Myers My Interests

I am interested in employment in archaeology. I am a graduate of Stony Brook University, near where I grew up, Centereach, NY. I attended Buffalo University from 1973-1975 and Stony Brook University from 1976-1978 and graduated with a BA in Anthropology. Accepted into a PhD program in the Dept. of Anthropology in 1978 and employed in work-study since 1976, I attended full-time until 1981, and accumulated 51 graduate credits. I also passed the comprehensive written exam and selected a committee (Elizabeth Stone, PhD, Pedro Carrasco, PhD, then Chairman of the Department, and Philip Weigand, PhD) was given three essays to write, if completed, would have lead to an MA in Anthropology on the way to a PhD. I would have to start all over I was told. I attended field-school in "Long Island Archaeology" (the Pipe Stave Hollow Site Mt. Sinai, NY, in 1977). I volunteered at the Suffolk County Archaeology Association on some of the sites investigated by Johanneman and Schroeder, whose lab space in Graduate Chemistry was next to the Anthropology Dept. In summers I've also worked for archaeologists in the National Parks Service at Fort McHenry, MD, Hopewell Foundry and Allegheny Portage Railroad in PA, the Klondike Historical Park in Skagway, Alaska and the William Floyd Manor on Long Island, for the Denver Service Center. With another recent BA Anthropology grad, Mary FitzHerbert, I traveled to work on the Tenn-Tombigbee Barge Canal impacts in Mississippi, specifically at the Waverly Plantation Ferry Access, nearby Columbus, MS and Bay Springs, MS under the direction of William H. Adams, PhD, a well known historical archaeologist. She was on student visa, from Uruguay, and returned to Hillside Farm, Birches Road, Penallt, Wales (near Monmouth). We met an American Antiquity writer, who had a Fulbright fellowship and had worked with her Uruguayan archaeology friends on the proposed hydroelectric dam now spanning the river between Uruguay and Brazil. It was also excavated by the Museum of Man of Paris, France as we were shown in slides from there while in Mississippi, the wettest year on record. Once moved to the new Social and Behavioral Sciences building, the Long Island Archaeology Project lab moved to the Boat House at Suffolk County's Blydenburgh Park in Smithtown, NY, the former Weld Estate and a former water-powered light manufacturing site. Mr. Johanneman became ill some time after and the Boat House closed. I had then officially left on a "one year leave of absence" when more practical experience in the field presented itself in New York City, commuting from Ronkonkoma. Since then I have been employed in "Public Archaeology" (an actual MS degree once offered at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for a short time, taught in part, by staff of New York State's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and Sherene Baugher, PhD. a Stony Brook Anthropology recent grad who went on to be hired as the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission's first archaeologist for consultation and review of other archaeology work submitted to the Commission. The LPC, charter-empowered by the Planning Commission issues a certificate of occupancy for those approved. Some of the professors in archaeology, while pursuing the Anthropology degrees, important, R. M. Gramly, PhD, Edward Lanning, PhD, archaeologist of Peru (author of "Peru Before the Incas" who introduced "El Nino") and Philip Weigand, PhD, (P.I. on many of Johanneman and Schroeder, et al, reports, once to testify on a property in Southampton. He also authored Mexico's "Prehistory of Zacatecas" published in Stony Brook's Anthropology journal. He had an NSF grant for neutron activation trace element analysis of samples from prehistoric turquoise mines collected for a number of years in the American Southwest and oversaw the "La Quemada" ceramic collection excavated in the early 1960s. The research was conducted at Brookhaven Lab's archaeological chemistry lab, with Garman Harbottle. A statistical analysis was done then in "hyperspace" and recently, the method was refined for a world-wide database of mineral-based antiquities. I have worked on a total station transit and computer (Lietz tachymeter and Sokkisha, now Sokkia) on archaeology sites for a number of years beginning in 1984 through 1994 and worked with AutoCAD to document sites. I first used AutoCAD software (personal copy) in the "tree survey" of Wave Hill in the Bronx, NY for the botanist, a horticultural center, providing a 50 year update and larger area map of the trees on the now joined two former estates. One resident was Samuel Clemens, (who had a tree-house for interviews), the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini, and others, the once British Embassy compound, over-looks the Hudson River and the New Jersey Palisades. It's owner was once instrumental in stopping the mining of the basalt palisades on the NJ shore preserved today. I also worked recording the archaeology in the adjoining NYCs Riverdale Park with a total station when a plan for removal of invading foreign plant species triggered the work. When I worked for five years with Grossman & Associates, Inc. (1989-1994) in mostly EPA, HAZMAT (certified training and yearly renewed certification), National Priority Superfund projects in New York and New Jersey, reviewed by archaeologist John Vetter, PhD, of Adelphi U. and the EPA's Region 2 reviewer (NY/NJ/CT, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands) and other inter-agency reviewers, in the Federal review process, (the Kansas City Army Corps of Engineers office, NOAA, etc.) I was listed as cartographer and computer graphics producer in the reports. Other software and hardware use required at Grossman & Associates for archaeological analysis, was learning the then named MR2 Rolleimetric close-range photogrammetry system, a large digitizing tablet; an EM38 Ground Conductivity Meter, without recorder; a soil resistivity meter, no recorder; two proton magnetometers, we connected to Psion hand-held computers as recorders at Foundry Cove, and a hand-held cesium proton magnetometer worn with battery-harness and a palm-top computer, used with a hand-held switch at Saratoga Springs historic "city gas" plant; and sometimes reprocessing others' remote-sensed data; and compiling historic maps overlays for large size plotter output using various graphics software. The equipment used for US EPA National Priority Superfund investigations sometimes conducted in winter under greenhouses, in a way were evaluated under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. I also compiled overlays of historic and modern maps for investigations, interim and final archaeology reports, included in the proposed remediation. In my opinion, as a Federal system, it arrived at an impasse in 1994, and NY State Superfund monies also ran out subsequently. Federal funds are provided in part by the chemical industry's insurance and in part by a "double cost" penalty from the result of a successful Federal prosecution and resulting EPA approved and reviewed cleanup. Also Federal standards can differ from the acceptable levels of cleanup set by States.

