GPS finds former military sites in the US

Sept. 30, 2005

I've enjoyed your site (U.S. Coastal Artillery Photographs: Pictures of Former Coast Artillery Sites in the United States) to it from Devils Slide, CA after years ago a friend said they bathe there, also Gray Whale Cove and being from Long Island I wanted to see some of the sites in Google Earth. However, I missed some of the ones I'd like to see more of, not in any order, the forts on: Plum Island; documentation on Gardiners Rock to the north of Gardiners Island; Great Gull Island emplacements (at least one 16" and another battery there next to the Little Gull Island lighthouse; more of "what the heck were these?", i.e., the scuttled ships creating a breakwater between Friars Head and Roanoke Point on Long Island's north shore, on Long Island Sound; and of course, though there's a lot of info online, Davids Island, New Rochelle, NY.

If you have time, that manhole at Montauk Point (which I have been to a number of times, and with the Suffolk County Archaeological Association, connected to some of the research on the properties taken from the Montaukett natives in a Federal ruling of 1910 (probably in the "Tweed Courthouse" in NYC City Hall Park where in 1999 I helped delimit burials mostly associated with the "First Almshouse") was it actually an entrance/exit to the tower?

Also check out the still standing Miller Field observation tower (also a NIKE missile repair center, the production of batteries for required an EPA remediation in the West Point Foundry Cove, Cold Spring, NY I was involved with, finding the prototype for the 10" "Swamp Angel" platform patented by R.P. Parrott, used in the bombardment of Charleston, SC in the Civil War, which exploded, and investigated by the Franklin Institute and Congress) on Staten Island part of the Gateway National Park, NY which looks a lot like the observation "disguised" as cottages and other buildings that you show. I was testing 6 miles of waterfront on Staten Island for an Army Corps of Engineers flood control study for containments and walls with Panamerican Consultants, Inc. of Buffalo, NY a few years ago. It is said to be the first automated firing system in the country for a coastal battery that does not exist today? Maybe you might want to look into it.

In 1980, through a cloud of dust from Mt. St. Helens, I traveled to work in Skagway, Alaska, a railhead into the interior on narrow gauge railroad, that year the first actual road opened up to Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada. As a railhead was there any harbor fortifications, observation towers, etc., ever there or on the Lynne Canal it's harbor is on as there were at Sitka, Alaska?

Finally, reading that Yale University had a group of pilots and trainees on the Great South Bay in Mastic, NY, near the William Floyd Manor (signer of the "Declaration of Independence") part of the Fire Island National Seashore now, where I worked with the NPS in getting it ready for the public with clearance archaeology, and also attended a public hearing on behalf of the Suffolk County Archaeological Association for the creation of the National Seashore) in the 1930's and there was also a shore battery gun there that used to fire at Fire Island, leaving what the writer said were deadly swirling holes in the water in the Great South Bay, maybe someone should review the entire military history of Long Island, starting with Suffolk County, not done to my knowledge.

(Sent to its webmaster, a woman underwater archaeologist at Stony Brook University and a woman historical archaeologist who worked for the NPS in Alaska.)

Beam me down Mr. Scott...

I was on a crew recently using a Thales GPS handheld unit (Thales Navigation, Inc. now part of the "Magellen" brand named after the circimnavigator of the earth who perished April 27, 1521, a day that occurred during the fieldwork using it at Quantico, VA for a proposed tree harvest to aid "Marine One" and other air traffic's radar signatures) which can also be attached to an antenna worn on a belt that receives "Differential GPS" NMEA "beacon" signals. These "beacon" signals will be expanded in the coming years and are more accurate than LORAN C in cloudy weather and storms mostly as aids to navigation. The small antenna can either have a cable or is WiFi with the handheld computer which was running "MobileMapper Office" software which held color ESRI "shape files" for transect area layouts used by one of the crew members, familiar with forest survey in the Pacific Northwest. WAAS used in aircraft usually requires line of sight I thought I read.

Unfortunately the listed "experimental" beacon at Alexandria, Virginia was not on line, which would have helped (the unit can find them automatically) and the Annapolis, MD beacon was used a little further away (with the city of Washington, D.C. in between). The trees there are so large and tall I imagine a few months later would have provided even more interference. Ironically the: "...centralized Command and Control unit is USCG Navigation Center, based in Alexandria, VA. The USCG has carried over its NDGPS duties after the transition from the Department of Transportation to the Department of Homeland Security. There are 82 currently broadcasting NDGPS sites in the US network, with plans for up to 128 total sites to be online within the next 15 years." (Wikipedia "Differential GPS"). It was an interesting unit my first encounter with one.

Posted to: "ACRA-L is a public listserv supported by the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA), a non-profit trade association, for the use of the cultural resource management community. You do not need to belong to ACRA to subscribe to this list. As a result, opinions expressed on the list do not necessarily represent the views of ACRA or of its members."

