Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Parasites


I took a pic yesterday of a Brown Headed Blackbird...and then looked it up...and then read how it lays eggs in other birds' nests...it doesn't build it's own nests and has been known to invade over one hundred and fifty different songbirds' nests...lemesee if I got that right...brb...


quote


Brown-headed cowbirds are brood parasites. They deposit their eggs in nests belonging to birds of other species. Some of the birds they parasitize remove the eggs from their nests or cover them with new nest material so that they are not incubated.




unquote


Which all reminds me of Clifflord Stoll's Cuckoo's Egg...brb...here's wiki's take




what's a klein bottle?..brb...




dont know but that I might get one of the hats...a puzzling hat for a puzzled head!


anyway...Cuckoo's do the same with their eggs as the Brown Headed Cowbirds...and in that behavior I saw a metaphor for rapacious things...like what the Nazi German's did to their neighbors France, Russia, Sweden, Spain, etc. during the years between the world wars...they made front industries...but that's a long long 'take'...maybe for another 'sometime'!


and that whole thought thread tonight got sidetracked by a friend bringing up a rotting corpse in an old Greek tragedy...Clytemenstra?...we thought...neither of our memories good for old Greek names!...but we love those old myths!...my friend has been to the Parthenon replica in Tenessee!...anyway...lemefind the old Greek story...well no...Clytemnestra isn't it...but it might have something I lost...but for later...I think the one about the corpse had to do with Seven Against Thebes...brb...well..it's Antigone...and that search brought that recollection..so I was close..or closer!....but the conversation reminded me of another corpse...and it's another grim Greek tale...brb...


Oh...I had that one almost right too...I did search Penethesia...which went nowhere...and the name is:




oh..and this too!




brb...


quote


In the Pseudo-Apollodorus Epitome of the Bibliotheke[5] she is said to have been killed by Achilles, "who fell in love with the Amazon after her death and slew Thersites for jeering at him". The common interpretation of this has been that Achilles was romantically enamored of Penthesilea [6] (a view that appears to be supported by Pausanias, who noted that the throne of Zeus at Olympia bore Panaenus' painted image of the dying Penthesilea being supported by Achilles).[7] Twelfth-century Byzantine scholar Eustathius of Thessalonica postulated a more brutal and literalist reading of the term loved, however, maintaining that Achilles actually committed necrophilia on her corpse as a final insult to her.


unquote


It's...it's kindof a shocking story..but the tale has a kindof ring to it...as does Antigone...and too Achilles dragging Hector about...well..the Greek's understood something the Marine's are famous for...recovering their fallen from the battlefield...brb...


quote


Although it later emerged that L Cpl Ford had been shot and killed during the operation, four of his colleagues strapped themselves to the wing-stubs of Apache attack helicopters and returned in a bid to recover him.




unquote


British Marines in that instance...people can get very emotional over the dead...last night a road killed Grey Squirrel I picked up by the tail and removed to some fallen branches and leaves beneath a Black Oak.
DavidDavid




Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Nostalgia





I head this word defined...it's origens I mean...on a talk show awhile back...I think it was a CNN newscast...brb...






quote






The term was newly coined in 1688 by Johannes Hofer (1669-1752), a Swiss medical student. The word is made up of two Greek roots (νόστος = nostos = returning home, and άλγος = algos = pain/longing), to refer to "the pain a sick person feels because he wishes to return to his native land, and fears never to see it again". This neologism was so successful that people forgot its origin. Homesickness is often given as a synonym for nostalgia.












unquote






Went to Mariposa for a day...and that's all it takes to be homesick for the Valley...it's always a pinch myself and to see if it's real when the Bus crosses Pohono Bridge...and I see the 'falls'...






Carrier was on again....PBS....then Nat Geo with a scary bit on gangs...a kinda "evil"-lution tale....now one on about remarkable self rescues...'super human strength'......






There's another pic from that USS Augusta site I want to snag...both of these...this one and the crew one before...were on ebay and I tried to get them...I read so much studying out the Panay...much of it things being offered on ebay...photos and memorabilia from Old Shanghai...of the 1930s...and there's a strong sense of Nostalgia that emanates from those years...not sure why...some of it is in the Indiana Jones movies...anyway...going to get the pic..brb...






and this is the tale of Truman aboard the Augusta...when the Hiroshima bomb was dropped...






The lower pic may not be in Shanghai...from this site...






DavidDavid

Monday, April 28, 2008

Little Bads




By way of apology...often in the baseketball game...after a flub...a player might pat his chest and say, "My bad..."....and the game continues...




Over Breakfast a friend related this story..."My friend's kid looked at us while we were smoking cigarettes...and said, 'Cigarettes are bad'...and then said..."You're bad." "No no no..." we said..."we're not bad."




I dont remember how the conversation got to there...but from there I chimed in with a lecture on how little things, while not bad in the singular moment...in accumulated moments can be very bad indeed...and my friend agreed..."Yeah...like cancer."




Now... tonight PBS had 'Carrier' on...and a young sailor was reporting on being disciplined for drinking...and said something to the effect..."It's a small bad...but here small things have big importance."