Ivan's working on the railroad...

I've been working in Middletown, Orange county, NY (home of Orange County Choppers featured on the "Discovery" channel) these past four days... in archaeology.

Pham Xuan An Dies at 79; Reporter Spied for Hanoi

Excerpt from New York Times Article: Pham Xuan An, who led a double life as a trusted reporter for Western news organizations during the Vietnam War while spying for North Vietnam, died Wednesday in Ho Chi Minh City. He was 79. MY COMMENT "And they said it couldn't happen here." - Frank Zappa once a Presidential candidate who had voter registration tables at his concerts, I finally saw him at Stony Brook on Halloween where and when I'd seen the "Grateful Dead" about 10 years earlier. To download the Times Reader, visit http://www.nytimes.com/downloadtimesreader Nice on the eyes!

Tesla statue unveiled in Niagara Falls, Canada

Tesla statue in Niagara Falls, Ontario, 150 years ago, atop of AC motor he designed. He had a laboratory off Houston Street in Manhattan, NY and out at Wardenclyffe, on Long Island near Shoreham, NY in the HAZMAT site, "Peerless Photo Products" to become a Science Museum eventually. Nearby is the ill-fated nuclear power plant never opened due to rising fuel costs, huge cracked backup diesel engine crankshaft from California, rumored batches of duplicate x-rays of piping, local objection, minority employment, and other problems, the lack of an adequate archaeological survey the least of the complaints I've heard. Years ago the photo people wanted to know about the weird small brick tunnels running under the place. Tesla is also commemorated in remote-sensing where the minute differences in the magnetism of the ground are measured in "nano-Teslas" one Tesla the sum magnetism of the Earth. Magnetism is also measured in "gauss" and "gammas" (all part of a "Weber") measurement probably used for magnetic studies of "eddy currents" that become "pinned" in superconductivity, causing a magnet to float above some supercooled materials being researched. Tesla Wardenclyffe Project located in the Town of Brookhaven, in the hamlet of Shoreham, New York.

New Anthrax Inhibitor Could Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Strain

In a new approach to treating anthrax exposure, a team of scientists has created an inhibitor designed to tackle the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant strains. Reporting in PNAS, researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of Toronto describe the new anthrax toxin inhibitor, which performed successfully in both laboratory and animal tests. Source: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY Source: Newswise | New Anthrax Inhibitor Could Combat Antibiotic-Resistant Strain

Talking about Exclusive: Vieira interviews Bill Clinton

Exclusive: Vieira interviews Bill Clinton

Sept. 21: Former President Bill Clinton talks with "Today" co-anchor Meredith Vieira about his foundation, the Iraq war, the showdown with Iran and his wife's possible run for president.

Tom Brokaw Honored With West Point Award

AP: "WEST POINT, N.Y. — Tom Brokaw became only the second journalist to be honored with a prestigious West Point award Thursday." I read his autobiography a few years back. It was very interesting. I had just finished a Bronx historians book about the Bronx in it's frontier era, the 17th century and it was an interesting comparison to read an excellent reporter's memories of growing up on another American "frontier". Bravo! Congratulations! Hooruh! Source: Newsvine - Tom Brokaw Honored With West Point Award ** Walter Cronkite is the other. He is also an "Overseer" of the National Maritime Historical Society, Peekskill, NY.

