: We are expanding the use of tags and categories to our journal postings. To access the complete list, click on Achieve Listing # 1, * . It is located up north, just above the first of the most recent 30 postings. Be patient and our mysql ver 5.xserver will prepare a nice alphanumeric listing that is fresh and current. We also use PHP 5.X
:: We strongly recommend Firefox 3.5 in the full and the Portable versions. We are featuring some new Jquery and Ajax features on our CP and at this site.
::: New features will be included in the long awaited 2.O version of Expression Engine from EllisLabs. That product is coded using the internally constructed tool, CodeIighter. Here, we plan to use standard industrial strength tools like mysqli, InnoDB,
BDB
, Falcon and perhaps even sqlite. It is our clear understanding that serious commercial applications require ACID compliant, transaction safe, storage engines.
Google apps from the Lab, Gears, and Webkit are also interesting tools.
The newest boy toy is a Toshiba NB 205 with Skype, FireFox 3.5.x, XP , WiFi, Atom CPU,and a Webcam.
The Ducks are preping for the BSU Broncos in Boise, Idaho. The nytimes has both teams in the top 25.
Meanwhile, Obama is on the Cape with the wife, the kids, the dog, and of course the press.
The economy, the bailouts, and public policy has put the Federal deficit into a tailspin to the tune of 1.5 Trillion $.
It is time for some WiFi mojo at the local libraries, bookstores, JCC, RIT/Osher, and the Summit Dr. Clearwire setup. It is time some serious journaling.
Fattal spent three years recently living with a group dedicated to sustainable farming near Cottage Grove, Oregon. He lived with about nine others and worked as the group’s intern coordinator before leaving about eight months ago, according to Jason Brown, who now holds Fattal’s job.
From January to June, Fattal traveled overseas as a teaching assistant with the International Honors Program, visiting Switzerland, India, South Africa and China on a global ecology program. Fattal had been a student in the program during college, president Joan Tiffany said.
“He’s a very thoughtful, caring person, soft-spoken, smart, bright. Has lots of travel experience, and is someone that I would expect to be an experienced camper,” Tiffany said.
As a followup to the posting on Daniel Morgan, is is only fair and fitting to note that his troop of snipers at the first and second battles at Saratoga were from Tennessee and Kentucky and that they supplied their own rifles. One of their kills was the Canadian general, Simon Fraser who was single out, shot out of his saddle, died and was buried before nightfall. Later, he had a university named for him. Frazer, a Scot in the service of the the Army and the King, was never known to have been in British Columbia.
Meanwhile, the families of the three young American explorers who are being held by Iranian authorities have been informed that by are in custody. Their location and status remains unknown. According to the U.S. State Department, the Swiss embassy in Tehran is representing US interests in the case.
Brigadier General Daniel Morgan
By V.G. Fowler, Park Ranger
D Morgan
Charles Willson Peale portrait of Daniel Morgan courtesy of Independence National Historical Park
Daniel Morgan was born of Welsh parents in 1736. Because he rarely spoke of his early life, much of it remains a mystery. Therefore, his contemporaries assumed that his younger years must have been painful. Most authorities agree that Morgan was born in Hunterdon County, New Jersey. After having an argument with his father when he was about seventeen years old, he left home without his parents’ knowledge or permission and moved to Virginia.
When Morgan arrived in Virginia, he could barely read and write. His manners were rude, and he enjoyed fist fighting. He eventually became adept at card games and enjoyed strong drink. His first job was to prepare land for planting. Young Daniel was a hard worker and soon moved to another position as superintendent of a sawmill. After that he became a wagoner, a person who drove a wagonload of supplies across the mountains to the settlers.
He served as a wagoner for the British Army during the French and Indian War. It was during this period that he got his nickname, “The Old Wagoner.” In the spring of 1756, as Morgan was taking a load of supplies to Fort Chiswell, he somehow irritated a British Lieutenant who struck Morgan with the flat of his sword. Morgan characteristically knocked out the officer with a single blow of his fist. As a result, he was court-martialed and sentenced to 500 lashes. In later years, Morgan delighted in telling that the drummer who was counting the lashes miscounted, and he only received 499. Morgan always maintained that the British owed him one more lash. In 1757, Morgan joined the British army, and several influential men recommended to the governor that Morgan be made a captain, but the only rank available was that of ensign. Morgan accepted the commission. As Ensign Morgan and two escorts were taking a dispatch to the commanding officer at Winchester, Virginia, Indians ambushed them at Hanging Rock. They killed the escorts and seriously wounded Morgan. The bullet, which struck him in the back of his neck, knocked out the teeth on his left jaw, and exited his cheek. Morgan carried the scar the rest of his life.