Martha Washington's Runaway Slave, Ona Judge Staines

George Washington's slave escaped Virginia to freedom in New Hampshire

NH BLACK HISTORY

"First lady Martha Washington enslaved more Africans than any woman of her time. When Ona (Oney) Judge, Martha’s body slave, escaped from Mount Vernon in 1796, she came to Seacoast, New Hampshire. Her amazing story is told her[e] by researcher Evelyn Gerson for SeacoastNH.com"

New Surgeon General

This reminds me of the story of the George W. Bush report (within 6 months of the current President's birthday) on file in the State of Texas for "practicing medicine without a license" charge on a reduced drug charge apparently that could not be corroborated, verified or negated without further research and investigation, quite a while ago, before 1994, before Oklahoma City and Waco when the President was elected Governor of Texas. Merely a coincidence or a truly "hot potato" that perhaps AG Gonzo knows about, he was the President's legal council when he was called to jury duty there during his term as President in Texas, in a "stripper case".

Newsvine - Bush's pick for Surgeon General: killed 6 patients, embezzled $20M from church, hates gays, loves republicans

Brian Williams at Slate: TV Club: Talking Television

Subject: RE: Lincoln Logs

From: GeorgeJMyersJr-2

Date: May 25 2007 12:05AM

One company, who does museums and the US Open, Restaurant Associates had a theme franchise "Zum Zum" that made use of American franks, with three grill types, a regular, a "bauernwurst" (farmer) and a bratwurst on seeded rolls and hot potato salad from a steam table. It was supposed to be Bavarian fast-food and served with "Hell" and "Dunkel" beer (light and dark) in all the places it was except the one I worked, in a mall staffed mostly by a "kiddie corps" (Washington Square in NYC, the Met-Life (Pan Am) Building had helicopters land on it, and other locations) along with a sandwich board, soup and other stranger "German" foods Sulze ("head cheese") Tilsit cheese, Westphalia ham, etc. The steel plates never broke. Today the small "Zum Zum" is a clock shop, started by a Rolex technician, and a very annoying advertising campaign from the Mazda car company of Hiroshima, Japan, mein freudin(?). I was a cook and a night manager of one.

There be whales, captain...

A few years ago a whale beached on southern Long Island and a fellow from the North Wind Undersea Institute on City Island in the borough of the Bronx built a harness to save the whale that became known as "Feisty". Often whales, once beached are towed tail first and drowned by well-meaning people. He invented a harness that would tow the whale head first. Maybe if need be these two could be fitted and towed?

Comments for Lost Whales Stalled 70 Miles From Pacific Ocean | The Huffington Post

Canada's Bluenose

Posted to Underwater Archaeology forum (sub-arch) reply to "Bluenose info" inquiry. For an interesting description of the national symbol of Canada (on it's ten cent piece for many years) see this discussion in the archives of sub-arch and this: "Bluenose - In Search of the Truth" in Model Ship Builder

There are some similarities to the Captain Brewster Hawkins designed and built yacht "Wanderer" in Setauket, NY in 1856 or so. It's reported his son Thomas was it's captain for about a year before it was sold and used as "the last slaver" (before the US Civil War and boarded by British Navy blockade off of Africa, thought harmless) to the "Bluenose" as I recall the one painting I saw somewhere, in possession of the Port Jefferson Yacht Club in the adjoining harbor, where it was thought once to have been built, actually fitted with water tanks for crossing the Atlantic there. The rear mast would have been copied in the forward mast and the bow flatter with the distinctive triangular sails set repetitively aloft. I was reminded a bit seeing it of the big J yachts raced in the early 20th century shown at the Long Island Maritime Museum near Sayville, NY on the Great South Bay, with their tall masts and steel wire rigging. It went down in a storm off (or on) Maysi, Cuba (old Spanish spelling by Christopher Columbus, the cape just to the north of Guantanamo) after the Civil War, used in the fruit trade. It is commemorated at a plaque and large cast iron pot on Jekyll Island, Georgia, where it discharged its slave cargo, the yacht having been bought by Louisiana cotton merchant's agent. Then used as a military mail packet, referred to a "chess piece" in the ensuing hostilities. I would think the metal tanks might still be a magnetometer signature in the water.

ABC Nightline: Highway Through 'Hallowed' Ground Texas Highway Project Threatens a Cluster of Branch Davidians in Waco

A New Yorker and Gulf War veteran (the new Bradley Fighting Vehicle commander, a front-line weapon introduced in the 1980s to be out front of Abrams M1 turbine tanks) Timothy McVeigh was charged with murdering Federal agents in the Oklahoma City bombing on the anniversary of this tragic site's conclusion, allegedly motivated by his visit there, and witness to its tragic developments. As a reminder to the fallen in that case in the next state, Oklahoma, a case arguably still with loose ends, it should be off-limits to any development, so that the once fictional wall to be built between those two states is not taken seriously and further investigations kept open, no statute of limitations on murder.

Another Chapter in Hillary's Attempt to Rewrite History on Iraq?