Ever hear this one?

September 10, 2001 - Ex. CIA-director, former President, and President Bush's Dad, George H.W. Bush, meets with one of Osama Bin Laden's brothers at a Carlyle business conference in Washington D.C. "It didn't help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden. Former president Bush, a fellow investor, had been with him at the conference the previous day." - Washington Post (03/16/03) [Reprinted at: wanttoknow.info] The Carlyle Group - The Honorable George H. W. Bush, Senior Advisor Source - Killtown's 9/11 coincidences and oddities page! (and other note worthy tidbits.) Or this one? 9:03 a.m.: Cousin of the President Saved From Death in the South Tower Due to Changed Venue of Meeting Jim Pierce, a cousin of President Bush, sees the south tower of the WTC hit from the nearby Millennium Hotel. Pierce is the managing director of the AON Corporation, an insurance company with offices in WTC 2. He had arranged a business conference, to be held on the tower’s 105th floor this morning. However, the previous night, the conference was moved to the Millennium Hotel because the group was too large for the original room. According to a book by former First Lady Barbara Bush, Pierce later learns that 12 people are in the room where the meeting was originally planned to take place when the south tower is hit, and only one of them survives. [Ananova, 9/18/2001; Boston Globe, 2001; Newsweek, 10/27/2003] Another AON Corporation meeting is taking place on the 105th floor of the south tower, run by business executive Mary Wieman. Of about 50 participants in attendance, only six are able to escape. [New York Times, 12/17/2001; USA Today, 9/2/2002] Source - Center for Cooperative Research, a 501(c)3 fiscally-sponsored organization. Our 501(c)3 sponsor is The Global Center. "The website is an experiment in open-content civic journalism."

Study shows New York State mercury pollution more widespread than previously reported

It's not just what you eat... "Mercury pollution has made its way into nearly every habitat in the U.S., exposing countless species of wildlife to potentially harmful levels of mercury, a new report from the National Wildlife Federation shows. The impacts in New York State raise significant concern during the state's comment period for a draft power plant mercury emissions rule."

From the land down-under

Newsvine.com Spontaneously exploding fertilizer (American spelling) Seeded on Tue Sep 19, 2006 5:09 PM EDT (news.com.au) "GARDENERS who bought liquid fertiliser made from cane toads have been warned the product may spontaneously explode in storage." I was just looking at the spread of cane toads recorded in Australia from the Western Hemisphere in Wikipedia, a featured article. Parental guidance urged for Irwin memorial Seeded on Mon Sep 18, 2006 10:47 PM EDT (NEWS.com.au News from Australia and the world) Parents are asked to watch the Steve Irwin memorial with their kids. "CHILDREN should be in the company of their parents at home, not at school, when watching the televised memorial for Steve Irwin tomorrow, a media researcher said today."

School days...good old golden rule days

Please vote NO on H.R. 5295, a dangerous bill that would severely weaken the civil liberties of our young people. H.R. 5295 -- which has not been vetted by the committee process -- would make it far too easy for school officials to conduct or request mass searches of students when only one or a few students are suspected of anything. I attended Newfield H.S., on Marshall Drive, Selden, NY which had the first JROTC Marine Corps in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War (undeclared by Congress) and it was touted as an alternative to the Draft, for which I was eligible, some of the last (Class of 1971 wasn't). Quite a number of times, it was said, locker searches were performed because of "bomb scares" called in. Ironically, Selden is named after the judge, who, breaking judicial taboo, was a character witness at Susan B. Anthony's voter fraud trial. She had posed, not for the recent US $1 coin, but as a man to vote in an election Upstate. I did some research on the JROTC, the Army in CT, the Navy and Air Force on the West Coast. My father was a US Army veteran (one of five brothers in the services in WWII, one at Normandy) and my mother's brother, my uncle, did two tours in the Korean War. My cousin who directed "Huntley and Brinkley" was an Army Captain in Korea, and became an award winning producer for NBC News in New York, dividing much of his time between Houston, the "Space Race" and Saigon, the Vietnam theater before producing the coverage of both major party's conventions in 1976 for CBS. His eulogy was read in the UN Chapel by Edwin Newman. The PBS "Defense Monitor" said the JROTC costs over $1 billion and is in mostly poor school districts. I feel, if this be the case and even larger expenditures are spent today on JROTC, we should not be conducting the mass searches of students, as lockers were once, in my experience. Campus unrest as it was then, unfortunately leading up to the shootings at Kent State and the Attica prison "police riot" should be examples we can learn from and not precipitate. - "eligible" I had a Selective Service number drawn from a lottery invented by a New York State legislator which determined if I had to report for processing or not.