Now the Fugitive is on...which is all about discipline too...the Fugitive trying to right a very big bad while being thought a bad person.




Oh...he lectures the gathered dinner crowd...




The officers disciplining the sailor said..something like...'They're not a bad sailor...that's not what this is about...we want everyone to understand the importance of shipboard discipline...make mistakes like this and you endanger...and let down.... your shipmates".




And later...this is good....on beginning pilots....'When they mess up...we try to give them some slack...after all...it costs a million dollars to train one...a few extra flights and they might get it....otherwise...they're washed out."




Well...those are all paraphrases...but the discipline of the warship...becomes a "culture"...and it's not surprising the varied work units become 'many as one'...and wearing the different colors they do glues each group together...it's almost like 'evolution at work'...




And needless to say, from the Captain on down, the orders received are the prevailing..order...without question.




And what I thought of all this 'little things adding up to big things...or thing..." is how difficult it was for John Muir to get across that the Valley was formed by Glaciers....that the slow movement over long period of time...wore away so much stone...it's hard to believe..but to see glacier polish at Cathedral Lake...well...it makes one a believer!




Small things over time can accumulate to make big changes.




And it's very hard to see how a small thing can be part of a large scale event...it's the old 'can't see the forest for the trees'....the disciplining of the sailor was to have them see the 'forest'...and the enthusiasm of individuals for their work unit..their group...is because they see the 'forest' and..well...what did the pilot say?...'We start to all think alike".




I'll have to think on this some more...with regard to so many movies that play on the idea that one individual goes against the grain...not for their own interest, but for the self same group that they've left..for it's interest. Is that right!...a difficult thought...for another time...I'll keep an eye out for a plot that illustrates...well... Hamlet does...but one more contemporary!




quote




St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 10, 1989: When he [Manute Bol] throws a bad pass, he'll say, "My bad" instead of "My fault," and now all the other players say the same thing.








unquote




quote




USS Augusta (CA-31)
"I have the greatest pride in commanding this fine ship and her 100% loyal Brotherhood of the Sea." --- Captain Chester W. Nimitz, Commanding Officer (1933-35)








unquote




now...lemessee if I can find the crew pic...brb...pics from here:
The Carrier in the PBS show was named after Nimitz.
And here a fine story...




DavidDavid








Sunday, April 27, 2008

Woodpecker Beside King Tut's Pectoral




That's the pectoral with the meteor made glass in the center...I took some pics of Woodpecker in flight...and when I saw this one...I dont know what I have until I review them...I was reminded of the Old Egyptian art showing Hawks with wings spread like this...and just wanted to say...the Old Egyptians "closely observed" Nature!
DavidDavid

Friday, April 25, 2008

Methane Bubbles


Namibia...and sardines...and methane bubbles from the ocean...brb...


quote


Across the world scientists are discovering how the removal of one component of any ocean system can often have unsavory domino effects that scientists call trophic cascades.




That was on TV this morning...tonight it's some sci fi combo of Alien and The Thing....c24....chromosone 24....sam injects her brother....now he's shooting all the bad things in the lab...maybe it's from a video game...brb...Doom...is that it?..."are you gonna shoot me?...yeah...I got one clip left..."...and a commercial....brb!


Well...one of the "doom" scenarios has it that the ocean has a lot of pent up gases at the very bottom...kinda like that volcanic lake that released a gas and killed villagers nearby...brb...


quote


Around 1700 people were killed when a lethal cloud of gas erupted from a lake in Cameroon in 1986.


Science: Helium unlocks the secret lurking in Africa's deadly lake
27 October 1990
From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
DAVID WALKER



Doom...brb...


quote


Doom is a 2005 science fiction horror film adaptation of the popular Doom series of video games created by id Software


unquote


well..now it's like superman fighting a berzerker superman...I guess it's a happy ending...


CO2 in solution in the ocean....brb...


quote


There is about 50 times as much carbon dissolved in the oceans in the form of CO2 and CO2 hydration products as exists in the atmosphere. The oceans act as an enormous carbon sink, having "absorbed about one-third of all human-generated CO2 emissions to date[23]." Generally, gas solubility decreases as water temperature increases. Accordingly carbon dioxide is released from ocean water into the atmosphere as ocean temperatures rise.
Most of the CO2 taken up by the ocean forms carbonic acid. Some is consumed in photosynthesis by organisms in the water, and a small proportion of that sinks and leaves the carbon cycle. There is considerable concern that as a result of increased CO2 in the atmosphere the acidity of seawater will increase and may adversely affect organisms living in the water. In particular, with increasing acidity, the availability of carbonates for forming shells decreases.




unquote


and of course it's in soda pop...


quote


Atmospheric temperature is regulated by the sun, which fluctuates in activity as shown in Figure 3; by the greenhouse effect, largely caused by atmospheric water vapor (H2O); and by other phenomena that are more poorly understood. While major greenhouse gas H2O substantially warms the Earth, minor greenhouse gases such as CO2 have little effect, as shown in Figures 2 and 3. The 6-fold increase in hydrocarbon use since 1940 has had no noticeable effect on atmospheric temperature or on the trend in glacier length.


