Facsimile: (212) 764-5058

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

_______________________________________________

New Tuition-Free Historic Preservation Program

New York, NY –Summer 2006. Mechanics’ Institute is now accepting applications for its new certificate program in Historic Preservation. The two-year program is open to men and women currently working in historic preservation or a related field. Instruction focuses on architectural history, preservation history and policy, methods and techniques of historic preservation and case studies of New York City buildings and landmarks. Courses include Introduction to Historic Preservation, Visual Communication, Building Typology, and Case Studies in Historic Preservation. Mechanics’ Institute also offers programs in Construction Project Management, Facilities Management, Plumbing Design, HVAC, Electrical Technology, and AutoCAD. All courses and programs are open to men and women who are currently working in the construction trades and allied trades.

Mechanics’ Institute is located at 20 West 44^th Street, between 5^th and 6^th Avenues, in the heart of midtown Manhattan. The Mechanics’ Institute has been providing free classes in the trades since 1858. The fall semester begins on September 11. Courses are held in the evenings, between 5 and 9 pm. Registration is taking place now and space is limited. For more information visit the school website at http://www.mechanicsinstitute.org/. To register, call the Admission Office at 212.840.7648 or visit us at 20 West 44^th Street, between 5^th and 6^th Avenues.

- - It's interesting to find that the builders of wooden ships (at least at the time of the "year without summer", "the mechanics wore their coats in July" summer of 1816 in Setauket, NY) were referred to as "mechanics" rather than perhaps, carpenters.

Mississippi sues Memphis for tapping underground water supplies...

March 2005

U.S. Water News Online

OXFORD, Miss. -- The state of Mississippi has sued Memphis for tapping into groundwater formations to serve the Tennessee city's water wells...

In its lawsuit, Mississippi claims that one-third of the water Memphis pumps -- about 60 million gallons a day -- comes from south of the state line. This water is "unreasonably and unlawfully diverted," causing harm to the aquifer, it says.

The lawsuit asks the court to order Memphis to halt its "excessive" withdrawals and "use water from other nearby abundant and available sources, such as the Mississippi River."

Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee embarked on an aquifer study in recent years and continue to pursue research."

This, reported from the hometown of the American writer William Faulkner ("United States novelist (originally Falkner) who wrote about people in the southern United States (1897-1962)") reminds me a tad about the original dispute between Iraq and Kuwait as reported in the press. Kuwait had set up oil wells right at the "line in the sand" that the British drew between Iraq and Kuwait, probably in the 1920s, and Iraq got mad because their scientists stated 80% of the underground oil field was in Iraq and Kuwait was pumping it all over to their side. When negotiations were called, it was reported, Kuwait was absent from the table, which may have led to the original invasion of Kuwait by Iraq it was thought.

Listening to...

The The's This is The The Day and

Michael Keaton reads "Mose the Fireman: The Legendary Firefighter" a Rabbit Ears Book and Cassette. The book and cassette series, narrated by many famous Hollywood actors and actresses, have received numerous honors and awards including: 2 Grammy Awards, 13 Grammy Nominations, 7 Action for Children's Television Awards, 16 Parent's Choice Awards and 4 CINE Golden Eagle Awards. Mose and Lize were "stereotype" characters referred to on the Bowery when it was New York City's Theatre District and limelights and gaslight lit the neighborhood and people strolled out at night there to visit the sites and theaters. Written by Eric Metaxas and illustrated by Everett Peck, published by Simon & Schuster, it "Relates the tall tale adventures of Moses Humphries, a nineteenth-century fireman in New York City." 1996.

Blogged with Microsoft's Windows Live Writer (Beta) Version: 1.0 (109)

Press corps moves outside White House

In a National Archives journal article the history of the White House Press Secretary was researched and presented. What it stated was that Cabinet Secretary George B. (M.) Cortelyou was considered the first, though not a title then, as he in 1901, it stated, invited the press in to discuss the condition of the President McKinley, who had been shot at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY and news of the Spanish-American War.

President William McKinley had been expected to survive, but eight days later passed away, and then Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was rushed down on a series of horse-drawn jitneys from the Tahawas Club, where he had been climbing Mt. Marcy, in New York State's Adirondacks, to the railhead in North Creek, NY to read the telegram announcing the death, and where he boarded a special train for Buffalo, NY. He empowered George Cortelyou in organizing the offices, once a shorthand teacher in New York City, and continued I guess to make announcements to the press.