In today's Washington Post...

Today's Washington Post Daily Politics Trivia Which president's personal library established the principle of acquisition for the Library of Congress? George Washington Thomas Jefferson You Are Correct James Madison John Adams By 1814, Thomas Jefferson had acquired the largest personal collection of books in the United States. Congress purchased Jefferson's library for $23,950 in 1815 as a replacement for the collection destroyed by the British during the War of 1812.

Yesterday...

ARTHUR SCHREIBER FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT of The National Broadcaster’s Hall of Fame CORDIALLY INVITES YOU TO ATTEND The 2006 Induction Ceremony Luncheon HONORING ARTHUR ANDERSON, Voice Actor CHARLES OSGOOD, News Writer and Anchor & LES PAUL, Famed Guitarist and Pioneer of the Electric Guitar SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2006 Twelve o’clock noon The Marconi Hotel Located at InfoAge Science & History Learning Center

Interesting site, I even learned Buckminster Fuller's first name ("I seem to be a verb"), Richard.

Iraqi Stock Exchange rebuilt...unbelievable

Another Washington Post crackerjack report...

"The day he arrived in Baghdad, he met with Thomas C. Foley, the CPA official in charge of privatizing state-owned enterprises. (Foley, a major Republican Party donor, went to Harvard Business School with President Bush.) Hallen was shocked to learn that Foley wanted him to take charge of reopening the stock exchange." "Are you sure?" Hallen said to Foley. "I don't have a finance background."

Harvard Business School is where President Bush went after getting out of the US Air National Guard six (6) months early according to the letter requesting his early discharge reported in the press back when his commitment to duty was questioned. Washington Post in "MSNBC" in "Ties to GOP trumped skill on Iraq team"

Tokyo Homes May Sit on WWII Mass Grave

I wrote on "Newsvine":

See the "Washington Post" investigative journalism team's book "The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed" by Marilyn W. Thompson (April 1, 2003 First Printing) in which it states that U.S. service-people who were labeled "Conscientious Objectors" status by their local Draft Board, were recently given medals for their participation in life-threatening anthrax experiments. They had also did a good exposé of the 1987 "Wedtech Scandal" which was to be an "economic empowerment zone" in the "South Bronx" in NYC, to have built military deployed portable bridges for the U.S. Large sums of money were embezzled.

One of the victims, Kathy Nguyen, a 61 year-old Vietnamese immigrant who worked as a nurse, lived in the Bronx and was one of the five (5) victims in "anthrax attack" that was cleaned up by a company headed by the former mayor of NYC, Rudolf Giuliani (who also would not open his "books" while mayor to the NY state comptroller) it was reported. The investigation of her demise could find no contact with anthrax, though perhaps not investigated correctly, or covered-up. I had to tell Wikipedia where she lived if that is any indication. I personally think anthrax is perhaps arriving on wooden pallets in bulk sales stores having scraped a foot against one in a now closed store and read its still even active in the hay in Antarctica brought there by explorers for their Himalayan ponies according to the British "royals".

A more recent problem is investigated by another Washington Post reporter in "Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers" by Gary Matsumoto through Basic Books.

Seal Cove, Grand Manan Island, NB, Canada

Re: Fish Processing Plant For Sale I've been to New Hampshire, often near the "Castle in the Clouds" that a New England shoe magnate had built to "Scottish castle" standards (called it "Lucknow"). No nails. Every stone in it five-sided made there by imported Italian stone masons and all the gutters are lead. It's in the Ossipee Mountains (the remains of a volcano that exploded) and it was found, when for sale, to have really good water, and started bottling it, exclusively to a big hotel chain too. And now I hear a small micro-brewery too. To save the place, excluding the small acreage of the water/brewery, people bought the thousands of acres in trust. They had a biologist do a critter inventory and perhaps the sightings of a mountain lion are true. They've been introducing a lot of wild turkeys into the state of New Hampshire (non-denominational I think though now a Republican governor again after a Democrat woman governor. They still call them "His Excellency" there in legal documents). The last British Governor, John Wentworth ended up governor of Nova Scotia after the American Revolution, the only one to politically survive it, he was liked, it was his nepotists family he was born into that Peter Livius had trouble with. From New Hampshire to courts of legal and public opinion in London, he charged them, Peter Livius was ordered (appointed) to be one of the first court justices of Canada over it. I read Dr. Faxon built the first island sailing ship there in Seal Cove, maybe a microbrewery called "Frigate" or "Clipper" might be appropriate. (What else would they call it Sealhead?) I had a Moosehead for Elvis Presley's father on a Sunday in Huey's in Memphis, Tennessee, they closed Graceland, not exactly a plug.

