Glimpse of Japan Series - Women's Beautiful Kimono

In memory of Majel and Gene Roddenberry's wedding in Japan.

Southern Sojourn - 1979 in the U.S. South

Above the Arctic Circle, the Norwegian City of Tromso Revels in a Seafaring Past

Ahoy! A Seafaring Past

Tromso, Norway, has been the frigid starting point of centuries of expeditions... - Grace Lichtenstein

Above the Arctic Circle, the Norwegian City of Tromso Revels in a Seafaring Past - washingtonpost.com

Will there be other expeditions to the South Pole? http://www.southpole2009.com/

BBC Reporter Jonathan Head Could Face 15 Years In Thai Jail

It seems too powerful that a personal complaint can speak for royalty, whether the royalty agrees or not. I recall many who did not like what was said about American President Richard Nixon, but they were called a "Silent Majority" and this complaint sounds like a political maneuver for power. The Watergate "burglers" with their Chapstick microphones (wires running up their sleeves on tour from the National Archives) on lookouts didn't like what was said either about the President.  BBC Reporter Jonathan Head Could Face 15 Years In Thai Jail

Garlic Salt De-Icing Roads In Iowa

A number of years ago a New York State department gave an award for (to) an entry suggesting that we spread pepper on the roads instead of salt, which attracts many animals to the roadside where they become road hazards. The pepper would absorb solar energy and it "remains to be seen" whether it would work. Maybe this is a good idea, a natural additive, that perhaps would repel animals from the salt and the roadsides. I recall not too long ago the salt mines had, next to Lake Cayuga above Ithaca where Ralph Nader was once asking if cooling Cornell University by lake water was such a good idea, in Myers, NY, had flooded and collapsed. You can see the difference between the road map and the satellite images in Google Earth or others. Another source, then, if it could be found would be quite valuable to the Empire State. The one found near Letchworth State Park had two native American burials, which the Iroquois Council, when asked under the newer Federal guidelines, asked that they not be moved, about 1999, when the first Almshouse Cemetery in New York City Hall Park was impacted in renovation of the facilities and site. Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The Tooth Fairy « Drex Files

The Tooth Fairy « Drex Files

Wow! That’s interesting. I really enjoyed the film as of course in retrospect it has spawned a number of others. I really liked how they worked the actress in to the scenes, the blind woman in the darkroom. A lot of careers seem to have started in the film. I have worked a bit in Rollei close-range photogrammetry a number of years ago, which is used for forensic investigation though me, in archaeology recording. A documented camera and lens and specialized software allow a number of photos to be combined on a digitizing tablet, with those little “crosses” you sometimes see in space photos, the film actually held against the glass in the camera, digital today, and any anomalies and spherical stretching is computer (80386 + 80387 then) removed so that one might measure inside the photo(s) and record 3D dimensions for dxf files. The British were last I heard using it for some traffic accident investigations. The Canadians (Andrew Lane) of Prometric Technologies that taught it to me still in German development, used it in “as-built” drawings of standing historic structures, First Nation petroglyph recording and were trying to sell it to the US FBI (blood-spatter studies, air crashes, etc.) some of which has been replaced by Lidar, the laser scanners, one used on the WTC-9/11 site in the air to map that disaster. While they were showing us near Cold Spring, NY, Avianca Flight 52, due to a language problem, crashed into Cove Neck, Long Island after running out of fuel in January 1990.

Interesting, the National Park Service site at St. Paul’s Church in Westchester, NY, partly inside NYC, was where they have a small “Freedom of the Press” site commemorating the election on the green that led to the trial of John Peter Zenger and his acquittal, having the second printing press in the colony. The church has the “sister” bell of the Liberty Bell. A small monument, a “swivel gun” is on Governors Island for Zenger’s arrival from the German Palatine as a boy of 10. William Blake is honored in the “Freedom of the Press” site which, in one of the “Hannibal Lector” films, “Red Dragon” (2002) the “Tooth Fairy” consumes an original drawing of, if I recall, which is also a tattoo on his person.

Years ago, a friend in Buffalo, NY at the residential College of Visual and Performing Arts within the University where I attended, had a friend who had some of the first color photographs of some of William Blake paintings, her acquaintence was working on a book of William Blakes's works. They were very interesting, but I imagine the originals much more impressive. Her husband was/is a child-abuse caseworker and photographer.