and


The temperature of the Earth is continuing its process of fluctuation in correlation with variations in natural phenomena. Mankind, meanwhile, is moving some of the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas from below ground to the atmosphere and surface, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment of plants and animals as a result. This is an unexpected and wonderful gift from the Industrial Revolution.




unquote


charts and graphs and a petition drive of some sort to counter..al gore?...I dont know...it's a strange read...again...rampant developement of the car culture...it's infrastructure....just plain road building I'd say!...has hardly been a gift to Nature!....there are some awful thinking and thoughts about...above an example...walk!...start my own four letter word petition...hmph...oh...I cant read that...but it mentions a solution of putting 'tiny' particles into the upper atmospher to block sunlight..to cool things off if need be...that would be the contrails!..brb...


quote


ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2004) — NASA scientists have found that cirrus clouds, formed by contrails from aircraft engine exhaust, are capable of increasing average surface temperatures enough to account for a warming trend in the United States that occurred between 1975 and 1994




unquote


well...everything is getting obscured by diverting minutia...diverting in the sense no one reacts to what is obvious...the proliferation of traffic jams and parking garages...two billion cars within fifty years...these aren't machines...it's an alien invasion...walk!


DavidDavid

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Transparency


NBA was on...then on PBS a story about future cars and fuel....click and clack...well...I have a solution...WALK!

anyway...this work 'transparency' is turning up with regard to the new world....brb...

quote

Transparency is introduced as a means of holding public officials accountable and fighting corruption. When government meetings are open to the press and the public, when budgets and financial statements may be reviewed by anyone, when laws, rules and decisions are open to discussion, they are seen as transparent and there is less opportunity for the authorities to abuse the system in their own interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparency_(humanities)

unquote

I use to think up alternative energies....hydrogen like the story about Iceland's efforts...algae grown out at sea...but...but I've discarded the whole notion!...more cars is just more of the Wilderness paved...more people forsaking their legs...more distance between work and home...and that's just cars...airplanes and cruise ships are increasing phenomenally...brb...

quote

The industry's rapid growth has seen nine or more newly built ships catering to a North American clientele added every year since 2001, as well as others servicing European clientele.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_ship

unquote

brb...

quote

Not long ago, the only public statements a company ever made were professionally written press releases and the rare, stage-managed speech by the CEO. Now firms spill information in torrents, posting internal memos and strategy goals, letting everyone from the top dog to shop-floor workers blog publicly about what their firm is doing right - and wrong.

http://www.socialmedia.biz/2007/04/the_new_world_o.html

unquote

oh...i'm going to curl up...i'm soo sleepy!....WALK!

DavidDavid

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Be Right Back


Be Right Back is...brb....


NBA on....oh...I talked to a Korean photog...asked them if there were mountains in Korea...."Seventy per cent...."he said...then he became thoughtful...we were watching the clouds in the morning sun swirl about Half Dome and the Valley, "the industrialization...it's....spreading..." I smiled a sad smile..."Like here in America too." he added. "Yes...." I agreed, "like everywhere."


brb...


quote


Last week, after five years of division and bloody dissension in the Land of the Morning Calm, what remained of Korean freedom was staggering under the savage attack of a tyranny far more complete than that of the Japanese. Douglas MacArthur had said (and the U.S. people had forgotten): "There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity."
In the deep valleys of Korea the people had a saying which meant much the same thing: "Over the mountains, still mountains, mountains."




unquote


That Time story looks to be about the early outbreak of the Korean War...apparently there is a saying there..."Over mountains, are mountains."


Going up on trails to passes hereabouts one can say..."Over the ridge...another ridge!"


brb...


quote


Over the Mountains Are Mountains: Korean Peasant Households and Their Adaptations to Rapid Industrialization (Korean studies of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies) (Hardcover)by Clark W. Sorensen (Author)




from amazon


unquote


brb


quote


The Kŭmgangsan Tourist Region is thought to be one way for the North Korean government to receive hard currency from abroad. Therefore the official currency of the tour is neither the South Korean won nor the North Korean won, but the US Dollar. Since 2003 food and services to South Korean tourists are provided by North Koreans. The area is developed by Hyundai Asan, who have plans to expand the site with a proper ski resort to complement the current sleigh course, and complete golf courses. Many plans for expansion, however, are in their earliest stages.




That's a Park in North Korea...and looks knockdown gorgeous...and apparently has 'plans' in the works too....


quote
Early European visitors to Korea remarked that the country resembled "a sea in a heavy gale" because of the many successive mountain ranges that crisscross the peninsula.
unquote
I..I'm thinking of doing an offshoot blog called "Be Right Back"...this a kinda what it would be like...with maybe interview video clips...and the usual pics and writing....too shy to ask folk for clip interview is roadblock...but it's a natural now with the two 12xs....I can have one on the scenery and one on the interviewee...have to think on this...oh...last night at the movies I sat behind some well healed tourists...they each had ipods...I could sorta see over their shoulders...one looking at photos...another on google...another continually asking her husband how to use hers...and his refrain..."I dont know..." I gotta remember that...but with a wireless hooked up ipod...I...I could do the whole blog post in real time....maybe even the clip...the 12xs might hook in to that little thing....hmmph.
quote
In this collection leading anthropologists reveal the variations and commonalities in conspiratorial thinking or occult cosmologies around the globe—in Korea, Tanzania, Mozambique, New York City, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nigeria, and Orange County, California.
unquote
That's almost as funny as Kenny getting run over...
DavidDavid



Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Earth Day


a movie is on that I've searched for... just for a song in it..and couldn't find it......computer kid hacks into the military game computer...."someones playing a game with us"....I haven't seen the title of it yet...and maybe it's not the one!...anyway...




it was Earth Day...I thought to do something...after all Regis and Kathy...after planting their plotted trees...told everyone to go out and do something 'earth dayish'...or something like that....but I didn't do much...saw two new critters...that was something...but then something very Earth Day happened...a Toulumne returned for the hiking season...and a group of us went and watched the movies being presented in the Village for Earth Day....




lemesee if I can find the Badger one...brb....




no this isn't it...the one I want is the one where the girl plays the cello....and I think she lives downstairs from the boy with the computer skills...brb...


official site...




apparently the read earth day is March 21!...brb...here's link to some of the movies I saw..




but not the funniest one which was a marmot or something with the refrain it's one earth....brb..."can you hear me down there?"




That's the duet song piece from the movie Electric Dreams...remember now that I had found the movie but couldn't get the song...until Youtube!


Well...they are all cheering...it was just a game....but it's not over....


quote


The first known video game, OXO (or Noughts and Crosses, 1952) for the EDSAC computer played perfect games of tic-tac-toe against a human opponent.


unquote


It's the movie Wargames I'm watching...and the kid figures out how to trap the computer into a loop...playing tictactoe.


It may be that harpsicord sound that I like...which reminded me of another electric song...that for seven summers I listened to most every nite!..


DavidDavid

Monday, April 21, 2008

Dedication


subtitle: Sound and Vision


Law and Order was on...before that the NBA and Basketball...the remote!...brb...Friends...


Just a second ago I recalled what a friend once said....an ex marine and Mormon....that the classical music The Four Seasons made him "see" the seasons...I think it was Vivaldi...I know nothing about classical music though I played it in band and orchestra in High School...brb...


well...they're writing fashion stories about the Women and the Kids dresses...brb...



quote


The texture of each concerto is varied, resembling its respective season. For example, "Winter" is peppered with silvery staccato notes from the high strings, calling to mind icy rain, whereas "Summer" evokes a thunderstorm in its final movement.
The four concertos were written to go along with four sonnets. Though it is not known who wrote these sonnets there is a theory that Vivaldi wrote them himself. The sonnets are as follows in the original Italian with an English translation:


unquote


cool...a poem to quote...just a raw translation it appears..at the above page...


Allegro

Springtime is upon us.

The birds celebrate her return with festive song,and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.

Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,

Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.
Largo

On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.
Allegro

Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.


unquote


oh...let me find a better translation..brb...


Spring!




I just had a talk with a friend aspiring to be a professional photog...and they have a background in music...which I said should help...after all the Master played piano too...and in the same place!....there's even a gallery show now of a photog that followed the same route...I'm far and away from making financial gain from anything artistic...but I too was first introduced to fine art through Music...but to Sound and Vision...brb...


quote


What does it do? The vOICe Learning Edition translates arbitrary video images from a regular PC camera into sounds. This means that you can see with your ears,




unquote


well...that was unexpected...and cool...what I was thinking of was Graves under the influence of mushroom hallucinogenic and how he heard sight and saw sounds....shades of The Sorcerers Apprentice and Fantasia...brb...


quote


For the sights that one sees assume rhythmical contours, and the singing of the shaman seems to take on visible and colorful shapes.


The Road to Eleusis
R. Gordon Wasson


unquote


Our senses have volume controls the same as TV...and contrast and brightness...in fact a complexity of 'filters' that a photoshop program can never dream of attaining...and when drugs are taken these controls are altered and most often severely damaged...the Law and Order episode was about an insane prisoner who heard voices and was released without proper medical care...proper being making him safe to public life...drug users pretty much wreck their being in public life...


Wasson sings the same refrain of Timothy Leary and that whole cult that because they experienced something remarkable and different thought they had experienced something better...


Sobriety...awareness untempered by refined medications...and make no mistake about this...is something honed through millions of years of evolution...and sobriety isn't joyless or dull or any of that.... any of that disdain that those who choose the vida loco heap on the modest is bogus.


I suppose now it will be a fashion for awhile to look 'modest'...


And "sobriety" is how each species has survived...for many of them.... one "intoxicated" misstep and they are someones lunch.


Nature is marvelously disciplined....brb...well...here I went after Graves' "Her service is perfect freedom"...which I'll explain my take in a minute...but here is Robert Creely wrestling with it in an essay called..."Her Service is Perfect Freedom"...which is about Robert Graves...


quote


The Goddess, whether characterized as the ultimately personal, or impersonal, wife, mother, queen, or simply the generically "unknown," is the most persistent other of our existence, eschewing male order, allowing us to live at last. The obedience of a poet's gratitude, for this, is the authority which you hear in his poems, and it is obedience to a presence which is, if you will, that which is not understood, ever; but which he characterizes as all that can happen in living, and seeks to form an emblem for, with words.




unquote


Graves was a soldier, so "service" had that connotation, and a loyal to royalty Brit...so a soldier's "service" to King/Queen and Country, is in this line...somewhere he goes over how pleased he was to be awarded a genuine gold medallion from the Queen...and contrasts it I think to some other award that was gilded...