Avocational archaeologists

I began my training in archaeology with a field-school in "Long Island Archaeology" taught by R. M. Gramly, Ph.D who works in the Northeast in finding and exploring prehistoric sites. We worked on the prehistoric "Pipe Stave Hollow Site" on Mt. Sinai Harbor, NY and visited important paleo sites, e.g., West Athens Hill, NY (once the oldest site in the Northeast, that he had worked on with a former NY State Archaeologist William Ritchie) and Mt. Jasper, Berlin, NH, a rhyolite adit quarry and "curated assemblage" lithic site, now on the National Register. I have worked on a number of prehistoric sites as part of the CRM review process in New York/New Jersey for different companies. I was the crew chief on the "Wickers Creek Site" on a former Jay Gould estate next to Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry, NY above the Hudson River. A multi-component prehistoric site on the river terrace, twelve (12) C-14 radiocarbon dates, from over five millennia and various prehistoric tools, various projectile point types, and some faunal remains were found, where a previous avocational archaeologist had also worked. A new aboriginal pottery type was also discovered in the "informally reviewed" site, where no State or Federal funds were involved, flagged in the "eleventh hour" in the town's review process and insisted on by their town historian. I wrote up the fieldwork. I've worked in Dutchess County's "Bowdoin Park" on another Hudson River terrace, in winter, as a crew chief, and as crew on the multi-stage archaeological investigations for the proposed sewerage treatment plant now there ceded from the park. The work impacted a small early 18th century Dutch village, and had a disturbed burials chapter. It was an early ferry to Marlboro, NY, across the Hudson River. Once the former J.P. Morgan "summer place" the park became, the State Archaeologist excavated in a rock shelter fall, and other prehistoric resources in the park were earlier excavated by avocational archaeologists. I was also part of a prehistoric recovery at the "Marathon Battery" EPA National Priority Superfund site in Cold Spring, NY in the remains of the West Point Foundry houses. Under the historic dirt road, next to foundation remains of "workers houses" a multi-component prehistoric area was found and recorded, then mapped by me. It become the "Haul Road" for a massive convoy of trucks to create an earthen dam in Foundry Cove marshlands, drained and dredged to remove the cadmium contamination, the marsh in restoration today. I worked on many phases of that project and other EPA projects while HAZMAT certified, in trying to determine if prehistoric resources were present in the historic landscape.

9-11: Video verity

September 11, 2001: What We Saw "Never before seen, un-released, unedited footage of September 11 events from the 35th floor of a Battery Park high-rise. Extremely compelling and intense. Sep 11 2006 - Quicktime - 71.5mb". Licensed under Creative Commons. The video recording is from their apartment in Battery Park City, north and west of the WTC, near the Hudson River, looking "downtown". It was found in the "Video Bomb Incoming Videos" section of "Democracy Player" copyright 2005, 2006 Participatory Culture Foundation. The video player is currently in version 0.90. I especially enjoyed "Asparagus! (A Stalk-umentary) Journey to the "Asparagus Capital of the World" to discover why one little vegetable is so important."

HAZMAT, D.C.

Danger lurks below U.S. Capitol - Lisa Myers & the NBC Investigative Unit - MSNBC.com Tunnels underneath Congress contain asbestos, endanger workers

Ammonium Nitrate: Weapon of Choice for Terrorists? (ABC News)

The Blotter I moved out into agricultural Long Island from the projects in the South Bronx (last of the 3rd Ave El, near where the Janes and Kirtland foundry made the once all-iron Library of Congress, the Capitol Dome for Lincoln [~1 million] and other capital projects, where the Mott Foundry made stoves, public fountains, sculpture, etc., and in the 1960s there were stories about the "fertilizer bomb" and rumored to need about a 2 lb. coffee can of mercury fulminate to set off the oil and nitrate mix in a steel 40 gallon drum. Fertilizer bags marked "30-0-0" the best, the amount of nitrate, potassium, etc. The US Army was testing it in the 1980s, shown in a NEWSDAY photo report (as was the Ayatollah with the Reagan family bible). I have no idea perhaps it was invented locally by some "genius" in exothermic chemistry. They are using nano-amounts now to investigate chemical reactions, thankfully. New Yorker Tim McVeigh should not have been executed, and kept as a future resource. (That might be because in school I've seen the original print of the first woman in an electric chair, taken from a shin-worn smuggled camera, that ended on the front page of the "Chicago Sun"). In my opinion, and apparently Oklahoma witnesses, others and events were ignored in the investigation by the authorities. Posted by: George Myers Sep 12, 2006 11:19:50 AM - Stuck me it sounds like a Red Adair story (portrayed by John Wayne) who used to "blow out" oil well fires. Oil is stored in 42 gallon drums.