Interesting…

Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected in 2012 - National Geographic

Jim Watkins Blog – WPIX-TV

Thanks for the advice. I use my blog to keep track of comments like this, because up until now any that a copied with ClipCache could disappear in a crash or attack and I want to know what I said where to someone else like ClipCache keeps track of through the Windows clipboard. I was so happy to have met you a few years ago at CBS street reporter Lou Young's birthday at his place next to the Schubert's summer place he said, he married to a former television journalist I think. We had been in high school together on Long Island, in Selden, NY which at the time we didn't know was named after the judge who was a "character witness" at Susan B. Anthony's trial Upstate New York for having posed as a man to vote, a "taboo" for a judge. No we had the beginnings of the end to the "draft" right in our public school, ca 1970, the Marine Corps JROTC, not very "PC" while the undeclared war was on and though soon to end, subject to the draft lottery for Selective Service sponsored by a NY legislator. More recently I had been researching the first "National Guard" down in the Bowery, when our Nation first met here in NYC, later again after 9/11, the second amendment guaranteed the "state militias" now known as the National Guard, recently, how I don't understand, assigned to foreign legion service, depleting some of our finest citizens perhaps.

Anyway thanks Mr. Watkins for this opportunity to say hello to Kaity Tong again. And watch those blogs, I was fired for having a blog just before the MTA strike, on the "swing shift" for the archaeology of Battery Park. But not given a reason. Maybe they thought I talk to reporters everyday!  Jim Watkins Blog – WPIX-TV

Jimi Hendrix Artistfacts

The BBC has studio recordings of Stevie Wonder playing drums with Jimi Hendrix they just released a year or so ago. He was apparently playing with Eric Burdon and War the night before he died, that some forensics research recently suggested that his sleeping pills had been switched with German ones that looked the same though were four times as powerful. I think I saw him in Woodstock, NY at a outdoor cafe in 1968, working nearby in Timber Lake Camp as a dishwasher. A friend's Mom, starting in real estate up there in the Catskills where Bob Dylan and family and the Band were staying, where the Fugs lived that summer, recalls showing a house with someone who looked like a Janis Joplin look-a-alike, and guard dogs when she surprised them showing the house to a prospective buyer. I saw the place in a documentary later about him, two little cute window dormers. He had been on the venue of an extensive tour with Pink Floyd in Great Britain I read years ago over at CompuServe. He played bass guitar on a Timothy Leary album according to one of those computer databases in a record shop. He had been in the US Army Airborne "Screaming Eagles" until after 19 jumps had twisted an ankle I read. I missed his concert at Stony Brook University.  Jimi Hendrix Artistfacts

Star Trek: The First Lady Of Star Trek Passes Away

This is unexpected. We had just ridden over to her house in a video shot by Gene Roddenbery's son at Roddenberry.com which was a treat. I have been on the periphery of it sometimes having a classmate and neighbor who started out illustrating the "Star Fleet Medical Reference" back in the early 1970s which also had an interesting time-line on which the story is based. I think I lent it to someone. Later, Doug Drexler, the illustrator, co-won an Academy Award for the make-up in "Dick Tracy" and has worked on a number of the sets and scenes in the Star Trek franchise (see the "Drex Files"). He just shared an Emmy for the sets I think at "Battlestar Galactica". I and them worked in the theme restaurant "Zum Zum" Bavarian fast-food, a number of years ago in the Mall, where the grapevines once lined the Moriches Road. My condolences to the family and all the people who enjoyed her hard work in entertainment. Majel Barrett Roddenberry was also on the Board of Governors of the National Space Society, an important advocate and proponent for space education, exploration and research. Her son has a wonderful site on-line at roddenberry.com at which I enjoyed a live shuttle launch on a home video. Star Trek: The First Lady Of Star Trek Passes Away

Science Fiction Solves the Mystery of Jack the Ripper - io9

In Mike Resnick's "Red Chapel" (2001) which I read just before seeing the film made in Prague, with the famous cast about the "Ripper" that is "From Hell" (2001) he has it solved in fiction, with the assistance of the New York City Chief of Police at the time, Theodore Roosevelt, who would later become US Vice President then President after the assassination attempt that led to the death of then President William McKinley, shot at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY.
We saw "From Hell" while archaeology testing for new floodplain in Hurricane Floyd (1999) flooded Manville and Bridgewater, NJ and other damages at the West Point Military Academy during anthrax mails. I later saw in the same Reading Railroad theater, though empty, "Spy Game" (2001).
The character "Brig. General Jack D. Ripper" played by former OAS agent and actor, Sterling Hayden, in "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964) directed by Stanley Kubrick, launched the preemptive aerial nuclear attack on the USSR before committing suicide.
Science Fiction Solves the Mystery of Jack the Ripper - io9