There is a very ancient perception that a King is a god...Roman Emperors expected worship....and thought they ruled by divine right and favor...and Graves expends a lot of words just trying to sort how all this has gone down in history...seeing in the past somewhere a divergence from Nature and Nature's discipline...


Each species is meticulously disciplined...but the discipline isn't inflicted on them by some tyrant....it's Nature...the White Goddess...that's my "take"...brb...I've been meaning to look up a search..."male harems"...insomuch as I've gone on about "female harems"...brb...


quote


An even more profound uniqueness of the Western concept of homosexuality is revealed when it is contrasted with how male-male sexual and romantic bonds were treated in Imperial China where several male emperors were known to have had male harems and favorite male concubines, and also where male prostitution (for male clients) was prevalent up to the end of the Qing Dynasty.


Catching The Phoenix: The Social Construction of HomosexualityPosted in September 2003by Nick Yee




quote


Graves was a bit homophobic...well...more than a bit...though there's seems to have been some 'greek' soldiering in him as well...and his book the White Goddess starts right off with a rant...I could be very wrong on this...but it appears he equates patriarchies with homosexuality...and contrasts that with matriarchies...and more or less lambasts the judeo christain tradition for knocking down all the temples to Goddesses...I read one who commented on how remarkable is the replica temple to Athena is in Tennesse(?)...and what effect it would have on the Patriarchal Temple Tradition...and I dont know but Graves maybe right on with all this...the all male priesthoods....the subjegation of women in the Islamic world...the scandal of the Catholic priests...well...lemego get one of those Chinese emperors...here's a page on enunichs and harems!...but no male harems...




well...this could go on too long...but a joke was done on TV by some talkshow about the Pope...and how he has a "harem" of priests...brb...it was a bad joke...but...looking for it I found what's been probably lying in the back of my mind doing this post!...


quote


Honeybee queens have sex with harems of males apparently to give birth to much better dancers, research now reveals.




Graves kinda had in mind the political system of the beehive...and that as a metaphor for Nature overall...what's he says at the end of the book?..."I'm no priest"...brb...maybe it's prophet...brb...well...here's wiki's take..


quote


Graves concluded, in the second and expanded edition, that the monotheistic god of Judaism and its successors were the cause of the White Goddess's downfall, and thus the source of much of the modern world's woe. He also suggested that women cannot function as poets and lack the capacity for true poetic creation, because woman's role in poetry remains exclusively to serve as a muse for a male poet who worships her as a goddess. He did, however, acknowledge Sappho as a possible exception.


unquote


That's poetry babble for: "Mankind is out of harmony with Nature, and insomuch Nature's major effort is procreation, and Women the bearer of Children...anything less than absolute devotion to Women and Family is failure ."


Somehow the "poetry" in things has gotten confused into an effort for spiritual evolution, and the asectic's disregard for 'flesh'.brb...


quote


Asceticism (Greek: askēsis) describes a life-style characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures (especially sexual activity and consumption of alcohol) often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals. Christianity and the Indian religions (including yoga) teach that salvation and liberation involve a process of mind-body transformation that is effected through practicing restraint with respect to actions of body, speech and mind.




unquote


Ascetism becomes just another kind of hallucnigen...and not to be confused with "sobriety"....


This is all very hard to explain!


A side by side...from above...Vivaldi...


The birds celebrate her return with festive song, and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.


and


quote


Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir

Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,

And every song-bird shout awhile for her;




unquote


And that's from Grave's poem "In Dedication: The White Goddess"...which might be... after Yeat's "Second Coming"... the second worst poem ever written.


While the priests are looking to Armegeddon, resurrection and all that...the poet is just gratefull for the return of Nature...Springtime...no more...and certainly no less...than the simplest songbird...which few poets have any hope of matching in 'dedication'.
Ask any Priest and they'll tell you in an eyeblink that's it's the Women in the congregation that keep things going, it they're honest...and sober.
A good blog with a bit on Graves...


DavidDavid











Sunday, April 20, 2008

Roomies


Rybeck was on the Missouri again...and now another one on about some awful thing....where's the remote...brb...csi miami...sigh..it's sunday...




kinda at a loss for a thought!...oh...youtube...I've thought to youtube the clips...in fact tried that...but they link the clips to other clips...almost like an ad...and it pulls around the readers attention....fortunately blogger just does the clip without all that...nonetheless it's been suggested I youtube!...it would be nice when talking about a clip to say it's on youtube...I dont tell or ask or suggest to anyone to read Tree in the Door...a blog is kinda like a diary left out...




oh..it's cannibilism again...oh...there's an old thought!...roomies...from the very first I've thought to do a side by side by side of famous folk and their roommates...the most famous of course is Ishmael and Queequig...brb...




quote




With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and hideously marred about the face- at least to my taste- his countenance yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.








unquote




That's just great. Who else...Van Gogh and Gauguin...brb...




quote




They quarrelled fiercely about art. Van Gogh felt an increasing fear that Gauguin was going to desert him, and what he described as a situation of "excessive tension" reached a crisis point on 23 December 1888, when Van Gogh stalked Gauguin with a razor and then cut off the lower part of his own left ear lobe, which he wrapped in newspaper and gave to a prostitute named Rachel in the local brothel, asking her to "keep this object carefully."[








unquote




That's Van Gogh!