Save Fort Pitt

With the lessons learned here, other strategic forts were built under orders by General Washington, himself a veteran of one of the wars fought here, e.g., "Fort Laurens was built in late November, 1778, on the banks of the Tuscarawas River near what is now Bolivar, Ohio. General McIntosh named the fort in honor of the President of the Continental Congress, Henry Laurens." To understand that, one needs its precedents. Save Fort Pitt! Ironically, the British Army tore down the statue of William Pitt, an English supporter of America in Parliament, after, Patriots tore down King George's statue in Hanover Square, New York City. The kings statue became many musket balls in Connecticut. Source: Save Fort Pitt: Signatures

STWA - Save The World Air

Where in the world is Erin Brockovich? Link to STWA - Save The World Air Great if it works. Always wanted one for a motorcycle.

Petition number 999? So many, so little time...Bush is a tush...

Dear Friend, Many new resources are and perhaps to be discovered closer to home, yet as soon as September 27, one of the most remarkable wetlands on the planet could be in the hands of the oil industry. This fragile habitat is home to millions of waterfowl and tens of thousands of caribou. I just took action to protect this area and the wildlife it hosts, and I hope you too will take action by clicking here: http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/teshekpuk . The place is Teshekpuk Lake Special Area in Alaska, and you have a chance right now to protect this land - public land, our land - from oil and gas interests. I once worked in federal archeology in Skagway, Alaska and watched the Saudi prospectors in Land Rovers start up the unofficially opened highway into British Columbia, the Yukon and other northern areas, where the historic narrow gauge railroad was then hauling preprocessed molybdenum ore for the Japanese steel industry from BC. I helped some of the first excavations around the settler Moore's cabin and Alaska's first railroad station, nearby Alaska's first stone building, a museum, in 1980 when Mt. St. Helens "erupted violently in 1980 after 123 years of inactivity" for the National Parks Service. The Wilderness Society urgently needs your help before it's too late! Click here to write the Interior Secretary and demand that the imminent oil and gas lease sale be stopped: http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/teshekpuk After you take action, forward this message to others - we'll build enough public pressure to stop the imminent oil and gas plan!

Baltimore, MD

Fort Carroll in the Outer Harbor Built before the US Civil War to protect Baltimore from the type of attack commemorated in the National Anthem, in the "Star Spangled Banner" recounting the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, on an island in the inner harbor. Fort McHenry Facts Officer's latrine 1) A brick lined kidney-shaped (two-hole?) privy was found beneath the bricks there in 1978 after the loose cannons were moved, attached to the "bombproof" in a right-triangle structure, probably. I worked in the privy with a flint-knapper before leaving for grad school. It was said the enlisted men's latrine was outside of the fort. At a later meeting of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology at the New Windsor Cantonment, near Newburgh, NY (to be the national Purple Heart memorial site, though it's also reported that the first one was awarded in NYC) the finds from the privy were described. I felt kinda' lucky, everything was shipped to Denver, Colorado. The large semi-circular roofed "bombproof" stored munitions behind air spaced thick brick walls in case of explosion while preparing charges inside of it. One "bombproof" near today's Toronto, Canada, exploded with such force in "special preparation" that it killed Zebulon Pike who outside, was a leader of the invading American forces. He is buried at former President Ulysses S. Grant's first assignment after West Point Academy, Sackett's Harbor, NY on Lake Ontario. U.S. Grant was later a Captain on Governors Island in New York City. It's also written that the British invasion and burning of Washington, D.C., (and the White House) and bombardment of Fort McHenry, where "our flag was still there" and fortunately not burnt to the ground, was for invading and burning what has became Toronto. The British guns had just a bit of a longer range, according to a French donated brass cannon at Fort McHenry, given in friendship, that I once read on a rampart there overlooking the harbor. The water well 2) Major George Armistead, made a good choice in having the well dug there just before the bombardment of Fort McHenry in the War of 1812. A fairly large diameter well was dug there, water often lasted only a day, brought in over the bridge to this island on a daily basis, and dumped into a shallow cistern we uncovered. The request-for-proposal (RFP) for the well contract was to use the latest mining technology. When dug to 40-50' the brackish sea water from the nearby bay leaked into the excavation and cast-iron "barrel staves" (a type of "tongue and groove") 12' long were brought lowered into the well and interlocked to keep out the seawater. The brick-lined well then went further down to 90-100' where there was fresh water, so recorded. Under the brick walkway, it was debris filled almost to the top when I went in it, around the 2nd anniversary of Elvis Presley's death, (the local TV station needed filler) and had two access holes in its domed top. A steel plate was placed over it, near the cistern and "hot-shot furnace" remains, for safety, before the brick walkway was replaced. The tourists were still allowed in while we worked and the large US flag had to come down in higher winds when it began to snap like a bull-whip. "New Glory" of course was folded in proper ceremony by a number of employees.