I was just reading Wikipedia "The Knights" by Aristophanes (recall "W" reference to Aristotle) his response to being brought up on charges of "embarrassing the city in front of foreigners" by one of the most powerful men in ancient Athens (for his lost play "Babylonians") and I'm reminded of a Greenwich, Connecticut high school commencement at which Matt Lauer, an alumnus spoke. It was about the time Mel Gibson, once a resident was admonished for having his goat pen for his kids too close to the small stream in the back-country Mr. Lauer said he spent years in sorting things out, so to speak.

The play has the Sausage-Seller replace a cruel tyrant (after an exchange of equally absurd and cruel insults) who brings Demos (Greek for "The citizen-body") a Truce (personified as a beautiful maiden). Their roles switched, Nicias and Demosthenes (two of the most prominent Athenian generals of the Peloponnesian War, the second, "Kojack" series credit, the actor, Telly Savalas, Jennifer Aniston's godfather) are no longer mistreated and the former tyrant has to take the Sausage-Seller's old job, selling "sausages of asses' and dog's meat..." which is interesting as recent archeology from Buffalo, NY I think has shown the Greeks apparently used a lot of pork!

As a New Yorker I have found Senator Clinton to have been doing a pretty good job considering the US Congress actually met in NYC again after 9/11 and the Republicans held their convention there. Former President William Jefferson Clinton, in my view holds a special place there, the second once president to address the New-York Historical Society, before that tragic day in 2001.

It's wonderful to have such great Democrats as these two Senators! (Posted to the Huffington Post)

msnbc Photoblog: F-22 Raptor flies through it's own cloud

I've seen it on video on a close approach to spectators on an aircraft carrier by an F-14 Tomcat (80 are still in Iran where we were training the Shah's pilots before the Iranian student US Embassy occupation and resulting hostage crisis, they say because the Savak, secret police were spying on them in the US) and there's no way it was going by that close and breaking the sound barrier. The F-101 Voodoo was once stationed at Calverton Navy base on LI and I think they used to. I saw the last two F-14 Tomcats fly over there I think years ago. I once met the F-14 test pilot Tom Gwynne of the "Cradle of Aviation" on Long Island and I think sent him the short F-14 cloud video.

Close bombing range after latest incident? MSNBC

A relative was once part of a small minority construction company that applied for small business set-asides (about 5%) who had a contract near Atlantic City, NJ for chain link fence at the FAA field. He related he was digging holes and without warning the FAA crashed a plane while he was nearby for testing. Another contract where he was to spray some new cinder block wall which took all day as he couldn't get near the West Point Academy mint/large quantity evidence (drugs) area without proper authorization, which could have taken a few minutes to do. That was before 9/11.

For "counter-measures" aren't those F-16 flares used for? To confuse a heat-seeking air-to-air or ground-to-air missile fired at it? I doubt it was a parachute flare to light an area used by ground troops, which, spent, I have found occasionally while working in archaeological survey required by law on and off bases, one off the Iwo Jima trail at Quantico, Virginia last month. Sounds odd, were they dog-fighting? Or just an accidental discharge? Dropped during the day it would be that type it seems, dropped at night another type.

NJ has 1 million acres of Pine Barrens (I once wrote a proposal to test it along powerlines that arrived 10 minutes late and the only offer, rejected) and Long Island about 30,000 acres. Near Southampton, NY it too was used for bombing practice, at least that is what I surmise from the USGS map and some GoogleEarth investigators. There white rocks outlined true to size outlines of an aircraft carrier and other ships probably in the 1930s or 40s. The pines are adapted to fire, and discharge seed after it. Early reports said native Long Islanders started the fire to create browse for deer. Not true. Lightning did it. Close bombing range after latest incident?

Histarch forum: refers: NY Times "editorial on collectors" "Collect-Me-Nots"

Thanks for the posting. Apologies for what should be perhaps cross-posted elsewhere:

I have a high school acquaintance, Lou Young who is an investigative television journalist with WCBS in New York City who once interviewed Dr. John K. Lattimer in New York City where he worked, the once possessor of Napoleon's relic "penis" who sadly passed away last week. I was interested in the folklore of Napoleon Bonaparte and family who were important ("big man") indirectly in the archaeology of northern New York State, even though sometimes attributed to blasting the nose off the Egyptian Sphinx, though those reported pieces are said to be in the basement of the British Museum, perhaps their artillery "finds" that should be returned, perhaps. At Fort Drum, NY near Lake Bonaparte, is said to once have been considered a residence for Joseph Bonaparte, investigated by the US Inter-Agency Archaeological Services when I worked there in 1983 on the initial survey. Also at nearby Cape Vincent, NY was reported another of the Bonaparte's, Charles perhaps, whom James Audubon "competed" with, in a house with an oddly shaped "hatbox" second floor with no windows.