I found it odd at the time that the first woman to hold that position, Dee Dee Myers under President Clinton, was not even mentioned as the article progressed through the different people who occupied the position. I hope they return soon, and this is not a permanent harbinger. Yahoo article.

"The most dangerous man in America." - President Nixon

If the man was the "most dangerous man in America" wouldn't that mean he was under surveillance most of the time (even though a British citizen was more responsible for the fanfare of LSD, invented in a Swiss pharmaceutical lab, recently, the lab, after a mismanaged fire, was responsible for killing most of the wildlife in the Rhine River in Germany through releases)? Did that mean, say a musician, playing bass guitar on his talking album would also be followed, when perhaps it was just another gig? Where does the government draw the line with its so-called experts (elected officials, who have outstanding tickets, misdemeanors and other offenses, with guaranteed outrageous pensions, for a crummy couple of years of pampered service) in the protection of personal freedom? How many goons were following him?

Comment in The Blog, Paul Krassner's report on "The Legacy of Timothy Leary" in the Huffington Post

About the following posting...

I also heard Ralph Nader has been suggesting they lock up and reinforce the cockpits of US jetliners for years. One airline, El-Al has the flight crew in a separate compartment from the the rest of the passengers and they leave and board separately.

Interesting source of information

ChomskyTorrents.org v.2 "NEW 9/11 Flight Recordings Declassified (Miscellaneous) 9/11 Flight Recordings Declassified Government Releases Detailed Information on 9/11 Crashes Complete Air-Ground Transcripts of Hijacked 9/11 Flight Recordings Declassified National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 196 Washington, DC - August 11, 2006 - The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) this week released full transcripts of the air traffic control recordings from the four flights hijacked on September 11, 2001, and meticulous Flight Path Studies for three of the flights, in response to a Freedom of Information request by the National Security Archive. The studies provide the most detailed technical information available to date related to the hijackings, and the transcripts of the aircraft-to-ground communications are the first complete government disclosure of each flight's air traffic control recordings." (watch for "Steam : crack" and other "programs" however a worm)

DU : depleted uranium

Newsvine - Is an Armament Sickening U.S. Soldiers? I feel for these guys. Back in 1983 I worked for a company EBASCO, in five upper floors of the World Trade Center. Their division, Envirosphere does the environmental impacts for power plants, their siting and construction. I was hired to test Fort Drum Army Military base in Upstate New York for archaeology potential, digging hundreds of gridded holes. There were a few recorded sites there one a "palisaded village" of the once so-called "lost Iroquois" one of the earlier groups associated with the "Peacemaker" of pre-Contact times. At over 105,000 acres Fort Drum has many ranges where tanks fire weapons, off-limits, and the total area has been in constant use since 10,000 people were moved from it where dairies and foundries were once around 1945, a smaller Pine Camp there previously. Today it is the permanent location of the US Army 10th Mountain Division, moved there from Camp Hale, Colorado, and started by another Dole, though former Senator Bob Dole served with it in Italy. Prior to the relocation of the A-10 squadron from Griffis Army Airbase near Syracuse, NY to "out west" I would watch everyday it seemed as A-10's accompanied by Phantom F-4's (perhaps in case the A-10's with DU ammunition got off their flight way) fly in and unload on a range against a delivery truck, with yardage markers. I had no idea most of those rounds perhaps were DU back in 1983. Bradley's to serve in front of tanks instead of infantry, were just being ordered. One proposal was to tell everyone at the facility that powder blue ordnance was "H.E." instead of duds to keep all the people out of it.