The politics of land-use

Bronx Ecology: Blueprint For A New Environmentalism by Allen Hershkowitz The politics of land-use, September 5, 2006 Reviewer: George J. Myers "history digger" (Bronx, New York United States) - See all my reviews I would have liked to think, as a resident of the Bronx, that where this proposed project was, nearby where the US Capitol Dome was forged during the Lincoln administration, that it would have been welcomed in NYC. I had somewhat been connected with the cultural resources evaluation for another project, the "Oak Point Rail Link" back in the early 80s in the neighborhood. It involved the rail transport of fresh produce loaded into special containers from trailer trucks parked near the Tappan Zee bridge, eliminating heavy truck traffic. By rail into the South Bronx, transferred off the rail-cars and then carried on designed trucks off the flatcars that would fit under any bridge or overpass into Manhattan, decreasing it was estimated the cost of their produce there by 5%-10% and truck traffic around impediments. There were different rail modes proposed, one a whole new line out from the shore on stanchions in part of the trip, avoiding current rail travel. Produce would be moved quickly and efficiently. It was started I think, and said to have been stopped by then Governor Cuomo over pension investment overview by the feds or something, I think some of the material was stockpiled down there for it. I lived as a child in the Patterson Houses projects for awhile attending the poorest parish in the city St. Rita's. Maybe someone should write a book about it too. My father, his father a real estate reporter, said that the South Bronx was a landowner plot, next door to Manhattan with the its street grid continued into it, allowed to diminish and demolished, with the promise of new development which stopped by larger economic forces, i.e., economic depression and recession. Janes and Kirtland and the Mott Foundry, were once both there and their ironworks still in use around the world (bridges in Central Park, plaza fountains (Peru, US) garden sculpture (Japan) cast iron stoves (California, NY in the Rufus King Manor Park who was the "last Federalist" and first US Ambassador to England, is in the city park in Queens, NY) the US Capitol Dome, and assembled by Janes and Kirtland (for just over $1 million for President Lincoln, replacing the "hat box") and other structures in Washington, DC (the Library of Congress was once all iron). Would anybody be surprised that politics comes to play there? Source: Amazon.com

A Possible Amazon Review

The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed by Marilyn W. Thompson HarperCollins; 1st edition (April 1, 2003) The main facts I walked away from this book with were twofold. I read it when it first came to the City Island Library, in New York City, in the Bronx. One: it was made by the same people who brought us the Watergate Scandal (but perhaps failed to bring the second Watergate dweller, Ms. Lewinsky, a resident next to the Doles, to light). Two: C.O.'s or Conscientious Objectors, a Draft Board designation, were used in the human testing to anthrax exposure, and just recently given awards for risking their lives. That also gives some credence to a story of C.O.'s being used in other devious ways to service bomb-sights, perhaps that I was off-handed told by someone who was the first secular objector, perhaps. I live in the Bronx, where Kathy Nguyen did, a Vietnamese immigrant, and one of the anthrax victims. The Washington Post also did a good job of investigating the 1987 "Wedtech Scandal" here in the Bronx too. US military to-be-field-deployed bridges were supposed to be made here and a vast sum of money was embezzled. The Maya Lin designed newspaper recycling plant proposed for the South Bronx, where the US Capitol Dome was forged during the Lincoln Administration was stopped by the prior administration. See "Bronx Ecology: Blueprint For A New Environmentalism". More current anthrax vaccine research is in "Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers" by Gary Matsumoto Basic Books

Look Who Lives in Crawford, Colorado?

If Mr. Joe Cocker reads this I want to say I saw him at Stony Brook University in the gym the night before I took my first SAT for college and enjoyed him and the "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" backup band and encouraged me to try again at the SAT, that time in Port Jefferson, NY. I was down at the Hog Farm at Woodstock Music and Arts Festival, another small stage the "Quarry" and Joan Baez came to play, with the commune from out on native American lands, I think in "Easy Rider" the film. That smaller stage venue run by Wavy Gravy near the big white tee-pee and there was actually where some free food was served there (carrot peels and raisins and a sweet "dressing" better than "Honeymoon Salad" no dressing, lettuce alone), when I heard Joe warming up I decided to take a walk over to the main event and have a look-see and listen. Read the book much later.