Newsvine - Newsvine Q & A: Chuck Todd on U.S. Politics

I recall one of the arguments back in the 1970s was that Volvo knew how to better create a workplace, in small groups who consulted on how their jobs might be improved. They also provided for the common repetitive stress injury...back aches within the framework of the company. It seems that lending the car companies money might be a way to also effect change. One might assert that the government has provided an unfair advantage to Chrysler by lending them $ as they take on GM's electric car ("Volt" which had terrible PR lately pushed off the road, and the confiscation of its "EV").  The former CEO of Intel computer chips wants the company to invest in battery development, and if they do there might be big changes "up the road" so to speak with major consequences everywhere.  Newsvine - Newsvine Q & A: Chuck Todd on U.S. Politics  Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:07 AM EST

Newsvine - Ex-`Sopranos' actor takes stand at murder trial

It's reported that they have to prove "burglary" in order to charge him with felony murder by connecting him to it. Seems strange that, if he did not know there was a weapon in the possession of the other defendant, or that he'd use it, that the consequences of the other's action, for whatever reason, is thought "in concert" with the other who might have been drunk and/or rabble-rousing at the time.

I was made to strip-search after a single marijuana seed was found in the crack of the bench-seat of a gas station errands clunker from a new room-mates father's Brooklyn Sunoco station returning from Canada, and was held "in concert" for another's "study aids" found in his under-wear. You have to buy back the vehicle too at book value also. So check your cracks, meanwhile boats, trailers, motor-homes, ammunition, etc., go by.

In New Brunswick, Canada they have "Her Majesty's Warrant" which they can execute anywhere on "suspicion" of drugs. Is that's what's next? No Fourth Amendment? Seems a pity, here in NYC where it had to be included or "we" would not sign the US Constitution, though among the first to sign the Declaration of Independence. Had Mr. Brancato had a "personal metal detector" he might have refused to to go anywhere with the other defendant.

My cousin's husband sang for some years as the lead for the band "Journey" on tour and one of the band's older songs, "Don't Stop Believing" finished the "Sopranos" season which Mr. Brancato appeared in and in the story about where I live "A Bronx Tale" that though filmed in the borough of Queens I'm given to understand because the Bronx that was, is nevermore.

I thought I'd say something here with all due respect to the police officer who died, "Journey" once raised money for the fallen Port Authority police officers of 9/11.  Newsvine - Ex-`Sopranos' actor takes stand at murder trial

Memories of a Cold War relic: Secret bunker at former Stewart Air Force Base

...as resembling the vintage Nintendo "Duck Hunt" video game:

"They could point this sort of pistol with a wire going to the computer at a radar blip and find out what kind of plane it was, if it had a flight plan, what its trajectory was — whether it was friend or foe."

Memories of a Cold War relic: Secret bunker at former Stewart Air Force Base dazzled youth, inspired career - RecordOnline.com - The Times Herald Record

Science or Garbage? - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes

I once helped assist a 3rd grade class in the Branch Elementary School, Village of the Branch, NY in “One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure” as archaeologist. The school was one of the first in the US with a computer for kids, provided by Data General. I also observed a small alternative school in Bellport, NY on the former estate of G. Washington, a Brazilian marketer of an early “instant coffee” which had an early “modem” connected to Brookhaven National Lab’s computer for teaching. They used the films from Williamsburg, VA also once the grounds of sleep-away Camp Rockaway, in the “shadow” of the large landfill that was thought, without a liner to be leaching through the aquifer. The parents of the children had attended the Branch public school with their kids for the “dig” and I explained the field/woods “succession” and the deposits of previous occupation and surface geology, which had a different use prior to the school(s). I’m not sure how the concepts of “recycle” fits into the “local history” but it might also be acquired through local historical archaeology exposure?  Science or Garbage? - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.

Newsvine - Ron Carey, Who Led Teamsters Reforms, Dies at 72

If I recall he was from Local 804 that had many that worked for Macy's, Abraham & Strauss, etc., when the United Parcel Service (UPS which started as a motorcycle messenger service in Seattle, Washington) delivered furniture and appliances, etc., for the large department stores. My father worked for UPS then Leaseway who handled the large A&S fleet from under the Manhattan Bridge in Brooklyn, as a night-loader then a router. I worked on occasion for them both two, out of Roosevelt Field, Carle Place, or Jay Street. I recall the belief that Congress ruined the union when it found that mandatory union meetings for membership "unconstitutional" and allowed representative management which let in the "crooks". May he rest in peace and all the old-timers that were once on the night-shifts or lugging furniture, rugs and appliances up and down stairs in NYC and the suburbs.  Newsvine - Ron Carey, Who Led Teamsters Reforms, Dies at 72
====