The Scottish Medical Society published in 1974 a review of the autopsy of Napoleon in their journal, that, which had been controversial before they reviewed it. If I recall (it was back then in Buffalo, NY where I read it, please don't hoist me on my apparent "Rabelaisian" petard, a very distant relation from there once translated Francois Rabelais into English, Sir Thomas Urquhart, started in "The Tower of London" perhaps, of Urquhart's Bay on Loch Ness where the "sea monster beast" actually first attributed to a foreign missionary description, is said to live) the problems stated in it were:

1) Napoleon, who usually led his troops from the front was at the back on a litter at Waterloo, suffering from severe hemorrhoids or something to that effect

2) The portraits of Napoleon change dramatically as he became older, beyond the styles of the portrait artist, to lead credence to the disease he was suffering from coming to affect even his sexual characteristics, the diagnosis of which I cannot (nor should) recall, though it results in hermaphroditic characteristics it was alleged

3) The attending autopsy surgeons reports all had in agreement observations of disease that however, in the official surgeon's report was not included.

Now the folklore:

In New Orleans, there was published back in 1979, in a Sunday "Times-Picayune" newspaper, (which survived Katrina in Baton Rouge) an article about Napoleon and Thomas Jefferson, a "French Connection" if you will. The "Louisiana Purchase" then was from Napoleon Bonaparte. I was visiting and seeing a Latvian-American friend from Buffalo, NY off, once on an Inter-Campus Fellowship Scholarship with Stony Brook University, for the archaeology of the Yucatan, Mexico. It was published during an early August approaching hurricane. I was working for historical archaeologist William Adams, et al., on the archaeology of the Waverly Plantation Ferry town near Columbus, Mississippi for the coming Tennessee-Tombigbee Barge Canal, which links conceivably, the Ohio, Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers with the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile, Alabama where it's also said the French were former settlers. Perhaps thought in emergencies thereby by-passing the Mississippi River and the "Big Easy" which discharges water from the Allegheny River, as far away, as in New York State.

In the article it referred to Jean Lafitte (a historical park outside the city of New Orleans, which took some damage in hurricane Katrina) a famous "pirate" who was, according to the story, was related by marriage to then President Thomas Jefferson's wife, and a switch was made with Napoleon at the island of St. Helena. He was allowed long walks on the beach, and whereas his guard stayed within eyeball distance, he often sat for hours, apparently looking out over the ocean. His coat was held up with sticks, discovered many hours after he had left through the thicket or "forest" for a Lafitte ship. He died of a heart attack, it's related in the folklore, within sight of the Yucatan peninsula, and is buried under another name in a Lafitte cemetery.

Update: The cemetery may have been lost to the sea recently, in flooding and inundation.

Of course this is folklore, though it's recorded at the Lafite vineyards in France, where future US president Thomas Jefferson visited, and a bust of him is, that he had quite a talent for wine tasting and distinguishing types. There was around the time of the Scottish medical journal publication, a "Watergate" in America and a "Winegate" in France. I had the "opportunity" then, before they raised the legal drinking age to 21 in New York State of introducing the Bordeaux Wine District's samples at a tour of colleges at the then new Buffalo University campus in a dorm designed by I. M. Pei in Amherst, NY.

Very tangential, I hope no one is mad. NY Times "Collect-Me-Nots"

Deer Lick near Gowanda, NY

The Nature Conservancy bought a beautiful piece of property near the Cattaraugus River I used to hang around at back in school at Buffalo University which became "Deer Lick". It is about 500 acres in an "econiche" of more southern species of plants and perhaps animals that are there due to the effects of the nearby Lake Erie it's thought. Unusual in a way, like the Tug Hill Plateau perhaps, though near to the only surviving natural stands of trees in the Eastern Woodlands, the Allegheny National Forest just over the border in Pennsylvania. Reply#1 - Thu May 17, 2007 8:32 PM EDT

Newsvine - NY Senecas Vote to Charge Toll on Cars

Re: The Sopranos Meet The Hippies - Paul Krassner at Huffington Post

Abbie Hoffman was sort of pointing out that when the Queen and Ike opened the St. Lawrence Seaway through New York and Ontario there was no port for New York, but it sure was important for Chicago (it's proponent Dr. Myer there) though we do share a hydro dam near Cornwall, where the Mohawk live between "us".

There was another bus, the Hogfarm, maybe you remember their commune in "Easy Rider"? Last I saw them they (head of it an almost medical doctor, everything except his final) held court there at Woodstock, presided over by Wavy Gravy at Woodstock Music ands Arts Festival, at their small stage that "Quarry" played and Joan Baez came down to sing a number. In "Three Men With Unlimited Capital" (the ad, its genesis in the NY Times that started the festival, and later book, almost in Wallkill, NY first, named after another place it didn't take place in, where the year before (1968) Bob Dylan and others were seen, including Jimi and maybe Janice) the author alleges Abbie Hoffman wanted a bribe to not show up and create political trouble at the festival. He needn't have, I was standing there with a ticket as the collective attendees took down the chain link fence.