In 1759 Morgan bought a two-story house (which he named Soldier’s Rest) in Winchester, and by 1763 he had set up housekeeping with Abigail Curry. They were officially married in 1773. In the meantime, she had a positive influence on his manners and morals. Daniel and Abigail Morgan had two daughters. (One, Nancy, married Presley Neville, a Revolutionary War veteran. Their other daughter, Betsy, married James Heard, also a Revolutionary War veteran.) In addition, Morgan had an illegitimate son, Willoughby,* who grew up in South Carolina.
Having no love lost for the British, Daniel Morgan joined the American army and accepted a commission of captain of a rifle company when the Revolutionary War began. The British captured Morgan and his riflemen along with Benedict Arnold at Quebec in December 1775. They paroled them eight months later on the promise that the parolees would not fight against the British until they were exchanged for British prisoners. Morgan distinguished himself at both Battles of Saratoga in 1777, and many historians believe that he did not get the credit that he deserved for his actions.
In 1779, having been passed over for promotion to Brigadier General, Morgan resigned from the Army. In June 1780, Congress offered Morgan command of the Southern Theatre of the war. Since Congress had not offered him a promotion to go with the new command, Morgan declined and remained a civilian. After Gates’ disastrous defeat at Camden, SC, Morgan put aside his personal feelings for the good of the country and rejoined the army in the Southern Campaign. In October of 1780, Congress finally gave him a promotion to Brigadier General.
Perhaps Morgan’s most memorable moment came on January 17, 1781. It was at the Cow Pens, a well-known pasturing area for cattle in the upcountry of South Carolina, that Morgan with his experienced, but untrained, militia and 300 Continentals defeated the better-trained British army under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. Morgan knew his men and his opponent, knew how they would react in certain situations, and used this knowledge and the terrain to his advantage. The Americans camped on the battlefield the night before the battle. Morgan went amongst the men: encouraging them, telling them what he expected of them, and showing them his back, complete with the scars from his flogging.
On the morning of January 17, Morgan deployed his men in three main lines of defense. He knew that the militia had a tendency to run. Therefore he divided them into two groups and placed his sharpshooters on the top of a gentle rise and ordered them to fire twice and then retreat behind the second line. The second line of militia were positioned just behind the crest of the hill and were to fire twice and then retreat behind the Continentals who were about 150 yards behind them. Morgan knew he could count on the Continentals to take the hardest part of the fighting and that they would not run. He prepared them for the militia’s retreat. He placed his reserves, Washington’s cavalry, in a swale that hid them from the British view. He knew that Tarleton’s aggressive nature would lead him to drive straight into the Americans.
The British arrived about dawn, and Tarleton sent them into battle before they were fully deployed. The militia fired as ordered and retreated. The British pressed on valiantly, engaging the Continentals and fighting hard. Tarleton ordered the 71st Highlanders to advance. They threatened the American right side, and Lieutenant Colonel John Eager Howard ordered the men on the right to turn to face the new threat. The order was mistaken, and the entire line began an orderly retreat. Morgan used the mistaken order to his advantage. He ordered the 3rd line to retreat to a place which he chose and then to fire. Meanwhile, thinking that they had won the battle, the British broke ranks and charged forward. The Patriots surrounded the British. The Americans won.
Because he had sciatica so bad that it was too painful for him to sit on a horse, Morgan retired to his home in Virginia after the Battle of Cowpens. He later built another house which he named Saratoga for the famous battles in New York at which he had distinguished himself. On March 25, 1790 he finally received a gold medal which Congress had struck to honor him for his victory at Cowpens. Following the Revolution, Morgan organized and led a group of militia against the protesters during the Whiskey Rebellion. In 1797 he was elected and served one term in the House of Representatives. He died on July 6, 1802.