Interesting news for underwater close-range photogrammetry

In "Underwater Archaeology and Maritime History Jobs" 25 July 2006 Ph.d funded position, underwater archaeology and underwater photogrammetry, Marseille, France, ncd

The Great Falls of Paterson, NJ (home of Lou Costello)

fluxfactory.org OPEN CALL FOR ARTISTS Flux Factory calls upon artists to take part in a project exploring the multifaceted landscape of Paterson, New Jersey. A team that includes designers, architects, and urban planners will initiate a dialogue between the historical, physiological, and physical aspects of this city as well as the people who live and work there. During a six-week period open meetings with the public will be held, asking questions and finding answers to, in a larger sense, a monument’s function within a city and the effects that resonate from its creation. The goal is to design and then build a monument to Paterson, in Paterson. info@fluxfactory.org Submission deadline is December 15th, 2006. Paterson, NJ was in part designed by the architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant who designed much of the US Capital, Washington, D.C., and later by Sam Colt, inventor of the revolver, of the Colt gun manufacturing company in the 19th century I read. Colt's influence has just been recently uncovered it was printed. Conrad "Pop" Link lived across the street from me at home till he was 101 years old. For forty years he worked in a spring factory in Paterson, NJ then came time for a union vote, a raise or pension, and all the young guys voted for a raise, he said. He was mad that President Reagan used the Social Security lists to mail him a birthday card, because he hadn't voted for him, getting the card about the same time President Reagan was shot in an assassination attempt by John Hinckley, perhaps part of that rich Colorado oil family's kid, (he may have been there to dine with Neil Bush that night.) Still recall the forensic microscope revelation, "wait a second this bullet was supposed to explode!"

Red, White and Blueway?

$33 million announced for New York City Historic Preservation New York City Dept. of Parks and Recreation $29,300 The Bronx River Alliance, in partnership with the Department of Parks and Recreation, will design and publish a Bronx River Blueway Paddling Guide focusing on the eight-mile Bronx portion of the river. This guide will complement and interpret ongoing Bronx River Blueway Trail development, construction of the Bronx River Greenway, and ecological restoration of the watershed. In the American Revolutionary War, the British government won the first "Battle of Long Island" against General George Washington. Admiral Cornwallis was in charge of the British Navy in New York City which it occupied, Staten Island a "staging area" for troops. Admiral Cornwallis (not to be confused with General Cornwallis, which the combined American and French forces (army and navy) finally defeated in Virginia) was a close friend of the British King George. So close some forensic scientists having tested his wig, which was found to be high in arsenic, propose he may have "inadvertently" poisoned the king! Admiral Cornwallis was ordered by the king to sail up the Bronx River and defeat the rebels in White Plains, where Washington had one of his headquarters. Apparently the maps of the time had not been properly drawn to represent the shallow, narrow Bronx River, today running alongside the United States' first motor parkway, the Bronx River Parkway, which has been moved and altered somewhat, and some of the settlements removed for the creation of the Bronx Zoo, today part of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Bronx Botanical Gardens. That the official Borough of the Bronx flower was the "Titan Arum," (Amorphophallus titanum) the giant "corpse flower" of Sumatra, was apparently due to its popularity in the public mind (or the politicians) in the late 19th century. One is currently blooming at Virginia Tech ("Hundreds watch 'corpse flower' bloom") and at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden ("Brooklyn's Bloom, a Sight (and Stench) Not to Be Missed") and others have made the news recently, one in western Australia I recall. A few years ago, under Borough President Ferrer and a recent mayoral candidate, the official flower of the Borough of the Bronx was changed to the "day lily".

Kennewick Man revisited

Newsvine - Bill Would Help Study of Ancient Remains There is an irony in this. The former President George H.W. Bush signed the "repatriation" act that caused quite a stir in the scientific community leading to the actions cited, relatively new legislation. He and the current President (and others) are or were part of the "Skull and Bones" club, an "elite" group in operation at Yale University, which it is alleged in the early 20th century excavated the skull and other effects of the once Apache leader Geronimo, and subsequently, "treated" the skull and it is kept as part of some ceremony at the multi-million dollar endowed "club" there that produced many leaders in government (so has other Yale "clubs". At Princeton U., they had "dining clubs" I heard, no commissary on campus, except at the then "new" Forbes College which had a cafeteria when I was there for a "Computers and Archaeology" conference years ago, where nearby I had dug hundreds of gridded holes. There I met Anna Roosevelt, an archaeologist, grand-daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, our company (of 4 or 5) had assisted in mapping research at the Marajo Island mounds in Brazil). There have been repeated requests, the last actually produced a specimen that obviously was not the alleged adult, and a petition is currently circulated for a full investigation by the authorities.