The Hogfarm bus was last heard of in "Quest" I think mag, trying to wipe out smallpox, the world's last case to have been in India. Back in 1974 or so it was reported in Buffalo, NY that the "Indians" had chased them off their land in the American Southwest where they were once.

The Perils of Blogging

Comment on Slate's Jurisprudence: The Law, Lawyers, And The Court: "Big Brothers: In Egypt, Blogging Can Get You Arrested-Or Worse" by Wael Abbas, in "Enter the Fray"

It's odd that everything seems clouded in anonymity on w.w.w. started at CERN, (Sardinia?) so that "free speech" has been subverted perhaps. I was once fired for "having a blog" without any explanation, not forewarned about that company's policy, and think the reference to Battery Park "swing shift" work in archaeology, required by law, on a new subway tunnel to the Staten Island Ferry, provided by funds after 9/11 and to correct a passenger discharge problem, then dug under a memorial to the 9/11 attacks, an "eternal flame" at the damaged "Sphere" sculpture moved to Battery Park, built by prison labor in the 19th century, (city parks budget records, i.e., ship captain's zoo animal contributions, etc.)

Maybe it was about the cross-bar added to all the flagpoles in NYC parks without landmark review and one windy day the flag was wrapped around Battery Park's cross-bar observation. They were placed under Commissioner Stern to fly the NYC flag and the MIA-POW flag which has been there since 2003 according to city council records on-line. Mayor Rudolph Giuliani once had the state flag of Arkansas flown over City Hall while visiting there as NYC's mayor. I was part of a crew excavating the human remains attributed to the "First Almshouse" in City Hall Park in 1999 when he did. Won't be done again, according to former Speaker Vallone.

Ironically, in my opinion, I was once fired previously by a Berkeley Ph.D., home of the "free speech" movement, for raising my voice once after working for him for a combined total of ten years in contract archaeology fulfilling the requirements of Federal 106 regulations in four season fieldwork, cemeteries investigations, HAZMAT sites in NY/NJ and operating "total station" transits, computer graphics for reports, learning and the sole user of close-range photogrammetry from Rollei, magnetometer surveys, (maybe for ordnance) and generally doing whatever was required.

Simply, the client is out of money, also works.

My point is that I and maybe others also started a blog to keep track of comments on-line as my location crashed repeatedly and I've decided to keep a record of my "Red Ink and Rewrites" on-line, losing posts and writing on-line elsewhere, into a "blog" perilous pit that it is. I remember, DOS had no "unerase" until Peter Norton's red "flippy" disk.

Bicycle Month in NYC

Was this blog the cause for someone to crowbar the door to my landlady's workshop, under her bed, and stealing my bicycle about May 10 (brother and sister birthdays 8th and 9th) and breaking the gate? I had bought the bike in Centereach, my home town when I thought I'd have to abandon my car though I found a source for an expensive wheel stanchion that had collapsed, a used part from Georgia. The bicycle was CAD designed and made in China, not very expensive but good for city street riding. T.A. StreetBeat

The Nixon's Former Residence To Be Razed

Nixon's Saddle River home to be razed - The Record Wednesday, April 4, 2007

By Evonne Coutros

"...The house, designed by the late architect Eleanore Petterson, who lived in Saddle River and studied under Frank Lloyd Wright, is now dilapidated. It is slated for demolition later this year, making way for a new home for Hekemian and his family."

CAIR Says Not To Link Dix Six To Islam - CBS PublicEye

That's an interesting problem. We are very willing to state self-immolation of priests in Vietnam by fire with Buddhism but all others there had no religion reported. We seem to have the separation of the "church and the state" in our reporting in mind, when, unless someone is of a "clergy" or the story reflects some aspect of the person's belief directly, it's neglected. I live in the Bronx, a borough of New York City which has had Muslims come somewhat recently to more traditionally Catholic sections, side by side, in Mt. Carmel or near Morris Park neighborhoods for example, the latter, where TV personality Regis Philbin is formerly from. I am happy to report there has not been any noteworthy problems, the Muslim Center, in the former union hall of the Communications Workers of America, often part of television broadcasting, has not been attacked to my knowledge.

Posted by georgejmyers at 07:37 PM : May 10, 2007 Link to PublicEye

We endorse the Jail Paris Hilton Petition to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

426. George Myers  For accepting the Swarovski crystal motorcycle as a gift from the LA bikers she without a license appeared to be riding the purple "hell's angel" and should be in thumbscrews. Hilton Hotels should be burned for supplying Harley Davidsons from Eagle Riders to lodgers.

