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BYLINE: Content that consistently informs with clarity, class, context, credibility and character.
MOTTOS: Faster, Better, Easier, and Cheaper. Arete, Fait Lux, Meliora
GOALS: To play with ideas, trends, people, events, products and places that are fun, interesting, and perhaps even important. We are designed and built for speed; we aim to deliver using Twitter.
One minute of rhythmic.wav wakeup music, if you are in the mood.
Or, if you are a Jersey Boys, Four Seasons, or Frankie Valli Juke box music fan,
you may prefer "Big Girls Don't Cry."
Try a keyword site search using "Obama" .
- * Listing of Entries #1: Archived by Category: An extensive, sql alphabetized site grouping is available. Be patient and you will be rewarded. The listing is long!
- ** Listing of Entries #2: Archived by Date: A real-time, desc sql sort by Date is used.
Archives of Journal Entries: Organized by * Category and by ** Date. MySQL 5.x and BDB engine give a speed bump to our database tables.
The making of Inside the Meltdown by Frontline Producer, Michael Kirk of WGBH, Boston.
Sample Postings: 6 of the most recent entries ordered by date
[ Tuesday, November 30, 2004 14:53 PDT ]
Content is King: Expression Engine puts it on the line
Section:
WebWise Review
Summary:
Site Plans:
* December Holiday Theme
* Targeted Public Service
* Network of Content Contributors
* 2005 Plans. Integration of technology, organization of content, development of themes.
Main:
One point of departure is the graceful retirement of Tom Brokow from the network anchor desk at NBC. Energy, good humor, straight story telling, intelligence, credibility. He is the total package. Meanwhile, it is time to catch the Nightlly News. On Wednesday, December 1st, Brokow will be signing off.
What we like about Brokow:
* He is a small town rural western kind of guy.
* He is fun and filled with couriosity about people, places, events and elective politics.
* He has three daughters and is looking forward to time with grandkids.
* He is a gentleman Montana rancher like Chet Huntley and he likes to fish in British Columbia.
* He has been refined by time spent in the south, in California, in New York, and at ground zero spots around the world.
* He sees himself as a placeholder, not on icon growing long in the tooth, between Brinkley,Chancellor and Williams.
More:
[ Monday, November 29, 2004 13:13 PDT ]
Functional Foods, Nutraceuticals, Nutrigenomics, and Wine at Thanksgiving
Section:
Food and Nutrition
Summary:
Health, Food and the Holidays are much in the News. Recipes, Health, Carbs, Diets, Fat, Obesity Epidemics, Spirits and Vitamin Supplements are a regular part of the annual infotainment overload that follow on the heels of the the political media charge to the tape.
At UCDavis, the Robert Mondavi Research Center is on the drawing boards and is due to break ground in June of 2005. Wine is the focus. Wine has long been tauted for its health effects.
Main:
-The perfume of a quality Sonoma County Pinot Noir in a large wine glass is a perfect match for a turkey, gravy, baked sweet yams topped with pecans, and blackberry pie set on a Thanksgiving Day dinner table at Lake Tahoe.
Here, celebration, not health is the reason for the occasion. Hippocrates, Salvatore Lucia and the Medical Friends of Wine not withstanding, the late food writer, M.F.K. Fisher and Harvard School of Public Health, Nutrition Department founder, Dr. Fred Stare had it about right: It is mostly about friends, family and culture. We will leave the health benefit claims to marketing and sales departments. Dr. Graham, Kellogg and Post figured that one out long ago.
-The supplement and natural food crowd from Theophrasus, to Chinese herbalists, to Ayurvedic mystics, to Dr.Andrew Weil have been there and done that already.
-Meanwhile, at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Heart Association on Nov 10 in New Orleans,a medical group from Johns Hopkins reported a possible increase in heart deaths in a large collaborative study by the South-Western Oncology Group where Vitamin E was used as a “no harm” supplement.
-We note than:
* In some former states of nature, like the Inuits of the north, alcohol is not one of the “recognized” essential food groups. Cereal and ffruit are also in short supply.
* alcohol is a fuel with a value of 7 cal per gram.
* one serving takes 1 1/2 hrs. to metabolize.
* driving is not recommended for 4 hrs after 2 servings.
* cognitive function, judgment and reaction time are adversely affected by alcohol in a dose dependent manner.
* alcohol is not recommended for kids and pregnant women.
* alcohol has long been the subject of state sponsored Prohibition, Taxation, Regulation, Bonding, and moral censorship.
It is interesting that alcohol, tobacco and firearms are currently regulated by the same Federal bureau
More:
Backgrounder: • Basics: • Black and White: • Business and Trade: • Culture Clash: • Popular Culture: • Diet, Nutrition & Health: • Fact vs Fiction: • Medicine: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Saturday, November 27, 2004 13:58 PDT ]
Thanksgiving 2004: A White Holiday Kickoff at Tahoe
Section:
Travel
Summary:
The road to Tahoe for Thanksgiving and the Snow was clear and busy. A predicted storm dropped some fresh snow on the mountain peaks around the basin on Thursday. The real stuff came on Friday night. What a weekend to get 20” of dry powder. PP&E was nowhere to be found expect between the covers of Che.
The Picture Gallery of winter scenes is now open. Picture Gallery is a new Expression Engine 1.2.1 toy, tool or module. Your comments are invited.
Main:
The cooks, the game players, the digital camera grandkid shooters, the hikers, the football fanatics, the readers, sauna vikings and the snowboarders were all happy campers.
* Emma and Tessa Little of Davis were front and center in at the LakeShore. three generation friendly condo.
* The temperature was dropping and there was the feel of snow in the air.
