Tartan Day turns into party week in New York

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

Interesting contrasts

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

Kid Dynomite!

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

Plundering grave sites!

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

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

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

New York State of Professional Journalist

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

The man behind the cameras - The Boston!Globe

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

Film Blog Group Hug: What's Wrong with Theaters

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

CBSNews.com: Blog

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

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

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