Read the Jail Paris Hilton Petition

Lyme and tick-borne diseases research center opens at Columbia

"Columbia University Medical Center has opened the first endowed research center for chronic Lyme disease in the world. The Lyme & Tick-Borne Diseases Research Center in New York will use its vast resources to bring together various disciplines from within and outside the University to address fundamental clinical and basic science questions that plague adults and children affected by Lyme disease." EmpireStateNews.Net

On with the show to New Hampshire

There's still a few drive-ins that transmit on FM so whatever setup you have in your vehicle is what you hear. The "Weirs Beach" in New Hampshire has one along with the other attractions on Lake Winnepesaukee the Plymouth colonists from Massachusetts found exploring. There's a large motorship on the lake and the Doles have a place in Wolfeboro, NH. It's where Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. was hidden after the assassination just in case. My friend has a small WWII veterans cabin left to her father nearby the lake in Tuftonboro, not far from the "Castle in the Clouds" which bottles water, microbrews and is now part of a public trust. From some scat and other evidence there's thought to be perhaps a large cat there in the Ossipee Mountains (former volcano that blew 10X Mt. St. Helens millions of years ago, 2X the height of Mt. Everest. Ash from Mt. St. Helens I went through on a Greyhound from Hauppauge to Seattle for $99) where perhaps a cougar or mountain lion (puma) is like they have over at the Holderness Science Center where nearby they filmed "On Golden Pond" on Squam Lake.

I once saw "Poppy" Bush when he was going to DC get off the boat at Wolfeboro's dock to become President for a day when President Reagan went under the gas for a colon operation. Dan Quayle's also been sighted. I've seen President Nixon run at MacArthur Airport years ago where before Hubert Horatio Humphrey rode by said "Thank you boys" from a convertible to me and the Terrafirma brothers who'd been out east crow hunting.

The G.O.P.'s French Connection - The NY Times

New York's Finest (it's police) embraced the French symbolically the day or so before 9/11 when they rescued a Statue of Liberty torch ensnared French photographer in a powered paraglider, attempting to get the "perfect photo" of the restored torch with gold leaf the French have provided, the cleaning and other restoration work finally finished. I, who work in the historical archeology of NYC knew some of the people involved. My grandmother Margaret Gregory was once known as "Bedloe's nanny" when she worked for its caretaker as it became the first electrically lit lighthouse in the world on Liberty Island.

The Republicans closed it, refused the free offer of a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 from the French and has made many attacks on French culture since. America has truly forgotten it was people like the Marquis de Lafayette and the French Fleet off Virginia that helped turn both General Lee's loss at Monmouth, New Jersey and General Washington's loss at the "Battle of Long Island" into a victory over the British General Cornwallis in Virginia and Admiral Cornwallis in New York one of whom could be shown with forensics to have been poisoning the king with his wig, perhaps inadvertently.

The G.O.P.’s French Connection By Sarah Wheaton

Some American Archaeology

>Israeli Archaeologist May Have Found Tomb of King Herod >FOX News > >Hey, You ain't findin no sxxx like this in NYC ! >See if you can at least dig up H's Hofner Beatle bass. it's worth about $2000 now.

Did you know the first 17th century Jewish service cup in New Amsterdam was made by the silversmith Myer Myers? I'm so "glad" we haven't found what would make the Mormons right, but what they found, some written tablets Upstate under a tree near Palmyra, NY had six or seven affidavits sworn out in the local court with witnesses to the find. The rest they say is religion. Me I haven't been working too much in NYC recently. I did excavate a "twin" burial in City Hall Park in 1999 asked into it long after it started. It was supposed to be where they were going to put a drinking fountain in the new improved looks like 1879 park under then Mayor Giuliani, with added security which turned up some of the bones I had been researching for a number of years for a number of archaeologists. Almost all the burials had no clothes! Nothing with them that I know and why those two (and others) were together? I thought I found a small piece of Shittah (wood) with the outline of the two tablets once impressed into a wrist-worn strap. Perhaps where a piece representing the Ten Commandments was and the two adults buried together as part of the "First Almshouse" though the British ran a notorious prison nearby, where its said Ethan Allen was tortured under Major Cunningham's watch during the American Revolution. The British had barracks nearby too. "We've" built a stone plaza with stone from near Binghamton with darker sections representing the outlines of the former structures as near as they can be located without turning up the whole area from map logic. No one knew the two were under the planned drinking fountain and in the soft sand my knee went into one of the skulls. Marilyn London the forensic anthropologist supervising said from the Smithsonian and on-call with the Rhode Island police was in charge of the human remains.

Howard and Fiona - Travelling Together "Why should students have all the fun? Grown ups can have gap years too!"

