Viewer Platform:
Browser name: other
Browser version:
OS: other
:
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
[ Wednesday, October 31, 2007 05:17 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Wednesday Wakeup Call: A Return to the Basics
Section:
Education
Summary:
“Be quick. Be fast. But, do not hurry or rush.”——- adapted from Coach Wooden
” Beware the frequent parent interview trap of the childlike gotcha question, “Why?” Why me? Why now? Why here? Why ....?
” In clear thinking and balanced writing , always distinguish between fact and fiction, evidence and proof, association and the science of cause and effect”
Three Wakeup Calls:* ET meets IT: It has gone global. We call it the third leg of the IT
stool that is stable and supported by the synergy triad of Internet, Information and Instructional Technologies. This technology troika is well illustrated by the powerful math model of the Venn Diagram.
* * Headliners.
* * * Jump Starters.
Main: Education:
journalist Tom Friedmanis back on track and back on message with his column about ET plus IT in rural India. BTW, we are using the permalink feature, and bypassing the nytimes archives for our links.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/opinion/31friedman.html?ex=1351
basics article by Natalie Angier, visits a magnet school and physical science classroom in Virginia for a blast of fresh air.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/science/30angi.html?ex=1351483200&en=af7c
We we impressed a recent ABC evening news report from the field on the wonders and the science of fall leaf color change. On the question for Why leaves change color, there seems to be several theories, but no consensus among botanists, cell biologists, evolution scientist, and ecology researchers
Headliners::
* This morning we awoke to the fearful warning that many plastic products contains globally used, long studied, “everywhere chemical” hardening and clearing agent. Bisphenol A and phthalates are the class of chemical compounds. A federal government PhD laboratory reproductive toxicology researcher reports that she has found paraovarian cysts in mouse she has injected with the compound. She is apparently concerned a possible association with future reproduction in mice. So what about human females and children? “More studies and funding are needed “
A recent CNN report cites a 2005 study by Shanna Swan, a professor of obstetrics/gynecology at the University of Rochester (N.Y.) School of Medicine and Dentistry, showing that sons whose mothers had higher phthalate levels in their urine, in particular a dibutyl phthalate, had a shorter distance between the anus and the genitals.
* Once again, we are told that there is a measurable association between a couple of swallows of wine with your lingini with clam sauce and breast cancer/
Jump Starters:::
* On a per CPU installed base, the sing versions of Apple OSX 1.50, Leopard is selling at twice the rate of the multiple versions of Windows Vista.
* The New York Board of Reagents is attempting to jump start there P-16 program aimed at “At Risk Students”. These student were identified by the studies and analysis of Brooklyn native, Harvard professor and former NY-D Senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. They tend to be poor, minorities, without fathers in the household. The educational establishment in NY, was well represented in a video conference hookup on WXXI this week. Featured was the current president of CUNY , and the Superintendent of the Buffalo Public School system. Clearly the focus was on the four year colleges. Sadly, there was no discussion on job and technical training in the state’s community colleges.
* Finally, Revkin a nytimes roving reporter on the global environment has
a blog, dot earth</a>.. The Arctic is his current beat, but he would rather travel to a tropical rain forest, beach or coral reef.
More:
Calendar: • Demographics: • Diversity: • Google: • Headliners: • IT3 Tech: • Jump Start: • Justice: • Medicine: • New York: • Cities: • News: • Political Watch: • Science and Technology: • Natural Sciences: • Physical Sciences: • Social Sciences: • SeniorStatesmen: • Trifecta: • Rhetoric: • Metaphors: • Dollars and Cents: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Tuesday, October 30, 2007 06:30 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Tuesday Truth Telling: Schulz, Manhattan, and Radiation Therapy for Breast Cancer
Section:
Cartoons
Summary:
Three Views in the Rear View Mirror.
* PBS American Masters: Charles Schulz - the Video.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/schulz_c.html
* The Manhattan Project: What is in a Name? A nytimes view of some NYC, Columbia University, and European connections.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/science/index.html
* Breast cancer treatment: The good news and the bad news.
Bernadine Healy, M.D., USNews, Health Editor.
Main:
* Monday’s PBS American Master’s presentation of the world of Charles Schulz is based on a recently published book by HarperCollins. The preview reviews give the production a fair, but not great rating. The psycho babble and Citizen Kane stuff took the pace out of the heart story. The middle of the one and one half hour presentation was a hard slog. It was like glue on the bottom of minimalist cross country skis designed for efficient gliding while enjoying the non gloomy surrounding and experience. The local Santa Rosa paper reports on the reaction of Jeannie, the Schulz widow
and chief tender of the legacy flame.