I was never in the union, never had "a book". The furniture guys were more informal, didn't wear uniforms and weren't replaced by part-timers just phased out, which led to the Leaseway (they are the blue car-carriers on the interstates) from Shaker Heights, Ohio, run by a woman, working for A&S until they went to NJ, single owner/operator hire your own helper delivery. Didn't last too long I think, Macy's started by a Nantucket whaler, (red star tatoo) who failed in business in lower Manhattan at five other efforts it's written, then bought out A&S. They were employee owned then I think then part of Federated, a Canadian firm. I work in archaeology some of the back-hoe operators are Teamsters, not the Operating Engineers union. Sun Dec 14, 2008 1:18 AM EST

Why the Fighter Plane Failed | Popular Science

The F-14 had a stress tested airframe on the ground that was operated continuously at what I heard was 2X the average of any one F-14 in service around the world (Ed. - there were 79 in Tehran in 1979, 20 still operational today - Wikipedia). Last year, last month, I was in Burlington, Vermont when the F-18s it was ordered were grounded over fuselage stress cracks that had developed and they shifted the interceptor defense of the Northeast to the Vermont Air Guard where I was part of a crew digging archaeology test holes along the existing electrical power-line right-of-ways. It was a little strange to watch the permitted F-18s circle and touch-and-go over and over. I had forgot they'd been grounded, forgotten that is until this terrible accident. Perhaps the failure is "part" of last years' general order?  Why the Fighter Plane Failed | Popular Science

Newsvine - Newsvine Q & A: Chuck Todd on U.S. Politics

At the beginning of the first George W. Bush term the GAO sued for the minutes of the VP's meeting with the American energy "opec" to no avail.  Perhaps had they prayed for them as I recall his father becoming "President for a day" when docking aboard the Motor Ship "Mount Washington" in Wolfeboro, NH, from across the lake where "W" met more recently with the new French President, he asked for a moment of prayer before he was whisked away by the Secret Service into a limo to assume the position while then President Reagan went under anesthesia for a colon operation. My question is, do you think records of this administration have been "hopelessly" destroyed and will there be better government record keeping and accounting in this administration?  Newsvine - Newsvine Q & A: Chuck Todd on U.S. Politics

Newsvine - Newsvine Q & A: Chuck Todd on U.S. Politics

IM to a former worker in "contract" archaeology, who is currently employed in Mexico working on prehistoric survey in the area around the Chiapas that often make it into the news (leader "Carlos" seen in the news with pipe and ski-mask) I remarked that I thought the election might end up like current politics in Mexico, divided into two evenly split parties, and I was surprised how true that really is, though Democrat successes made it so. My question is: do you think the Republicans made a mistake when they objected to then President Clinton's choice of former Republican governor of Massachusetts's from Long Island, William Weld as ambassador to Mexico? They may have seen more diplomatic and included him more.  - Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:44 AM EST   Newsvine - Newsvine Q & A: Chuck Todd on U.S. Politics

“This just in…"

mscyprah.newsvine.com Some in the banking industry, a friend once President of "Sound Federal" bank in New York, (taken over) predicted this large "readjustment" in the market perhaps as part of cyclic economics. It also will affect the suppliers of raw resources, like Russia, supplying the Japanese who are not producing as much. The huge Saudi oil reserves that will yet come on line ("60 Minutes" report this week by Ms. Stahl...bravo, i.e., horizontal drilling guided by satellite GPS, which some think was what the Kuwaiti's were doing on the Iraqi border, resulting in the Iraqi invasion over it) will probably bring relief to parts of the crisis. I wonder, having met the grandson of one of the authors of the Japanese constitution at the end of WWII, from Nissequogue, Long Island, NY (also Stanford White's village, one of the architects of the White House "West Wing," and other monuments and public architecture) if perhaps there might be a political scenario, i.e., they are not permitted amendments to the document I've read, nor for that matter, allowed much materiel to defend themselves under treaty written over 60 years ago. The samurai sword surrendered by the Emperor is in the Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy Museum, once stolen for veterans rights and returned, in New York on Long Island. Listening to: "Praha 1994" - The Division Bell Czech Republic Tour at Brain Damage: the definitive Pink Floyd podcast.