Marking time the "The Wild One"

Vintage Image of the Day: The Wild One - Cinematical 1. I heard it was a tribute film sort of to the war vets who came back from the wars that weren't buying it so to speak. Some young at the end of WWII, married, almost drafted into the Korean Conflict, my single uncle did two tours there, got asthma sleeping in icy foxholes, good for 10% disability. There were also 0% disabilities, which qualified you for a Veterans hospital, my dad didn't buy, escaped a possible "Angel of Death" nurse. Similar groups of guys who served in Vietnam weren't buying it either. The "it" has been described as the house in Levittown the wife, kid steady job etc., and in from my informants anyway, guys in the same platoon often decided before they did settle down or if, when they got back to the USA, travel around a bit, see the country, what it was they were representing and defending. President Reagan helped save Harley-Davidson with 5 year duty cycle on big imports. Hollywood star saved the soap no radio star.

General William Floyd

After posting the information about the work circa the first launch of a Space Shuttle, STS-1 "Columbia" back in April 12th 1981, at the William Floyd Manor, Mastic/Shirley, NY, for the National Park Service's Denver Service Center, CO, supervised by Dana Linck, whose dad taught physical education at the West Point Military Academy for 20 years, (co-authored "Dig Fast, Die Young: Unexploded Ordnance and Archaeology," Chapter 12 in "DANGEROUS PLACES: Health, Safety, and Archaeology" edited by David A. Poirier and Kenneth L. Feder, 2001, can be read at the link it seems) I got to thinking about the Lloyd bottle seal and what I found afterwards. What I found in the Main Branch of the New York Public Library, was a copy of the deed that William Floyd sold or held of property in partnership with Ezra L'Hommedieu, whose grave, many years ago, I stood near I thought in Setauket, actually would have been Southold, NY! Strange. "Ezra L'Hommedieu (August 30, 1734–September 27, 1811) was an American lawyer and statesman from Southold, New York. He was a delegate for New York to the Continental Congress from 1779 to 1783 and again in 1788." - Wikipedia And: "He was buried near the grave of his first wife, the former Charity Floyd, whose brother was General William Floyd, a signer of the Declaration of Independence." Find A Grave: "American statesman. A noted patriot of the Revolutionary War era, Federalist Ezra L'Hommedieu represented New York in the Continental Congress during the years 1779, 1781, 1783, 1787 and 1788. He had also served in the State Assembly, among other local offices, and was an author of the Empire State's Constitution. Born into a Long Island family of Dutch and French Huguenot ancestry, he had practiced law in New York City after his graduation from Yale in 1754. Widely respected for his integrity and intelligence, he had helped to design the lighthouse at Montauk Point, a project on which he advised George Washington, and had also developed methods of scientific farming, including the use of seashells to fertilize soils. He was serving as Regent of the State University of New York when he died at age 77."

The revolution might be televised...

Newsvine - Presbyterian Church publishes 9/11 conspiracy theory

The Presbyterians also backed the innocence of Professor Angela Davis, when she was "liberated" in an armed take-away in a courthouse by extremists, (part of the revolution not televised) which turned out to be true. I doubt this sceptic's "truth", however, it's strongly out there in other forms. I prefer secular vs. sectarian humanism, but humanism none-the-less should be welcomed.

The local WABC (?) local news a few days (?) prior to 9/11 had a debate among all the candidates to be voted for on 9/10/2001 (?) in the NYC primary held then. One question asked on the TV show I recall was: Now that the World Trade Center was for sale, and the City would profit a windfall from it, how would each candidate spend the money? They were commented on by "experts" as to the possibility of their proposals. One answer, was to build the 40,000 low and middle income housing units originally part of the deal for the exchange of de-mapping several city streets, not applying NYC building codes, etc., that were supposed to be built with the building of the World Trade Center. It was my favorite answer, having spent some time as a youngster in the "projects" in the South Bronx, nearby wrecking balls, and where under President Lincoln, the Capitol Dome was cast and then assembled in Washington, D.C. by the local firm, replacing the former "hat box" on the US capital. I imagine, many watched the "prime time" "debate" more an informational guide to voting that there should be more of.