Pop lost an ear lobe....playing on the floor with Buffy our dog...toenail got caught and Buffy went off...snipped the lobe off clean...Pop raised his hand and I just said, 'Stop'....this from the couch lying side wise watching TV!...and we all caught our senses and well...it was Fourth of July in the emergency room...there was a long line...great pic of Pop holding Buffy when a puppy by his cheek....and all worked out...make up sloppy kisses with Buffy.... but it was a precursor of things to come doctor wise...but this is an aside...who else!...brb...oh...grumpy old men...brb...




quote




Oscar Madison: I can't take it anymore, Felix, I'm cracking up. Everything you do irritates me. And when you're not here, the things I know you're gonna do when you come in irritate me. You leave me little notes on my pillow. Told you 158 times I can't stand little notes on my pillow. "We're all out of cornflakes. F.U." Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!
Felix Ungar: In other words, you're throwin' me out.


Oscar Madison: Not in other words. Those are the perfect ones!








unquote




I'll maybe add some more sometime...and do one on co-workers!
DavidDavid








Saturday, April 19, 2008

Doomsday


There was a book, the Doomsday book...brb...

quote

The name Domesday comes from the Old English word dom, meaning accounting or reckoning. Thus domesday, or doomsday, is literally a day of reckoning, meaning that a lord takes account of what is owed by his subjects. Medieval Christians believed that in the Last Judgment as recorded in Revelation, Christ would carry out a similar accounting of one's deeds—hence the term doomsday also referred to this eschatological event.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesday_Book

unquote

It was an odd route that got me thinking about that...with the blogs I've taken...and taking...a kinda slice of things...it could be called a study of Nature over in Fauna and Flora...but it's not disciplined in scientific terms...or any terms!...a Naturalist would take copious notes and "bird counts"...a lot of that is done...very detailed recording reports...and they're filed and stored and I ...I dont think anyone ever looks at them again!....the data collected on some subjects is just huge...brb...

quote

Last week, up to 100 tapes, clearly marked "NASA Manned Space Center", turned up after a search in a dusty basement of a physics lecture hall at Curtin University of Technology in Perth, Western Australia. One of the old tapes has been sent to the American space agency to see whether it can be deciphered and 'stripped' of any important data which may have survived the ravages of time.

Lost Moon landing tapes discovered
1 November 2006
by Carmelo Amalfi
Cosmos Online

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/818

and in my thoughts I contrasted...sidebysided!...such data collecting with the History of Herodotus...I mean...what a loss it would be if he just wrote down data...like a Domesday book....anyway...I remembered that book...and it's peculiar tie in with Doomsday!

It's gotten to be a kinda chicken little blog..insomuch I keep coming back to things falling from the sky...or making the earth shake in the Midwest!...brb...

quote

And a Big One is hardly out of the question: The fault running up the Wabash Valley that scientists are initially thinking may have been responsible for this morning’s temblor is part of the same system that produced two of the three strongest earthquakes ever recorded in the Lower 48: The New Madrid, Mo., quakes of December 1811 and February 1812, each thought to have been magnitude 8 or greater.

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/an-earthquake-rattles-the-midwest/?hp

unquote

Article tries to set California and Illinois sidebyside...well...I was born there...but chicken little deserves a...brb!....

quote

The Sky Is Falling, better known as Chicken Licken, Henny Penny or Chicken Little is an old fable about a chicken (or a hare in early versions) who believes the sky is falling. The phrase, "The sky is falling," has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. This usage is generally derogatory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sky_Is_Falling_(fable)

unquote

well..it has been known to fall...there's these meteor holes all over after all!

and history repeating is an hysterically imminent threat!

and I seemed to have missed this one...

http://www.apple.com/trailers/disney/chicken_little/trailer_large.html

DavidDavid

Friday, April 18, 2008

Make Believe


I got to thinking about make believe today...when I worked at the Make Believe Kingdom...there wasn't much else!...and not so sure there's much more hereabouts in the Valley...


Oh, Reality...where are you!


brb...well..I did a couple searches then put together "make believe reality"...which actually has a kinda nice ring!..and it turned up this book..