* South Shore had a definite international flavor as reflected in the local eateries, including the local Santa Barbara pupuseria with and El Salvadorian family style menu. Asian-Americans and Hispanic Americans seem to have adopted the Heartland taste for family gatherings at Resort destinations. Seniors were well represented amoung the multigenerational family gatherings.
* The cellphone connected family callers from sunny Hawaii to Northern Wisconsin.
* The Casinos and the entertainment hot spots were beckoning like sirens from the eastern side of stateline.
* The Picture Gallery is a collection of categorized Images in a searchable database. Tahoe, Snow, Montains and Family are foundation content of this nascent image archive with category database management.
More:
The extended forecast is for more show in the High Sierra including the Tahoe Basin, Carson Pass and the old Mormon Trail.
[ Wednesday, November 17, 2004 13:28 PDT ]
Disasters: Some Lessons from Chernobyl: Nuclear Safety
Section:
Public Safely
Summary:
“People fear what they do not understand”
According to Dr. Thomas Cahill, who retired from the Applied Science Department at UCDavis, the nuclear core meltdown Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen because:
* The design of the facility was ill suited for the duel purpose of uranium enrichment and steam production for electrical power production.
* safety standards and system redundancy were not built into the design, the construction, the control systems or the human systems of the site.
* system testing was risky because of poor procedures and protocols, and conflicting missions from the USSR agencies managing the facility.”
Main:
It is Dr. Cahill’s opinion, the Japan, France and Sweden have developed nuclear power plant construction stategies and design that are safe and economically viable. He notes that nuclear plants are operating in urban Japanses communities without water cooling towers Hot water is piped off site for space heating.
In addition he is of the opinion that:
* The US will be faced with using the nuclear power energy option as a long-term strategy to reduce the cumulative effect of fossil fuel chemical emmissions on the biosphere.
* Deep mines that are not contiguous with the subterranean water table can be safely used for nuclear waste disposal. Also, the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada is safe, but expensive.
* Dispersal using “Do not Pollute - Dilute ” policies may be too Cute to Suit the likes of Neptune and Solon.
* The bioeffects of radiation on populations are better studied, mitigated and monitored than are most chemicals and most Genomicially Modified organism..
More:
Davis Community: • International House: • Science and Technology: • Physical Sciences: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Tuesday, November 16, 2004 14:33 PDT ]
The Blues in Davis
Section:
Essays
Summary:
The sky has been blue, clear, clean and calmm in Davis this week.
* The Farmer’s Market was bright civil and was a nearly a politics free zone. The usual listserve jockeys were trolling for “write you elected official ” vollunteers. The news you can use pearl for the day is that many UC Davis and community folk are sending their sons and daughters to the Heartland for college. Places like Whitman, Kenyon, Northwestern offer small classes, scholarships and great mentoring by dedicated teachers who are not members of the tenured faculty merely because of their research funding pipeline.
* However, many activists, academics and retirees in the community continue to be untrusting at best and fearful at worse about the prospects of jobs, prosperity, peace and civil rights.
* The Christmas book season is seen as an oppoortunty to move the inventory of the liberal left fiction off the shelves. The Bookseller of Kabul is one example.
* Meanwhile, Sociology students are taking life histories from Viet Nam Vets and biology graduate students are working to cure cancer and prevent heart disease. Since the news that excessive Vitamin E, widely recommended as an antioxidant supplement, may increase CAD in some populations, some in the “Nutritional Sciences” are revisiting pet theories and various counterintuitive antiaging food cults and compaigns.
* The Morning News Media has gone music and mushy crazy after overdosing on the Olympics, the Middle East and the Election.
* It was Blue Monday after the Aggies footballers lost at home to a good Norht Dakota State team.
Main:
Meanwhile, all will be put in prospective after a local Physics and Applied Science guy revisits the Russian Nuclear Power Plant History. Come to think about it, Russian, Iranian, Pakistan, and Norht Korean Nuclear development will be on the plate of one Condellezza Rice from her post as the next Secretary of State.
Now you know the rest of the story of WMD. MS. Rice will be viewed with sceptism by the nytimes and the International Relations community around the world. The truth of the matter is she is tough, smart, experienced, not given to small talk, plays to win in the High Stakes World of Nuclear Proliferation and Real Politic, and she knows who she works for. While loyal and discrete, she is not a servant or ” what is the other S word” ? She is a warrior. Her critics have repeatedly underetimated the quality of steel in this lady’s spine. They are remain capable of repeating their errors of judgement about her character and capacities. At the age of 50, she will be on the move and on the go around the world.
However, General/Secretary Colin Powell is a tough act for anyone to follow. The good news is, there will be no tell all, inside the Westwing script/books to be penned by either Rice or Powell for fat advances.
More:
Political Watch: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Wednesday, November 10, 2004 13:36 PDT ]
Veteran’s Day 2004: A Legacy Journal Tribute to the Great Generation
Section:
WebWise Review
Summary:
Occasionally, we will Review a topical internal or external website story source.
On Veteran’s Day 2004 we salute a Navy man from Oregon, Wayne Fisk. He, Eastern Oregon, the State , the Spirit of the West and Young Men at Sea in the Pacific during WW II on the LSM 371 are only part of a bigger and continuing saga.
Main:
* What is the Lincoln connection to California and Oregon Statehood and the election of 1860?
* What was the role of native American Indians and Chinese from California in the settling of Grant County Oregon?
* Who were the Eccles of Utah and what was their role in Baker County?
* Why were sheep an important early component of the livestock industry in Eastern Oregon?
* How do wool, wheat, timber and the rivers of the region, including the Columbia combine to contribute to the economy of the region and the chacter of her people.?
More:
News: • National: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
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