Matt Lauer, graduate of Greenwich High School in Connecticut was in Bhutan the other day as part of NBC's "Today Show" before Dubai. I have enjoyed your amazing journey since you've started this blog. I once attended Stony Brook University and the Anthropology chairperson, an economic anthropologist, had to flee Tibet studying markets there and we had a grad student Yugen Gombo, a Tibetan scholar from Darjeeling. Rex and Shirley Jones had published their fieldwork in "Himalayan Woman" about the Limbu people in eastern Nepal. You have made this once third grader listening to New Zealand's Edmund Hillary who'd come to his class in 1960 very happy. He said we were very lucky to even have a school, where he helps build them. An interesting cave full of murals of the Buddha were announced found the other day from at least the 12th century or earlier Common Era, on the road between Nepal and Tibet. Very interesting. Similar bodhisattva depictions I recall have been found in China. Howard and Fiona blog

"God Save The Queen...The Leftovers"

As the single largest landholder in the State of Mississippi, I would hope for this ceremony at least for the Queen who years ago was also here to open the St. Lawrence Seaway with President Eisenhower along the US/Canadian border, an economic benefit to both our countries, though no port exists on it in my state of New York as Abbie Hoffman, once somewhat, pointed out. Politics aside, they shoveled a whole battlefield there we once fought each other on, Crysler's Farm Battlefield, the "Battle That Saved Canada" from our failed invasion in 1813, into a big pile, (covered in acres of flowers when she visited it in the Queen's Jubilee year) so to work in international cooperation on vital matters of business around the Great Lakes of North America. If only we could do the same in other countries without the display of our past, i.e. the show of brute force, which has lead to insurrection time and time again as shown in our "mutual" histories we may yet rescue our once mutual belligerent reputations.

Comment on White House Press Correspondent for CBS News, Mark Knoller's article, "God Save The Queen...The Leftovers" at Couric & Co.

The Killing of John Lennon: A Bumpy Ride Through Chapman's Mind

Though a fan of John Lennon, I've not seen the film. An interesting alleged fact arose the other day during my temporary work on the archaeological clearance of part of the very wooded Iwo Jima Trail part of the Officer Candidate School (OCS) trails of the US Marine Corps facility at Quantico, Virginia this last month:

"The late John Lennon once considered purchasing the island for his home" and also under the Wikipedia entry for Chopawamsic: "Chopawamsic island is the only island within the territorial boundaries of the Commonwealth of Virginia on the Potomac River." It's right next to the USMC Quantico airfield where the US President's helicopter "Marine One" is based. It's listed online for $25 million. I read he also once considered Bellport, Long Island, NY for his home.

By: arielman on May 07, 2007 at 02:45pm Comment on the review of the film "The Killing of John Lennon" shown at the 6th Annual Tribeca Film Festival by Joel Keller at Huffington Post

Holy-Roller Democrat (challenger of the Governor of Mississippi)

Decade - 1970s Congress narrows down where it wants to spend a bunch of money to two options: 1) an "Energy Island" for NYC moving the production of electricity out to the NY Bight and protected all in one place, and 2) a Barge Canal in Mississippi, connecting the canals of Mobile, Alabama on the Gulf of Mexico with the straightened Tombigbee River in "'ole MS" with the Tennessee River there as the feeder. The idea is if the Old Man River gets dry or floods, as it has, (some say because of human mis-engineering by once ACE now COE - Army Corps of Engineers) the alternative Tenn-Tombigbee Barge Canal, flowing through Tennessee Williams' hometown of Columbus, MS, would allow the local economy and the national economy another way of transporting bulk. I worked on the archaeology of the second choice at the Waverly Plantation Ferry Landing and the Bay Springs Access, during the wettest year then on record. It was prophetically said by Dr. Martin Luther King who said one day MS would be leveled. It has both to create the canal and by the Republican "telephone" voter registration drive, cold called from lists, which as I recall if you agreed to have a registration card sent and did not reply you were automatically registered as a Republican or something, a questionable practice brought up by some in the press who also reported the largest single landowner in Mississippi is the Queen of England!

By: arielman on May 07, 2007 at 12:33pm at Bill Maher's blog at Huffington Post who was on "Charlie Rose" today on PBS.

1974 Kent State Audio Recording Allegedly Captured Officer's Order To Fire On Protesters

The American Heritage had an article on the Kent State shootings and as I recall a campus security officer named Myers said the reaction was called out after neighbors to the university became alarmed the night before over students coming back from demonstrations elsewhere, and thought they were or had been there all evening and early morning. Politically over-reaction resulted with the National Guard (which IMHO should be called the Ohio State Militia guaranteed under the Second Amendment, the original National Guard formed to protect the new United States government in NYC after the Jay Treaty ended the American Revolutionary War) called out, which today perhaps would be impossible, they are the new "Republican Guard" of Iraq. As a student at Buffalo University, NY back then, there were people there that had known people there when it happened and of those struck down. Attica State's prison "police riot" was a factor there involving some students reaching out in correspondence to those there incarcerated.

By: arielman on May 07, 2007 at 01:50pm

Quantico, Virginia

I just spent four strange work-weeks at the U.S. Marine Corps Officer Candidate School's (OCS) Iwo Jima Trail, part of their facilities, once used by Confederate forces to stop Union gunboats on the Potomac River. We stayed in nearby Dumfries, Virginia "Virginia's Oldest Town" named after a place in Scotland, home for many years of the Scottish author Robert Burns ("Auld Lang Syne" comes to mind wee bairns). A bustling town next to Triangle, Virginia it is on Route 1 (called "Jeff Davis Hwy" there), and also the Washington-Rochambeau route to defeat General Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia mentioned in previous posts about the "Kings Ferry" on the Hudson River in New York State.