Daniel Morgan is a prime example of what one can accomplish with one’s life if one works hard and plans well. As his biographer James Graham stated, “His strength and spirit, his frank and manly bearing, his intelligence and good-humor, set off by a rich fund of natural wit, which he kept in constant exercise, rendered him a favorite among the people, and contributed to give him a great influence over his associates.”
*See Daniel Morgan: Revolutionary Rifleman by Don Higginbotham.
To learn more about Daniel Morgan, read the following books:
*
Life of General Daniel Morgan of the Virginia Line of the Army of the United States by James Graham
*
Daniel Morgan Revolutionary Rifleman by Don Higginbotham
*
“Downright Fighting”: The Story of Cowpens (Official National Park Handbook) by Thomas J. Fleming
*
A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens by Lawrence E. Babits
*
Encyclopedia of the American Revolution by Mark M. Boatner III
*
Battle of Cowpens: A Documented Narrative and Troop Movement Maps by Edwin C. Bearss
During the Dog Day’s of August it is standard practice for the media to feature themselves. This Sunday is was all about media coverage of the Health Care Reform debate, and Medical Insurance malfeasance.
The discussions were now all about:
* refining the message in the face of public confusion, anger, and fall poll numbers.
* appropriate end of life care, living wills, directives on the occasion of death, and counseling, funded or otherwise has been removed from pending federal legislation.
* cost shifting, burdens, benefits, mandates, phase in requirements, benefit creep, and the growing nation debt are now squarely on the table.
* former Senator, Tom Daschle, having lost out at HHS and the inner circle on policy in the White House continues to opine as to the poor quality of medical care based on outcomes compared to some of our European friends. He appears to discount the role of research, technology, obesity, consumer choice, patient and family expectations, and defensive medicine as drivers of the cost of care.
OK, so it may be the middle of the summer silly season, but it is never too late to poke fun at pretentious Americans in pants in hot pursuit of injustice around the world starting in Africa.
Speaking of U.S Secretary of Global Women’s Right’s Hillary Rodham Clinton, LLD, we have noted some angst in her messages from Nigeria and the Congo.
For example:
* Recently, she lectured Nigerians from her podium on the lessons of accepting close election result without violent and used the Florida 2000 example to illustrate her point.
* While visiting the Congo Republic, she was off base in angerly and reflexly responding to a mistranslated student question that appeared to demean her status as foreign policy mover, shaker, and spokeswoman”. “My husband is not the secretary of state; I am.” was the undiplomatic Hillary retort.
* Hillary appears to disremember that the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo is the result of inaction by the World, the UN, and the Clinton administration during the Genocide in Rwanda.
* If Holbrooke has the Gulf and Pakistan, and Mitchell has the middle East. One might suppose that Hillary is left with the darkest of sub-Saharan Africa.
* Meanwhile, the VP in charge of administration’s delicate one on one diplomacy, Joe Biden, is on schedule to spend time with his president and the visiting Head of State from Egypt this week.
* Hillary spokeswomen admit that that she may have been stressed by her seven country eleven day expedition.
The following was sent from Nepal, near the base of the Himalyas, by daughter Tanya (Sugar) Fisk . The occasion is the worrisome detention of three American explorers who recently wandered across the northern Iraqi - Iranian border. Josh is one of her friends from Cottage Grove, Oregon near Eugene. We would all wish that poetry and prose from the heart would carry the day. But, we know that “real politique” is the name of game.
‘On the seashore of endless worlds, children meet.’
-Rabindranath Tagore
He would get really excited when you’d pull out a map of the waterways. The tea would be moved aside, and the piles of acorns and walnuts we’d gathered, and a dozen open magazines, books, references. To make room in the center of the floor. To give it space, as if the local creeks and rivers were already flowing, in miniature, across the floor, in and out his windows and open door. He was living in small town rural Oregon, southern end of the Willamette Valley and would be leaving in the fall after three years. This was it, last chance Texaco and I know he felt the clock ticking for some time with the twin questions : how can I cherish and deepen my last 9 months in this place and where shall I go from here? He did what he did when he sought focus, direction and felt the intimate press of time’s passing…he made A Plan. This would be the Year of the Local, he would explore local history, grow, eat and teach about local food, join the local radio station as a DJ. And the foundational study, walking the land and learning the watershed.