West Point Story (not Gene Roddenberry's TV show)

Newsvine - West Point Thesis Challenges Gay Policy As someone who has worked in archaeology all over the perimeter of West Point over the last 20 years (both sides of the river) in archaeology for the US government (and elsewhere) I could not agree more strongly. We are now admitting many Americans to West Point, i.e., native Americans (though tragically "12 Feathers" a student was found dead on the grounds) and even the football field is named after the "Buffalo Soldiers", the African American troops who served in many of the western outposts as America grew "from sea to shining sea". The changes in the military I've seen, i.e., initial survey of Fort Drum, NY for the relocation of the 10th Mountain Division, back when A-10's flew to there almost daily, have shown positively from the days of Sackett's Harbor, when over 20 men were hung for infractions as simple as falling asleep at guard duty at the huge Lake Ontario military complex in the War of 1812, where Zebulon Pike is buried, blown up invading present day Toronto, Canada. Many of the workers in the West Point Foundry, where cannons and shells were made were smuggled under alias from Great Britain. Surely their expertise was more important than their sexual history, if even surmised, and greatly helped the winning of the Civil War.

Re: more re:Historical Archaeology on the big screen redux

I haven't seen the film yet, ("National Treasure") but I've had some experience in finding that some of the historical past still needs to be written. In the donated transfer of the William Floyd Manor grounds to the Fire Island National Seashore, currently the only Federal "wilderness" in the State of New York, the NPS Denver Service Center had to do some archaeology to the impacts in the preparation of the site for the public. Back in the early 1980s, which effectively took the "beach buggies" off the dunes, I turned in the local archaeologist's report on the history of Fire Island, a "barrier beach" constantly in movement from east to west on the south shore of Long Island at the public hearing held in the William Floyd High School on the proposition, where various groups and individuals entered their opinion on the designation. The hearings were part of a public record. What is interesting to me, as a history buff, I once applied to William and Mary scholarship for grads requiring the GRE in History, which I did well at though as an undergrad had only taken a History of Mexico course, officially, which is another topic, was that the perhaps fourth signer of the Declaration of Independence and the first New Yorker to do so, has had so little information about him in the history of the United States. The Floyd family had been on Long Island since the 17th century, and the current grounds also nearby the Unkechogue native American lands at Poospatuck. He fled in the Revolution the property occupied by the British Army and was a General in the American Army. Why is there a Lloyd bottle seal in the Floyd garden? Were him and the important Tory landowner on the north shore, Floyd on the south shore, once friends or business partners? Was there an "old inlet" in the barrier beach nearby as the one that once serviced Bellport? Things like that, not the crooked school district official in the news today.

Mini skyscraper flexes its muscles

“If architects designed a building like a body, it would have a system of bones and muscles and tendons and a brain that knows how to respond. If a building could change its posture, tighten its muscles and brace itself against the wind, its structural mass could literally be cut in half.” -Guy Nordenson, Ove Arup and Partners (now Princeton University / Nordenson and Associates) http://www.mit.edu/~ph_block/mini-blog/nordenson.html

Where were you when the WTC was attacked?

I had woken up and put on a New Jersey rock and roll station, unusual in the Bronx, NY I often listen to WFUV at Fordham University. The station had someone on their cell phone calling in they had just seen a plane crashing into one of the WTC towers. I put the TV on. I had worked for a company on the 90-95 floors, that had left though, Envirosphere, a division of Ebasco, a Texas power plant designer and builder. The division was doing the archaeological clearance of Fort Drum, NY for the permanent relocation of the US Army 10th Mountain Division from Camp Hale, Colorado back in 1984 or so. When I was there they were still in Jeeps, Huey's, old tanks, F-4's and A-10's, now in Blackhawks(?), Humvees, Bradleys(?) and Abrams tanks, which Fort Drum was once used primarily for tank stationary firing exercise before the mobile training at Fort Erwin in the deserts of California, against then, our troops as Russians which as said always won. The property once had 10,000 people working in dairy and foundries. My girlfriend worked there in their office and were sent home one day as the sway in the wind was causing expected problems in the elevator shafts. Noticeably absent then, my neighbor a building inspector, were the lights in the stairwells, not built to NYC Building Code. Added: It's interesting to recount that the orginal planned site for what became the World Trade Center, was in the current neighborhood of the South Street Seaport Historic District, the preferred location. Posted to Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better

Black Ball Line Redux

Confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia

Interesting sites online:

"The Oblong Box" short story of travel on a 19th century passenger ship, by Edgar Allen Poe, with, believe it or not, a reference to DaVinci's "Last Supper". He once lived in the cottage now on the Grand Concourse in the borough of the Bronx, in New York City though he reposes in Baltimore, Maryland, his demise still a mystery.