PRISONERS FROM NAMBU: Reality and Make-Believe in 17th Century Japanes Diplomacy. By Reinier H. Hesselink. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. 2002. xii, 215 pp. US$47.00, cloth, ISBN 0-8248-2409-1; US$24.95, paper, ISBN 0-8248-2463-6.


lemesee if it's on Amazon...brb...not much...


but it's about Japan...and how they encountered the West....in fact a lot of Peoples encountered the West...but Japan was kinda different in that they could tell the West to bugger off and make it stick...they were isolated for..brb...


quote


In 1639, the shogunate began the isolationist sakoku ("closed country") policy that spanned the two and a half centuries of tenuous political unity known as the Edo period. The study of Western sciences, known as rangaku, continued during this period through contacts with the Dutch enclave at Dejima in Nagasaki. The Edo period also gave rise to kokugaku, or literally "national studies", the study of Japan by the Japanese themselves.[23]
On March 31, 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry and the "Black Ships" of the United States Navy forced the opening of Japan to the outside world with the Convention of Kanagawa.




unquote


quote


"a long rich history with an evolving culture"


from Larry King interviewing a reporter on the Women and Kids story..."they'll all go to Canada"...


unquote


The "black ships" always sounds so ominous!...brb...


quote


The Black Ships (in Japanese, 黒船, kurofune) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan between the 15th and 19th centuries. In particular, it refers to Mississippi, Plymouth, Saratoga, and Susquehanna, that arrived in 1853 at Uraga Harbor (part of present-day Yokosuka) in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan under the command of United States Commodore Matthew Perry. The word "black" refers to the black color of the older sailing vessels, and the black smoke from the coal-fired power plants of the American ships.




unquote


a "clash of cultures" Bergamini called it...brb....


a curio..


quote


Amongst vertebrates, especially so with mammals, polygyny is the most common mating system.




unquote


DavidDavid





Thursday, April 17, 2008

It's All in Our Heads

Richard Gere on in a spooker...Mothman Prohecies...is that the name?...another "supernatural things are real..." movie....Hollywood makes a lot of these...

It's an odd thing though....while I have the sensation of touch at my finger tips...it's actually all in my head and my brain is making it up that the sensation is at my fingers.

There's working a lot now trying to get mechanical things to feedback...heads up displays in jet fighters and such...brb...that's not quite what I had in mind...but it helped to locate this...

quote

Remote surgery (also known as telesurgery) is the ability for a doctor to perform surgery on a patient even though they are not physically in the same location. It is a form of telepresence. Remote surgery combines elements of robotics, cutting edge communication technology such as high-speed data connections and elements of management information systems. While the field of robotic surgery is fairly well established, most of these robots are controlled by surgeons at the location of the surgery. Remote surgery is essentially advanced telecommuting for surgeons, where the physical distance between the surgeon and the patient is immaterial. It promises to allow the expertise of specialized surgeons to be available to patients worldwide, without the need for patients to travel beyond their local hospital.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_surgery

unquote

It seems in the realm of the possible that someday the robots would have sensors that would hook into the surgeons' sense of touch...and they would actually have feeling in the "robot's hands"....it's just feedback...and the illusion of being 'there'....

cant remember how Clarke story went...brb...or was it Bradbury..brb!...

quote

Afflicted with myasthenia gravis from earliest childhood, Waldo lacks the muscular strength to walk or lift things with his arms. By living in the weightlessness of space he is able to move freely. His primary invention is a system of remote-controlled mechanical hands which the world has nicknamed "waldoes."



http://www.wegrokit.com/jmwami.htm

unquote

Well...it's Heinlein's tale...and in it the real and the supernatural are the subjects....I think the term 'waldo' for a remote robot got picked up...brb...

quote

This story has been largely forgotten (even though it still makes great reading). The notion of a waldo, however, has not. The word itself has come into common usage; the American Heritage Dictionary describes it as follows: "A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human limb." Real-life waldoes were developed for the nuclear industry during WWII; they were named after the invention described by Heinlein.

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=23

unquote

I think Clarke said technology can be like magic...brb...

quote

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

unquote

Oh...the Mothman is after this one...I dont know what I'm watching..and have really lost track...it goes on and on!

All the senses can be mimicked by machines...and create virtual realities...that term itself confuses me!..brb...

quote

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology which allows a user to interact with a computer-simulated environment, be it a real or imagined one. Most current virtual reality environments are primarily visual experiences, displayed either on a computer screen or through special or stereoscopic displays, but some simulations include additional sensory information, such as sound through speakers or headphones. Some advanced, haptic systems now include tactile information, generally known as force feedback, in medical and gaming applications.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_reality

unquote

well...he's running on the bridge...and has foreseen it's destruction...more cars crashing...movies are a kinda "waldo"....we can be made to feel we are in them...

But back to the Women and the Kids...a 'circus' the lawyer meeting was called!...something I thought on today was that they all looked trim and thin and healthy...and this for some on having had like nine kids!...didn't see any really old folk...where are the grandpas and grandmas?...brb...

quote

Apart from the 139 mothers and grandmothers who chose to accompany their children and are living with them at the temporary shelters, other mothers or fathers aren't allowed to see them.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,695269647,00.html

unquote

Here's a page with an account that predates the present...but if true the actions of Texas authorities are warrented...well...maybe not the heavy handedness. And that page links to a crusade of sorts against the polygamists...

Now it's Jodie Foster...

Both these movies and the Women and Kids stories are about 'reality' and how it is perceived.