It wasn’t just Spring and Summer he explored the waters. He adored being in the rainy Autumn woods and walking through the Winter chill until he warmed. He talked about watersheds like he talked about great libraries. He spoke of their sources and confluences like he spoke about the perennial wisdom of the spiritual traditions of the world. For my beloved friend, Josh Fattal, co-founder of the Free Walkers Society (of which we were the only members, for now), water was source. And tracing it’s footprint, finding it’s origin, knowing what connected to what, was adventure, discovery and history in one silvery wave after the next. All the way to the sea. To him it seemed knowing your watershed was like knowing the streets that would take you back home. There was drive and determination and a boyish joy in the walking that pushed him forward. And there was something very personal in the seeking, as if the water and it’s connections were a thread to his life. That walking through the land was the way to understand where he was.
On a rainy spring afternoon, after his work at Apro was done, he’d call up and declare, “I think the Free Walkers need to go find where Silk Creek starts.” We’d be soaked when we returned to town after dark and he’d be full of questions. Not that there weren’t answers, he was brilliant at research, it’s just that under the scope of his fierce curiosity, the answers would generate five times their weight in questions. We walked through the spring and summer along creeks and streams and rivers that ran through the town and fields and forests, in the woods behind the school where he worked. We swam in the cold river on the edge of town and talked about the big reservoir just upstream, how it affected the local waterways, how up from there it became a river again, joined with Brice Creek and had it’s source somewhere in the snows of the Cascades. It was always a tracing back and had the intimate element of tracing his past and memories.
He’d been dreaming, I knew, of an epic Source-to-Sea boat journey that would take him from below the dam of Lake Dorena(our source)to where Row River joined the Coast Fork of the Willamette, outside our village. Through Eugene, where it merged with the impressive Middle Fork and flowed heroically on through the state until it passed the docks, bridges and waterfront of central Portland, joined the oceanic Columbia, with her dramatic history and finally out to sea! When the beautiful boater’s map of the Willamette River Keepers arrived in the mail, he read it like a history book, which he loved. He wanted to go all the way. That’s a month in a boat, I thought, with visions of rain and pre-planning drudgery. But I didn’t say it because Josh had that look he gets after listening to Dylan. It’s the same with a Great Plan. He decided stages was a good idea. It was mid-summer and we had borrowed a friend’s boat. It would be Bottom-of-the-Dam to Behind-the-Lumber mill outside the next town: Stage One.
By mid morning, we were lifting the boat off the van and walking it through the forest’s edge. It was a short unknown stretch to us and we’d asked around but didn’t get much. Josh never minded going in with some unknowns, honored it as the larger nature of the journey, but on the river he was watchful and could be serious. It was a gorgeous morning, the river running strong and sweet. Josh was excited, he rowed like crazing. He was steering in back when, no more than fifteen minutes into our maiden voyage, the boat cantilevered over a precipice of water. I looked down into a huge sinkhole and we got swallowed whole. We were flung from the boat, turned in circles underwater like flimsy laundry, (this is the part you don’t tell your mother) and spat out at the surface gasping. Everything was soaked, our water bottles had floated away and we dragged ourselves exhausted onto shore and lay splayed on the warm gravel road. We agreed later, the only possible action after seeing that hole was to take the biggest breath of you life and head in. By the end of the day we had flipped, gone under, been sent flying three times in one dramatic rapid after the next. We had seen water life and aspects of the river and land we had never imagined. Tired and happy, Josh suggested next week for Stage Two.
Speaking to his family outside Philadelphia, he had heard that a family friend, in his retirement, had taken to methodically walking the streets of his native Philly. Josh was fascinated and taken by this notion. I suggested he get in touch and they collaborate on a book, a city mouse/country mouse account of their relative discoveries of their environments on opposite ends of the country. He liked the idea, enjoyed collecting subjects for the books he should write. Near Philadelphia later that fall, just before he would go abroad, he took me to follow the streams near his childhood house through yards of neighbors, parks, an old school, a boyhood friend’s house. He told the stories of his youth. It was the same seeking of the water’s path, source and connections he was doing in Oregon and here, I could see it was exhilarating and empowering. I watched him making a bridge along the long stretch of waters from his past to the present and into the visions for his future.