Webb Institute: Who Was William Webb? He was a world famous 19th century shipbuilder in Manhattan, NY, who "unfortunately" built state-of-the-art vessels for foreign nations, as the US government thought otherwise. Today a small undergraduate college of naval architecture is in Glen Cove, NY on Long Island, there now for 111 years.

The Sextant | The Online Community of Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology

The Museum of Underwater Archaeology

Maritime Quest

Wreck Diving Magazine Home Page

Pride of Baltimore When Mount Tambora, in today's Indonesia, a volcano, exploded in 1815, the summer of 1816 became a "year without summer" (Wikipedia) as the ash circulated the Earth blocking the sunlight from reaching the ground. Baltimore, Maryland became an important port as the effects of the cold were not felt as extreme in the south, and many foodstuffs were traded to the north through trans-shipment in the port of Baltimore. The Yankees are playing in Baltimore today. Stony Brook University also has a yearly Alumni event there at the major league baseball field.

"Mechanics wore coats in July" it was recorded by the shipbuilders of Setauket, the "mechanics" what the people building ships were referred to. The Brookhaven Town landmarked First Congregational Church in Centereach, NY, built by transplanted "Setauketeers" to "New Village" built some of the church using nautical architecture techniques it seems. Setauket, NY is in a Brookhaven Town designated historic district, the reason I did some research on the Captain Brewster Hawkins House, there I think, new roof, septic system and sandbox for Dr. John and Deborah Lee.

I worked in 1978 in Fort McHenry in the "Inner Harbor" of Baltimore and made the yearly trip to the abandoned Fort Carroll, out under the Francis Scott Key Bridge. It was before the Rouse development, which also came later to the South Street Seaport. Fort Carroll its said, an artificial island with disappearing gun mounts, was built, its said with a steam pile driver designed by Robert E. Lee once Commandant of the West Point Military Academy, and responsible for the capture and hanging of John Brown in the raid on the Harpers Ferry Federal Arsenal, West Virginia. "A small town in northeastern West Virginia that was the site of a raid in 1859 by the abolitionist John Brown and his followers who captured an arsenal that was located there." John Brown is buried in the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation maintained "John Brown Farm" in North Elba, NY in the Adirondacks.

There's a photo online of a computer-generated bridge that's been proposed to span partly over Fort McHenry National Monument (and in some places "Shrine") to shorten the trip around the harbor to get from one side of the city to the other.