It's late...gonna curl up and leave the TV playing....wait...no I wont!...it's not mothman...it's Hannibal!...

no pic...thought to do a side by side of street scenes from the nineteenth century with scenes from now...and to see how thin and wide they were then...and now.

DavidDavid

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Harems


Well...the "poygamist sect" story is going to be in the news a lot...I dont know if it is an off shoot of the orignal Mormons...who were notorious for polygamy...or the current Mormons are an off shoot of the "sect"...insomuch as the Mormons have abandoned polygamy...I think I have that right!...brb...


well..I looked up Deseret News and read today's take and then the comments...which all look to be written by sock puppets!...CNN is on and they keeps throwing out hypothetheticals...or throwing at...each candidate....it's an endless debate!...has been from beginning...overrule the generals...Anderson's yakking...this was all gone over in thread in jfk...an endless debate....


But..I got to thinking about Harems...usually they are portrayed as....unconventional....but in many parts of the world...among the wealthy and aristocracy...in history anyway...they were common...brb..


quote


The curious thing about polygamy, Van Wagoner says, is that for all the anguish it caused, it was never practiced by more than 20 percent of the Mormon population. "It was not a very easy system to maintain. There were practical difficulties—financial problems, personality conflicts, wives and children not getting along. It was always a difficult system." Mormon leader Brigham Young had 56 wives, but the average number was three, and an "acceptable number" for men who wanted to get ahead in the church hierarchy was two, Van Wagoner says.


and


Most accounts of polygamy in the press of the rest of the nation were inaccurate, portrayed, according to Van Wagoner, as "Mormon harems dominated by lascivious males with hyperactive libidos."
But that sensational tableau so gripped the nation that Utahns were in almost continual conflict with the federal government.




unquote


Dont know but it's the Harem dancers in the Sinbad movies...brb...




and that's the odd thing about all this...the Church group women don't look at all like they're going about enticing lascivious males!...


brb...


here's Conon Doyl's run in with the Mormons...




I did that up before somewhere...


brb...


quote


The doubts raised by church members were nothing compared with the vitriol unleashed by non-Mormons when the doctrine of polygamy became publicly known. It was denounced, along with slavery, as a "twin relic of barbarism" by the Republican Party in 1856 -- not an accidental linkage because opponents considered plural marriage a form of white slavery that degraded women. Polygamy also drew the attention -- and criticism -- of numerous novelists, even figuring in the first Sherlock Holmes adventure.




unquote


That's a PBS page...


What impresses me from the testimony of these women is that together they appear to be raising the children in a communal fashion....and from watching the behavior of the Deer hereabouts...how the Does takes care of the Fawns...what they are doing seems a kinda "natural" fit.


Clearly the nefarious would take advantage of this...and it may be impossible not to!...multiple wives....or is it multiple partners...I dont know...nor want to!...just how they arrange things!


brb...


quote


Female privacy in Islam is emphasized to the extent that any unlawful breaking into that privacy is Ḥarām "forbidden". Contrary to the common belief, a Muslim harem does not necessarily consist solely of women with whom the head of the household has sexual relations (wives and concubines), but also their young offspring, other female relatives, etc.; and it may either be a palatial complex, as in Romantic tales, in which case it includes staff (women and eunuchs), or simply their quarters, in the Ottoman tradition separated from the men's selamlik.




unquote


And that's curious...as a Buck will maintain the "sacredness" of its Does...its Harem...by fighting off other Bucks...and here too the Harem includes children and a lot of others.


I dont know if the Mormons use this arrangement...insomuch the women are married to just one husband I suppose it is...


brb...from same page...


quote


Many Westerners imagined a harem as a brothel consisting of many sensual young women lying around pools with oiled bodies, with the sole purpose of pleasing the powerful man to whom they had given themselves. Much of this is recorded in art from that period, usually portraying groups of attractive women lounging nude by spas and pools.


unquote


ah...another myth!
Larry King is interviewing the Women....this is gonna be grist for the playwrights...it has the making of Greek tragedy....but will go through the melodrama for TV route first.
And they wear distinctive clothes that set them apart...something I notice when Amish and such visit the Park...I find myself wanting to applaud they're dignified effort to live their own way...and they are always courteous. Larry's asking them how old they were when they were married...
quote
According to The History Channel, when the Great Depression hit the U.S., marriage rates plunged, and it became economically difficult for young people to form new households. "The marriage rate dropped almost 13 percent between 1930 and 1932, and by the end of the decade the average age at marriage had risen from 24.3 to 26.7 for men and from 21.3 to 23.3 for women."
and I wonder if Larry King has seen this stat...
quote
According to records at the Texas Department of Health, Liset was one of nearly 60 girls in that state who married in 2002 at the tender age of 14--the minimum age in Texas with parental consent. (A handful of other states sanction extremely early marriages with parental consent: In Alabama, South Carolina and Utah, girls can marry at 14; in New Hampshire it's 13; in Massachusetts and Kansas, 12.)
unquote
But I dont know if this is pertinent to this story...
now Larry is talking to a Canadian fellow who is a polygamist..."lawyers advised us to distance ourselves from underage marriages"
I would hope.
it's all very strange!..
Pic is a Delacroix
DavidDavid