* Nuclear containment remains the key to understanding bipartisan American foreign affairs interests, policy, tactics, and strategy since the end of WW II. Containment includes securing sources, storage, distribution, and processing of a critical and limited resource, uranium ore.
radiation therapy in the treatment of breast cancerhas well known long term effects on the heart. USNews and World Report, editor, Dr. Bernadine Healy, M.D. reports to consumers on the current state of medical knowledge.
Finally, on the light side of the news, the young mid afternoon crew at CNN had fun with a
video feed from Klamath Falls, Oregon today. The event was the long planned levee demolition with 200,000 lbs of explosives , reflooding of 2,500 acres of formerly productive farm land owned by the Nature Conservancy. and the restoration of marsh habitat for two endanger species of suckers, the short snout and the Lost River.
Not lost on the drought plagued Atlanta area team was the spectacle of propagating “sacred” suckers while sacrificing valuable irrigated wheat land. They could were unable to hide their laughter. The watercooler remarks around the newsroom, and around the nations bars and barbershops can not be repeated on the public airways. The locals know the real laugher. The local Chiloquin Tribe has 300 aces of tribal land inhabited by nine people, including five caucasians In the early 1960s The Tribe sold productive Reservation timberlands. At that time, some tribe members invested in income property, others spent their inheritance and destroyed their economic future. Ironically a casino in the small town of Chiloquin has been a source of jobs and tribal income. The tribe is reported to have a membership of near 3,000.
More:
Backgrounder: • Barber Shop: • Business and Trade: • Calendar: • Chronicles: • Fast Facts: • Fifth Quarter: • Foul Ball: • Heartland: • History: • History and Heritage: • IT3 Tech: • Internet Tech: • Life Lines: • Media Watch: • Medicine: • New York: • Cities: • News: • The Water Cooler: • Side Effects: • Timeline: • Trifecta: • Values: • Wary Eye: • Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: • Young at Heart: • Dollars and Cents: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Monday, October 29, 2007 06:11 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Monday Morning Frost Start: Three Thoughts from the North Country
Section:
Climate Change
Summary:
The first frost of the season in on the pumpkin in upstate New York. So, it is time to link Charlie Brown, with fall color chemistry, and with the cultures of New York, the Empire State.
Main:
It is just in time for Halloween, the annual Charlie Brown Pumpkin TV hoiday repeat on ABC, and tonight’s new PBS American Master’s, presentation of the work and live of Charles “Sparky” Schulz of St Paul, MN and Santa Rosa, CA..
* On a seasonal note, the nytimes has a colorfully illustrated multipedia supplement to an article about
a Jewel in the Adirondacks. The state park is the nation’s largest and is the site of a controversial Nature Conservancy conservation vs logging vs multiple area stakeholder issues..
science of the changing fall colors? The fun chemistry folks at the University of Wisconsin have some answers.
MAD science folks. A cell biologist at the University of Massachusetts posts his answer to the question, ” How do pine needles manage to stay green during the winter?” The short answer to a long process is, ” Evolutionary adaptation.”
Meanwhile New Yorks continue to be confused about the irrational behavior of home owners in fire zone areas on the edge of public lands like the San Bernardino National Forest near Lake Arrowhead. But, the same could be said of those who choose to live in flood zones, high rises, crime zones, pollution, potholes, rural areas without sewers, water, power, shopping , public education or immediately available 24 x 7 x 365 public health and safety services.
Some seem to be proposing a national conversation about a standardized land use and building system for the entire nation. That is about as likely to happen as House Way’s and Means Committee Chairman Rangle’s (D-NY) , most recent proposal to reform federal the tax code by imposing a surtax on high income earners. A-Rod of the Yankees?
BTW, forecasting complex systems using pundits, experts, computer modeling, modern technology, or fortune tellers is risky business. Recent example come to mind:
Sports:
* The likelihood one month ago of the Denver Rockies winning the National League and playing the Red Sox in October in the World Series.
* The pre-season sportswriter probability of #4 Oregon and #6 Arizona State playing in Eugene for a likely Pac 10 Championship and possible BCS bowl bid. There is a rumor that the ESPN ABC Game Day guys may be making a return visit to Eugene.