The English-to-American Dictionary

Black Ball Line

The first impression one often had crossing Pearl Street in New York City into the now South Street Seaport Historic District was the strange little kiosk with a flagpole out of the middle of it and a large black ball that apparently could be raised and lowered. I've learned since of the "Black Ball Clippers" that started out making two week sails to Liverpool, England as "mail packets". The former "Seamen's Bank for Savings" on Wall Street, started by the industry, once handed out a print of a oil painting of a "Black Baller Passing the Battery" in reference to the what today is Battery Park, then where Castle Clinton and Castle Williams on Governors Island were armed with cannon to protect the harbor in cross-fire. The bank is part of J.P. Morgan Chase, its artifact collection donated to the South Street Seaport. Prominent in the painting is the large black ball on the mainsail to show which company the ship belonged to. A similar print of a painting of one is in the small cafeteria for the patrons of John T. Mather Hospital in Port Jefferson, NY, named after the endowment by the local shipbuilder there. It's recorded that the "Liverpool packets" stopped in the adjoining harbor, Setauket, NY. Both harbors once built ships, one to be the largest in the U.S. at the time, was never finished but became a coal barge as coal became ubiquitous even there in the 1840s. One of the first expeditions of settlers explorers in nearby Huntington, NY (Ashford under Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell) was to find "cannel-coal" to make bricks (also called "candle coal"; Wikipedia), recorded in the 17th century. I once assisted on a site, the "Old Stone Fort" which probably due to the lack of stone on Long Island, a glacial feature, has been incorporated into houses nearby, indeed many of the old cemetery stones on Long Island were imported (see Gaynell Stone's masters thesis, one well known artisan was known as "Spiderman" across the Long Island Sound in Connecticut.) The "fort" was in or next to Walt Whitman's grandfather's place, also an old cemetery, next to their then Town Historian's house, Rufus Langhans (one of the masters of ceremonies back during the last Op-Sail, the captain of the ill-fated Exxon Valdez also in attendance, a resident of Huntington. Other Huntington residents have been artists Harry Chapin and John Coltrane, U.S. statesman George B. Cortelyou, an American Presidential Cabinet secretary under McKinley and Roosevelt, and recently cited as the "First White House Press Secretary" in the National Archives. Patriot Nathan Hale, hung later in Manhattan, his remains still a mystery, was held for a time at "Fort Golgotha" in another Huntington cemetery, by British commander Benjamin Thompson in the American Revolution, young Thompson was later known as the important physicist Count Rumford). The Quakers ran the Black Ball line of ships out of the today's South Street Seaport Historic District, but two blocks in from South Street and the present shoreline. Pearl Street was the original shoreline, Water, Front and South Street have been added as land was made, mostly during economic recessions, ironically. They have been involved in the City of New York since 1657. One Walter Bowne in 1840 was a Quaker Mayor of New York City and lived on another site I've researched on Pearl Street. "The first regular line of packet ships between this port and Liverpool was the Black Ball Line, established in 1817 by Francis Thompson (1772-1832), Jeremiah Thompson (1784-1835) and Isaac Wright and son, all Quakers. They owned the four ships with which the line began - the Pacific, the Amity, the Courier and the James Monroe. The Amity was built in 1816 by Forman Cheeseman, a member of this meeting, and the Courier in 1817 by Sydney Wright, a nephew of Isaac Wright. These ships were about 400 tons burthen. Benjamin Marshall, not known to be a Quaker, but whose wife was buried in the Friends' cemetery, was also an owner. There had been independent packet ships making fairly regular sailings at long intervals, since 1780, but the line, later with eight ships, and with fine passenger accommodations made regular and semi-monthly sailings. Their distinguishing marks was a large black ball painted on the foretopsail. Jeremiah was considered to be the largest importer in America of British cloth and an exporter of cotton to Liverpool, but does not appear to have felt the need for advertising. Francis was more closely engaged in the shipping business. Old Merchants of N.Y. by Joseph A. Scoville, under the Pseudonym of "Walter Barrett," gives additional information on the Thompsons. The Line, still in great prestige, passed into ownership of Jonathan Goodhue & Co. in 1834. Jeremiah Thompson was Clerk of the Monthly Meeting for ten years, 1814-1824." (Quakerism in The City of New York 1657-1930, John Cox, Jr., New York. Privately Printed. A Facsimile Reprint 2000. Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie, Maryland. www.heritagebooks.com) The text goes on to describe the Red Star line, another line and the first Gas Company in the city, in 1825, and the first house to be lit that of Samuel F. Leggett, the company's president and a wealthy and prominent Quaker. Originally published in 1869, in Boston, MA on the press of Henry W. Dutton & Son, 90 & 92 Washington Street.

Cinematical: Trek's Marina Sirtis States the Obvious

15. Maybe it would be instructive to see what began and led up to the Eugenics Wars on Earth and what the higher order recently discovered (or announced, they had that religious director of the human genome project on "Charlie Rose" prior to the "announcement"). I still recall sitting in the Grace Corp. donated building of the CUNY Grad Center library a number of years ago, looking at fly legs growing out of a fly's eye in species drosophelia, the "fruit fly" I think, Seven of Nine? Posted at 5:22PM on Aug 4th 2006 by George Myers, Jr. 3 stars

Teredo worms

wcbstv.com - Small Invasion Found On Tappan Zee Bridge

Small Invasion Found On Tappan Zee Bridge (CBS/AP) TARRYTOWN, N.Y. If they ever build a new Tappan Zee Bridge, they might want to make it wormproof. The state Thruway Authority said Friday that evidence of two tiny shipworms -- underwater mollusks that chew up wood -- was found in tests conducted near the bridge that spans the Hudson River between Westchester and Rockland counties.