That summer in Oregon we completed Stage One, Two and an epic 35 mile(in a single day)final Stage three that had all the makings of a great adventure… danger, strong winds, big vistas, dark gathering clouds, unknown rapids ahead, a big fight in the middle of the river, wondering if we could make it before dark, before the rain. And beauty, stunning and complex on the water. And ultimately a breathtaking brilliant success. I don’t remember if we vowed to finish the plan and go all the way to the sea someday or just silently held that desire. On reflection we agreed the vantage from the river had completely changed our perspective of the land, gave us new ways of seeing our place. Like seeing a garden through an insects eyes, from ground level, inside things. I knew this was Josh’s vision for himself and for the world: to be continually opening to new ways of seeing and experiencing the world more authentically, more truly. Of changing and growing from this place of clearer sight and deeper insight. And I knew that for him this journey of seeking source and it’s completion would continue. On to the seas and beyond.
And so it not only makes sense but is a strong and clean poetry that Josh would be found seeking the most beautiful waterfall in the land of his ancestors. In war and in peace may he continue.
Despite the benign local weather it is time to unleash some thunder on the net.
* Locally, a 10 year effort to relieve the decline of downtown Rochester, NY as a destination for locals and visits has crashed and burned. There are many assassins. Among them is Mayor Duffy. The victims include the downtown campus of the Monroe Community College, local college students, a performing arts theater, an upgraded public transportation hub, and an eroding downtown tax base.
* New York continues to be a national leader in the cost of government, living , and doing business. Meanwhile the present governor is in free fall at the polls.
* Nancy Pelosi, D, CA ,Speaker of the House of Representatives continues to follow a similar fate.
* Social science is about to get a seat on the Supreme Court.
* When will young adventure travelers and reporters learn prudence when venturing near ill defined national borders and visiting despotic countries?
* Bill OReilly and Jon Scarborough continue to win TV journalism audience share.
First, let us hear the straight stuff from the distaff side.
* “Swimming with the new suits is like a high-tech version of doping.”—-Janet Evans.
* “The nation can not afford the cost of current congressional versions of Health Reform”—Dianne Feinstein, D, Senator, CA
* ” Maureen Dowd of the nytimes has been, and continues to be a pain and a twit.”—- former readers of the nytimes.
* “Global warming is a myth to people in Rochester, NY who are trying to ripen apples and tomatoes.” — local farmers and gardeners
Meanwhile, beta software does not work by definition, “fast food is killing out kids”, the nation’s borders are porous, and “we should never have been in Iraq—that is why I voted funds to support our troops.”
The Thursday play nice talk seems to coming from the alpha males in the media spotlight:
* Witness the shameless special of four adults sharing alfresco beer and pretzels on the south lawn of the White House.
* The Pac-10 Media Day did not lay a hand on Pete and the corrupt post Reggie Bush USC Trojan football (and basketball) teams.
* And, Ted Kennedy is scheduled for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Our President has a well turned ear and a way of turning a phrase. However,.....
In the Cambridge, Mass affair he appears to have committed a foist on his own petard from the bridge of the ship of state while characterizing Boston are police responding to a nighttime 911 class reporting a possible residential break in. The result was that Harvard Black Studies head, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, head of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research, came to words with a white cop in front of witness. In the heat of the moment, Gates is said to have made a remark about the officer’s mother. Further, Gates was uncooperative, has charged “racial profiling”, is threatening a law suit, and is demanding an apology from the officer. None is planned. Gates now has some explaining to do to his many black critics who fault the professor’s demeanor and his judgment.
Problems for Skip’s Presidential friend, Barack Obama, now include, among others, the following:
* Using the bully pulpit of a Presidential Press Conference to classify the police response as an example of “stupidity”.
* Not making a personal rapid response for a clear “misstatement”.
* A very unlawyerly admission of not knowing all facts of the case.
* A public admission of “prejudice” regarding an incident in a city outside of Washington and infolving a “personal friend”.
* Losing focus on his administration’s important health care initiatives.
Shame on our President. Experienced Statesmen with strong staffs do not make mistakes like this and then continue compound them by stepping back into the cesspool . Valerie Jerrod, where were you when your president needed help? He seems to be slowly twisting in the wind.