Bush Goes a Bridge Too Far

war stories: Military analysis. The president's latest dumb speech. By Fred Kaplan Posted Thursday, Aug. 31, 2006, at 6:23 PM ET Subject: Bush Goes a Bridge Too Far From: GeorgeJMyersJr-2 Date: Sep 3 2006 4:20PM As a wee bairn of a mother née Urquhart (the Scottish officer's surname whom Montgomery addresses in the film "A Bridge Too Far" portrayed by Sean Connery) I enjoyed the idea of introducing "cognitive dissonance" reminding me of the psychology classes I once took at the university in Buffalo, NY, now to have New York State's only law school. Ha ha. I was just watching "XXI Century" a documentary available on the Bitcomet site named after Professor Noam Chomsky. In the speech President Bush made announcing the invasion of Iraq, he stated "All free nations have a stake...(scary death metaphor)...and we're asking them to join us and many are doing so. Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others." The "yetis" (Saddam and his sons) were given 48 hours to leave Iraq and/or face the invasion. So there's no option there but lots of "cognitive dissonance" in that they're given 48 hours but we're still going in, when perhaps another negotiation could have been made. The 300 mph surplus jet the CIA or someone pointed to, I had been recently researching, they had purchased at a cheap surplus cost ($50,000 or so? and one British aviator who was setting up a dealership in, had an airspace issue with a Russian interceptor, who had trouble staying nearby at that low rate of speed) was a ridiculous threat as were some of the others, e.g., the "dynamite gun" made from oil pipelines, invented at the West Point Foundry and brought back by the Vermont entrepreneur assassinated in Amsterdam, Holland; aluminum tubes; African yellow-cake; and other items that would be laughable in a "Mouse That Roared" except there is the loss of human life involved, the dangerous insects, heat, depleted uranium, and replacement of matériel that is and will be required. Too many bridges too far, over the Tigris and the Euphrates, in my opinion. Source: Slate Magazine (Queue Harry Nilsson and John Lennon singing "Many Rivers To Cross" by Jimmy Cliff(?) from the "Pussy Cats" album 1974 now on CD, and Dr BLT protest song "Neil Young (Have You Forgotten)" c) 2006 by Dr BLT (Bruce Thiessen) or vice versa. How about that mashup, "Beachles: Sgt. Petsound's"? Pretty interesting. There was a "Scientific American" article that compared the two, since they were popular in opposite venues, someone analyzed the chords and vocal accents to see the comparison, here joined together electronically).

William Petty Fitzmaurice

New Hampshire Road Map Travel Guide: United States #2 Shelburne, New Hampshire "Access to community of Shelburne, New Hampshire First chartered in 1769, this town was named for William Petty Fitzmaurice, Earl of Shelburne. Lord Shelburne was a supporter of independence for the American colonies, and at his insistence, the king recognized the independence of the United States." Nearby is the iconic "Old Man of the Valley" (he's a tad sad, his friend "Old Man of the Mountain" has fallen down, but there's talk of putting him back up, logistics though, you know, over by Mount Washington, where the highest winds ever recorded were and the Civil War-era cog railroad still climbs to the top, (you can also drive or ride) location of the Mount Washington Observatory).

Drug War chronicle

FEATURE: LIVING ON KATRINA TIME -- LOST IN LOUISIANA'S GUMBO GULAG
A national scandal is brewing in the Big Easy over thousands of people imprisoned without access to lawyers or the courts. (From: Stop the Drug War (DRCNet))

First Amendment: Kenneth Starr Joins Appeal of 9th US Circuit Ruling in "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Case (From: Stop the Drug War (DRCNet))

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

born March 8, 1841, Boston

died March 6, 1935, Washington, D.C.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

byname The Great Dissenter justice of the United States Supreme Court, U.S. legal historian and philosopher who advocated judicial restraint. He stated the concept of “clear and present danger” as the only basis for limiting free speech.

From the Transcendentalists

Saving Pluto: The fightback begins

Matilda or Matilde? by: georgejmyersjr (54/M/Bronx, NY)

"Matilda Visits Early Monday, Just Stays Until Noon Period." An astronomer told us, he had once been a friend of astronomer Kohoutek's fiancée (named a comet, "Comet Kohoutek" that didn't produce the "fireworks" thought it might in the 1970s) as a mnemonic device for the planets order, M_ercury, V_enus, E_arth, M_ars, J_upiter, S_aturn, U_ranus, N_eptune, P_luto. There are others but I wonder was this the first? (I added the comma maybe it belongs there with the asteroid belt?)