Economy:
* A Strong economy and stock market evaluation of US equities led by export sales and global capital market flows despite the prospect of higher oil prices, substantial sub-prime rate home mortgage write-offs, and a popular culture that sadly appears focus on fear and finds fault with the country’s past, past and future. Congress and the direction of domestic policy, and the Administration, and the direction of foreign affairs are but two examples.
Environment:
* This weekend, the nation was again told that one third of domestic agriculture production is dependent on the regional honeybee suppliers. With disappearing bees and hive “collapse” the market price to rent pollinators by producers of blue berries in Maine has skyrocketed. Meanwhile, apples and cider from around the country appear to be in good supply at the local markets and roadside stands in upstate New York.
* Meanwhile, a plague of black letter lawyers and judges trying to bring their visions of order out of Gore and CO2 climate change chaos. A senior magistrate in Britain as ruled that the video, An Inconvenient Trust can be shown in school classes if nine error of fact are corrected. A Kansas ruling has denied an application for a new coal fired plant on the basis of its possible adverse effects on atmospheric Green House Gases. Finally, the emerging European trading market for carbon offsets is reportedly around $ 36 a ton.
After to do the currency exchange rate , the metric system , and the molecular conversions, I gave up because of a headache. I am sure the headache was cause by an acute imbalance in my internal carbon dioxide levels. Whether too high from breath holding or too low because of hyperventilation I an not sure. But, stress is the effect and carbon dioxide is surely either the direct or indirect cause.
More:
Business and Trade: • Calendar: • Monday: • Demographics: • Earth Sciences:: • Fifth Quarter: • History and Heritage: • Justice: • Nature: • New York: • Regions: • News: • Regional: • Personalities: • Propositions: • Science and Technology: • Natural Sciences: • Biology: • Molecular Biology: • Physical Sciences: • Trifecta: • Wilderness: • Metaphors: • Climate Change: • Dollars and Cents: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Sunday, October 28, 2007 11:03 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: California, A High Maintenance State of Affairs.
Section:
Environment
Summary:
For those of us with a suspicious, north of the Tehachapi—north of the Siskiyous, view of California tend to see what the Me Generation calls “a high maintenance relationship” with the its neighbors, the rest of the West, the rest of the Nation, and yes, the rest of the World. Take energy as one example. California is far from self sufficient. It is dependent on states like Oregon, Utah, Wyoming , and Alaska to DAM Salmon migration, mine coal, take the C02 and sulfuric rain environmental hits, and the oil drilling and caribou migration hits. Meanwhile, the storm of green scorn is generated by those who live, work, drive and fly in relative comfort if not subsidized luxury. Heartlanders are not amused. One is reminded that relationships, without a long term commitment to a less than utopian reality, tend not to endure inevitable episodes of shared pain and loss. What is sustaining is an understanding of shared mutual interests in an atmosphere of respect and compromise.
California is a place populated by people from somewhere else. Life is good. Dreams are fulfilled. Youth is given its due. Popular culture is scripted, canned and exported. The perceived pain threshold of more than 30 million residents is defined down. The state attracts high risk capital, research funds, entrepreneurial business, a plague of political and advocacy fund campaigners, and not a few gold diggers.
Main:
, today penned his view while on a visit to California this week. His message seemed characteristically expansive as he reflected on the lack of fall colors at Washington, D.C. golf courses and the lack of water in the dry fire belching canyons of Southern California. We note from San Diego that Qualcomm stadium will host an NFL game today, and a sampling of area WebCams shows clear visibility.
Now, fall colors is a subject about which Pacific Northwesterners and upstate New Yorkers are passionate. This year, autumn hues are on time and in their prime, at least in Eugene, Oregon and Rochester, New York. Nytimes sports writer,
Pete Thamel leadin his coverage of the # 5 University of Oregon Duck football team victory over USC at 1200, Saturday in Eugene where 60,000 green and yellow fans filled Autzen Stadium against the bright and colorful tree line backdrop along the banks of McKenzie and Willamette rivers.
The view and the 40 degree air temperature on my 30 minute bike sprint to a JCC workout was inspiring and bracing. The northerly weather front from the Canadian side of Lake Ontario was producing the forecasted “lake effect” .
Meanwhile, the mortals among those of us who frequent the men’s locker room at the JCC , watch the political, spots and climate pundits perform their usual Sunday morning rituals, and then offer our own cryptic critical reviews. This morning we were impressed by one freshing view of the State of California. Senator Dianne Feinstein is a serious and thoughtful politician. Her on scene post-response analysis seemed fair, genenous , and free of partisan point scoring. Before leaving Washington for California , ehe also crossed party lines and voted a Federal Judgeship nominee out of the Judicial Committee. The same can be said that Pete Thamel is practical and pragmatic. Thank you both.