Meanwhile, our attention to diverted from issues of importance. BTW, DiFi, the economically conservative senior Democratic Senator from San Francisco whose father, Dr. Leon Goldman, was once the head of the Department of Surgery at UCSF, and whose departed husband was a Neuro-Surgeon, is not shy about the costs of reforms that rapidly become embedded entitlements.
Thoughts on Steve Larsen: Friend, Athlete, Son, Brother, Husband, Father, Business Man. He was a Davis native and a Bend resident. He died with his training shoes on at age 39.
I never met Steve Larson He was a Davis, California sports legend in the mold of fellow Triathlon champion, Dave Scott. Larson died suddenly while running with friends near his home on a middle school track in Bend, Oregon. Contributions can be made at http://www.worldtri.com/PhotoGallery.asp?ProductCode=SteveLarsenMemorialFund
Here is the connection:
* Larsen was a resident of Dechutes County, in Central Oregon, a mecca for Californians drawn to the beautiful eastern leeward side of the Cascade Mountains.
** His bike shop , the Free Wheeler in Davis, was the best in a town that knows the value of a well serviced stylish Cervalo.
*** He was a Hawaii Iron Man top ten finisher and a Lake Placid, NY winner.
**** Steve has a family man who had five young kids.
Legacy Journal: Woonkie Wednesday Wisdom on the Web
So, the sandy foundations of the Obama Administration Congressional restructuring of 17% of the nation’s GDP represented by the health care segment of the American economy seems to be rapidly eroding. Reform is currently not responding to life support and a strong lefty Presidential Pitch this week. Meanwhile those in the know like the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic, and the InterMountain Group in Utah are models for quality and efficiency in medical services.
* The Congressional Budget Office has put a budget busting price tag on at least on of the proposals.
** Moderate Democrats are not supportive and any radical reforms.
*** Ted Kennedy and Tom Daschle are missing in action to make the deals and drive the agenda.
**** The House Speaker is not supportive and the Senate Majority Leader is not leading.
***** The voters are speaking; they do not want mandates, increased deficits, more taxes, and health care rationing by bureaucrats.
Legacy Journal: The View from the Academic Establishment
Rick Levine, the President of Yale University. via Lowell H.S, San Francisco, Stanford, and Oxford, recently shared a hour of Q & A with the Charlie Rose and his PBS TV audience.
In Summary:
* Yale has done well under his stewardship because of the 16% annualized growth of the endowment. The result has been a financial blind undergraduate admissions policy, and expansion of employee benefits, growth of overseas partnerships that benefit undergraduate foreign study, a growth of faculty resources for teaching and research.
** China is another name for globalization.
*** English, Math, Science, Foreign Language, and Literature are the fundamental five at the core of a solid high school education, according to Yale’s Levine who is trained in Economics.
* The book with the above title was published by Morrow, the husband of the author. It became the basis for a movie about seven children who were orphaned during a trek to Oregon in 1848.
** Galen Rupp of Portland, Oregon and a member of several University of Oregon Track and Field teams was recently named the NCAA scholar athlete of the year. He is the first T & F to be selected and is only the second from the Pac-10. Now he is turning pro: he has a mentor and Michael Johnson is his agent.
*** Meanwhile, the Duck Football team is getting ready for a new head coach as Bellotti move upstairs as the new A.D. Look for a wide open spread offense keyed by a solid running junior QB who is working hard on his passing game for his second year.
OK, so in 2009 it is not all about Pioneers and Ducks but it makes for a good story. Somewhere Phil and Bill of Nike and the UofO are smiling at the 2009 football prospects. Go Ducks.
On Tuesday of this week, Webscribe2 braved the electronic scanners at the Rochester, NY building that houses the Court Rooms and Justices of the local state jurisdiction. After reassembling myself, the juror that I was accompanying and I, found our was to the courtroom for the state and defense opening statements.
The charge is second degree stabbing murder of a sixty seven year old bike shop owning black man by his former neighbor on a fall morning on the front porch of of an abandoned house . The defendant is twenty one, adopted, a high school dropout, homeless, unemployed and the unmarried father of three children. He admits to knowing the victim, stabbing the victim in self-defense, leaving the scene, and not contacting authorities.
The forensics and DNA evidence and testimony to date has been solid,impressive, and convincing.