NYC Urban Archaeology ca. 1984 – wharves under the US Federal Assay Office once on the lower eastside of Manhattan

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=46541&l=a4c05&id=704807379 
NYC Urban Archaeology ca. 1984 - former site of the US Federal Assay Office, where precious metals were evaluated. In 1983 it "...sold for $27 million, making it the most valuable piece of Government real estate ever put to public auction." NY Times The smoke stack was sandblasted for ~ $100k in gold that went up the chimney. It had a "floating vault" the guards could see under and built out of vertical interspersed railroad track to make it impenetrable. These are the remains of the 19th century wharves that were under it, when it was used as part of the lower east side of Manhattan seaport, the prevailing wind and currents favored sail.

Photo of "contract" or business archaeology required in cases by US Federal 106 regulations that have "trickled down" to State and local "cultural resource management" (CRM) individuals and their institutions.

Partly by law, much of this work is often not available in the "grey" literature of so-called "public archaeology" which at one time was to be made more available, as it is in some places in Great Britain, which has, by definition, a more extensive archaeology (US Federal: "archeology")  Click on heading for link to facebook photo album. Or here.

Re: Eliot Spitzer's new economics column at Slate

Then President Nixon went to China, a place where trade has often been troubled, whether the British opium exchange (India, Afghanistan) that led to the Boxer Rebellion, or the US trade in tea, ginseng (from North Carolina) and subscription chinaware (some in the Met Art Museum, our founders with epicanthic eye-folds) on the "Empress China" from NYC followed by the small "Experiment" from Albany, NY though profitable. My uncle, also went one of the first textile companies to "set up shop" there and in other places in Asia. He remarked that it would not be for very long however before "they" realized that a better profit could be made by them once they understood and set the example of business with the West. However, our occupation of the countries in "Southwest Asia" (Britannica) may actually hasten our businesses into "unfair" competition and perhaps more terrorism, not less.

I think we could allow loans to develop new technology, after all the defense industries are now singularly large conglomerates, with I read minimum $500 mil business requirements even to submit a bid these days, which cause Neil Armstrong antenna company to merge with EDO, both innovative technical businesses that would be liquidated without mutual cooperation. Don't get me wrong. I surprised Hummers in the military did not have "airless" tires. No it is sort of typical of some of our vehicular overspending, and not enough on infrastructure. More is spent in repairing vehicles than on infrastructure which would reduce the cost of repairing vehicles. So it's complicated. Let them eat airless tires and let the roads go to hell!

How about that meteor crater in Peru?

The Yankees will play, but for now, kids won't

"There is great irony that the world's wealthiest baseball club is taking away fields from the poorest community in America," said Geoff Croft of NYC Park Advocates. The Yankees will play, but for now, kids won't

Call to Action: Restore our Coasts and Estuaries - The Petition Site

Call to Action: Restore our Coasts and Estuaries
Target: The New Administration and Congress Sponsored by: Restore America's Estuaries
Our nation's coasts and estuaries are in serious trouble. The United States has lost 55 million acres of coastal and estuarine habitat along its coastline due to development, pollution, and other human-made and natural causes, and its coastal habitat continues to disappear at a rate of between 1.2 percent and 9 percent a year.

Please tell the new Administration and Congress how important coasts and estuaries are to our economy and wellbeing and urge them to protect and restore our nation's coasts and estuaries for future generations.

Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop

Attention: R. J. Squirrel (and Bullwinkle)

Acorn Watchers Wonder What Happened to Crop - washingtonpost.com

What I'm listening to, a prequel:

Paul Winter Solstice Concert 2008, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York City, NY

My musician friend Don LaCorte took me to this just after the fire in the Gift Shop back then. It was very good. I grew up listening on occasion to Virgil Fox who recorded on the cathedral's "built into" massive organ, a recording lent by a friend Gerard Verbier, he an organist and his older brother, with a Hammond B-3 and Leslie cabinet, who played in a band that covered many of the early songs of the time from "Procol Harum" or the "Young Rascals". The Leslie cabinet (Ed. - "Leslie speaker" - Wikipedia) of the Rascals I actually think I've heard when Felix went solo, in the Stony Brook University gymnasium where we heard many bands, i.e. the Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and Mad Dogs and Englishmen, Alvin Lee and Ten Years After, MC5, Dave Mason, Leon Russell, the Allman Brothers, Who, Mountain, J. Geils, Grand Funk Railroad, Mahavishnu, Yes, Jean-Luc Ponty, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, and others. Those days, student activities fees collected were also used to bring some of the new popular music to the university and many in the community attended. The Jefferson Airplane gave a free outdoor concert...had to work at Zum Zum.