The Iwo Jima Trail was archaeologically tested for possible eligible to be nominated cultural resources perhaps overlooked in the histories and other events, i.e., prehistory of the region. At the entrance to Quantico (and the Marine Corps University among other facilities, OCS, NCIS, FBI and DEA training) is a large statute of the famous photo of the US Marines raising the flag there in the Pacific campaign of World War II. The Iwo Jima Trail is one of many named after the US Marines legacies in many places here and abroad, one of the oldest services, a part of the US Navy, used in many maritime battles. There's a Khe Sahn Trail, Inchon, etc., through the woods. One the Civil War Trail has the remains of semi-subterranean huts built into hillsides used by the Confederate forces.

The story I heard was the nearby radar tower is to be improved and certain areas around the Iwo Jima Trail have trees that have to be harvested as they are too tall, and a joke heard was that it was wished the radar could be raised, the various trees are very large and beautiful with an under-story of American Holly growing here and there along with the rather large climbing poison ivy (an almost "furry" vine attached to vertical surfaces, water vines in wet areas, cut will drip water) and other foliage which we watched as spring arrived, the forest silent before the recent nor'easter, now full of the sounds of birds and other wildlife. Ospreys are nesting atop poles there, and an eagles nest is in the top of the spire of the large chapel on base. The mechanical Ospreys V-22 were also on and off the runway in various numbers, along with other materiél, including "Marine One" the US President's helicopter transport to and from the White House nearby in Washington, D.C. as he or perhaps someday, she, chooses.

Being there in the "Sleep Inn" or "Comfort Inn" during the massacre at Virginia Tech was sad. It was reported in the New York Daily News, that perhaps the student's parents, in the dry cleaning business, had unknowingly exposed their son repeatedly to a now considered dangerous form of dry-cleaning fluid now ordered to be replaced in all facilities in New York City with "PERC" cleaning fluid, the safer environmentally "friendly" replacement. Formerly trained in hazardous materials protection at the old Bellevue Nurses College and having completed a "health and safety" course for supervisors, and a number of refreshers at the Elmsford, NY Fire Safety Training facility, I would like to express my sympathy for the victims and hope future events can be stopped.

A "murder" case resulted from exposure to toxic fumes, creating brain damage, described in one of my classes. I have also worked in a very large machine shop, Gasser and Sons, where precautions were taken to prevent such exposure, and on sites where different levels of safety are required, though I've only been on a tennis court in a full Level A hazard suit in 93 F degree heat, right after the superheated steam conduit explosion in then nearby Gramercy Park, which was draped in plastic and cleaned of asbestos fibers for a number weeks. I had business relations with one of the Con Edison workers victims, (George B. Cortelyou was once its early CEO) when he was an employee of the U-Haul we used for our winter archaeological investigations in JP Morgan's former summer home, now Bowdoin Park, renting a generator and toboggan to get it to our site then to be a sewerage treatment plant, at the former hypothesized original Dutchess County settlement "landing" and subsequent early ferry to Marlboro, NY across the Hudson River, and below the city of Poughkeepsie, NY.

Divide and Conquer?

And may the best man (and woman speech writer) win not the best politically hacked machinery (or malfunctioning such). My remembrance of former President Reagan was that he first announced in New York State, sat in Philadelphia, Mississippi in a rocker and gave a wonderful speech there where there had been televised riots in the 1960s, and used the Social Security lists to send everyone over 90 years old a birthday card. My neighbor "Pop" Link who lived to 101 was mad around the day he was almost assassinated, he hadn't voted for him, why the birthday card? Posted by georgejmyers at 03:14 PM : May 05, 2007 The Reagan Ghost - Couric & Co.

Fort Jay, Nutting Island, NYC

Governors Island, NYC, once the U.S. Army's "Fort Columbus" before the location of the US Coast Guard, (moved to be closer to today's nautical activity in the outer harbor) once held the plans to the D-Day Invasion in a safe in the "mansion" there according to the captain of the "Swivel" ferry to it he told me standing at Miller Field (said first automated coastal defense firing) on Staten Island, NY (four of the five boroughs are on islands). There is a monument (a swivel gun) there to the arrival of John Peter Zenger from the German Palatine in 1710 at the age of thirteen. He later was imprisoned for having a press that published an article critical of a 1733 candidate in Westchester. He won his case and helped ensure the "freedom of the press" in the early colony that later became the first capital of the United States where Benjamin Franklin, our first ambassador to France had a printing press. (Our first ambassador to England was Rufus King of Queens, NY) Perhaps also why Normandy?

Memorial Honors Fallen Journalists, 23 Granite Pillars In Normandy, France, Honor Reporters Killed On The Job - CBS News