Finally, a friendly, but unsolicited , answer to Tom Friedman’s lead question about ending his career in journalism glued to the Weather Channel to judge the State of the World. Tom, there is no substitute for objective field work, good sources, solid science, a day at the game and a bike ride in the park to clean the mind of images and metaphors reflecting a mood of pessimism and pending catastrophe. It seems to work for many thoughtful senior’s at the JCC along the colorful Erie Canal towpath in the intermittently sunny environs of Brighton, NY where golf , not climate change, is one favorite religion of choice. The Church of Golf seems to attract and retain those who can absorb the humbling nature of the game.
BTW, the forecast in Denver, CO is 4-O Red Sox.
More:
Backgrounder: • Calendar: • Earth Sciences:: • Energy: • Exercise and Health: • Fact Check: • Fifth Quarter: • Heartland: • New York: • News: • Sports: • Political Watch: • Straight Talk: • Truth Telling: • Washington Watch: • Climate Change: • Certainty: • Punditry: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
[ Saturday, October 27, 2007 08:07 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: California wild fires and the Enviroment: Perspective, Review and Reflection
Section:
Environment
Summary:
” The annual California wildfires are to the Katrina Hurricane disaster along the Gulf Coast what a mosquito bite is to a White Shark attack’‘
Here, we present three recent views of science, writing and the representation of the forces of Nature. One is a young book writer interviewed by Charlie Rose, the second is a science scene blogger at the University of California, Davis, and the third is by Spenser Hui, a serious and sober Washington Post reporter on the weekly PBS TV, Washington Week in Review in association with the National Journal.
Main:
BTW, Al Gore and his movement are on a roll. His estimated $100 million personal net worth, his Nobel Prize, and his Academy has spawned an formidable army of message carriers. The magnet and multiplier effects of his trifecta are clear. The evidence is palpable in the popular culture.
Examples include:
* The Harvard Medical School “affiliated”, Center for Health and the Global Environment, directed by the psychiatrically oriented, Eric Chevian, M.D. a CO recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. By all accounts, he is not a trained earth, weather or climate scientist. Here is an example of a scientist and administrator in a public policy position.
Meanwhile, today, the football Trojans of USC have traded the air quality of the L.A. basin for the hostile environmental habitat of the University of Oregon Duck, Autzen Stadium. There, 60,000 fans have be advised to wear sound reflecting plastic rain gear so as to elevate the decibel level on the field. The risk is OSHA acoustic environmental health hazard penalties. No stupid penalties or ball turnovers and the Ducks win the game.
More:
[ Friday, October 26, 2007 12:21 PDT ]
Legacy Journal: Floods, Fire and Famine: Friday Fishwrap
Section:
Environment
Summary:
“The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.”———- Walter Bagehot
“One person’s education may be another persons propaganda, or another’s attempt at mass brainwashing without resorting to torture.”
A recent mailing from Carl Pope, the Executive Director of the John Muir Society, was an appeal for funding the John Muir Foundation.
Coincidentally, PBS, NOW reports this weekend on a one week summer time eco-tourism Alaskan exposure by a small diverse group of concerned scientists and mega church preachers. For most it was a first time experience to witness glacier retreat at one of Alaska’s 100,000 glaciers. They traveled by bus from Anchorage International Airport, and by chartered jet to a Arctic Circle Inuit village. There, they traveled by motor powered boats to sea ice fields. During the winter months the local native travel across ice like modern Viking native in Minnesota——by snow mobile. BTW, the native Alaskan and pet diet is mostly store bought and heavily fortified with the universal north county antifreeze—- imported ethanol.
Main:
The fund and consciousness raising campaign was interest not in the fact that the Directors are against the oil drilling in Alaska, coal fuel electrical power plants in the continental US, and firefighting access roads in the National Forests. That is more important the scope of networking, partnering, and the types environmental activism and “education” at work around the country. It is a big tent open to those with power and influence including perhaps 100 million Evangelical Christians.
More:
Calendar: • Corrections and Clarifications: • Fish Wrap: • History and Heritage: • News: • Hot Spot: • Oregon: • Political Watch: • Power Play: • Wilderness: • Climate Change: • (0) Comments: • (0) Trackbacks: • Permalink:
AKA: webscribe2.