Maritime Interests too in Liverpool

An interesting site I was to, to work on testing for archaeology resources was on Shelter Island, NY, with a company called Tracker Archaeological Services. A murder, the first in its history had occurred out on the island between the peninsulas of eastern Long Island, NY. It has an early Quaker history, many sites on Long Island were and they were involved in the shipping of cotton and mail to Liverpool, England in the early days out of South Street Seaport, NYC and grew from the 1820s into the 1880s or so. The first defense I heard was over Lyme disease the "tick fever" that the alleged killer had. With the number of deer there I might agree in a jury. In fact a small fawn lay in the shadows while we spoke not four feet from us. A small boat capsized that day too, causing a drowning.

What was interesting about this, in West Creek, was that it was the former location of the Lord Shipyard, a family name. One of the award winners of preservation in New York State government was recently a Mr. Philip Lord, who indirectly I was connected to through Edward Johanneman, MA who used to work for the State Museums when he worked on D.O.T. projects out of Stony Brook University with Phil Weigand, Ph.D.

Historically, the shipyard was known for producing the fast ship "Paragon" which out-ran General Napoleon's blockade of Liverpool, England in 1803. The Liverpudlians cheered it's arrival. Napoleon later became Emperor. The rest is history...

In the 17th century, a woman wanted in Boston for religious beliefs (or lack thereof) escaped to Quaker "Shelter Island" and sought council there. He or they advised her to return there with her convictions. She did. They hung her, the first woman hung in New England.

Maritime Interests

I am a former grad student at Stony Brook University. I was on a team of land archaeologists that found a fairly intact circa 1730s merchant ship in the deep testing of a landfill in lower Manhattan, NY. Underwater archaeologists supervised the winter excavation of the so-called "Ronson Ship" named after the parking lot developer for a consortium of British banks that became National Westminster here in the US. At the time, the South Street Seaport was very poor and had just invested $5000 in a "Black Ball Clipper" hulk used as a warehouse in the then peaceful Falkland Islands, so there was some effort to conserve more than the few parts I managed to photograph in a wet lab and wrap in burlap to be submerged in a watertight dumpster. An attempt was made to take the bow and perhaps freeze dry the centuries of water out of it's "apple cheeks". The ship had teredo worms from the North Atlantic and the Caribbean according to a biologist's analysis in the outer planking, which I think was sandwiched to the hull with horsehair or hemp and pitch or tar.

I've done some archaeology research on the infamous "Wanderer" referred to as "the last slaver". Built as a luxury yacht in Setauket, NY, it was outfitted with water tanks in Port Jefferson, NY for transatlantic voyages, after being bought by a Louisiana cotton merchant's broker from the Captain Brewster Hawkins' ship chandler and mechanics firm, who "revived" shipbuilding there in the 1840s."Wanderer" landed on Jekyll Island, Georgia in 1858, (Wikipedia) 400 of the 600 Africans surviving the "middle passage" ordeal to be sold into slavery. It was captured by the Union, a "chess piece" in the American Civil War, very fast, only an oil painting of it survives in the Port Jefferson Yacht Club, afterward in the early 1870s it sunk in a storm off Cape Maysi, the east point of Cuba, named by Christopher Columbus (old Spanish) near Guantanamo in the fruit trade.

That said totally off-topic, "Experiment" was the second ship (sloop) (after the first, the large "Empress of China") to sail from America to China and with a total crew of 10! The small sailing sloop was built near Albany, NY the state capital of New York, USA. At a National Maritime Historical Society meeting, in Peekskill, NY, (a former member who helped research and record the remains of two wooden 40' centerboard cargo sloops in Bear Mountain State Park's tide-line, abandoned there, published in their quarterly magazine "Sea History") it was stated that a replica was being built and that perhaps a voyage recreating the second American voyage to China, not long after the formation of the United States of America, in 1785, was also to be recreated. See: "Voyage of the Sloop Experiment"

I look forward to learning more about Asian Maritime History and Archaeology since most of what I know is some of Western Maritime history. Years ago I was intrigued by an archaeology report of the excavation of a Chinese ship in the silts of a river there and the report about the various spices it held and where they might have come from, I think from around 1480 CE (?) published around 1979 or so. About that time too, an archaeologist from China, a specialist in Chinese bronze tripod "cooking" vessels spoke to an assembly at Stony Brook University, translated on the spot by the Nobel prize winning physicist, C. N. Yang. I have enjoyed the archaeology that has since, it seems, been in the press more, from Asia.

Empire State News

Other PCB repercussions

Report finds PCB damage to navigation in Champlain canal