Painted Sailor and Bronze Lakshmi

At flickr...

Another Cheezy Painting

Reading the Past.

I spent the better part of last night reading an old journal from 1985. I pulled the spiral notebook out of storage a few weeks ago and I just Got around to looking at it. Apparently I drew on a page for one of the short stories in my senior thesis at Eckerd.

I also found some detailed thinking about my departure from the Wheeler Family. Despite the awkward overly verbose writing, I had a few clear insights about the way things were going between my sister and I. I had forgotten about the dates. Things shut down pretty quickly after I moved to Florida. She blamed me for her problems directly and indirectly. She had difficulty with Dad because he had difficulty with me

.

Figure Study (missing leg)

Successful Shuttle Launch!

Now let's pray that they make it back.

Here's a time line describing the "Return to Flight," From an AP wire.

Here is a look at key developments in NASA's return to space:

_Feb. 1, 2003: Shuttle Columbia breaks apart as it heads for a landing in Florida, killing all seven astronauts. NASA says it will appoint a panel to investigate the cause.

Feb. 2, 2003: NASA names retired Navy Adm. Harold W. Gehman Jr. to lead the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, an independent commission.

_June 13, 2003: Return To Flight Task Group is appointed to oversee safety improvements.

_Aug. 26, 2003: The accident investigation board releases its report on the shuttle accident, saying the cause was a large chunk of foam insulation that snapped off the external fuel tank at launch and knocked a hole in the left wing. A major contributing factor was a flawed safety culture that squelched warnings from lower-level employees. The board recommends 29 improvements, 15 to be completed before sending shuttles back into space.

_Jan. 14, 2004: President Bush announces a new exploration policy for NASA, setting the shuttle's retirement for 2010 and a return to the moon by astronauts by 2020.

_Dec. 13, 2004: NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe announces he is resigning. He is the leading candidate for the chancellor's job at Louisiana State University, which he ends up getting.

_April 13, 2005: Michael Griffin, head of the space department at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, is appointed NASA administrator.

_April 29, 2005: NASA scraps plans for a shuttle flight in May because of concerns over ice buildup on the external fuel tank, and bumps the mission to July.

_May 12, 2005: Griffin makes a case before a Senate subcommittee for speeding up development of the shuttle replacement, the "crew exploration vehicle." He wants the new spacecraft flying as soon as possible in the next decade, to avoid a gap once the shuttle is retired in 2010.

_June 27, 2005: A safety advisory panel concludes that NASA failed to make three of 15 return-to-flight improvements recommended by the Columbia accident investigators.

_June 30, 2005: NASA formally sets July 13 as the new launch date.

_July 13, 2005: Launch for shuttle Discovery is delayed in the final stages of the countdown because of a fuel tank sensor problem.

_July 26, 2005: Discovery is ready for launch.

I need to believe we can see that far

Your Eyes Burn as You Look to the West

These Beautiful Sunsets are African Dust

Tres Orbis

A thread of comments about Iraq, War on Terror and Book Donations to Troops, at Contrary Brin

King's Wood

King's Wood
Originally uploaded by _william.

Part of an old wooden box

Yellow Lake

Yellow Lake
Originally uploaded by _william.

Unburned Face

Twin Sisters of History

Half Remembered Melody for Flute

,
originally uploaded by mrs.chesterwhite.

This Image on flickr caught my attention.
Notice the page he holds bears his image.

Classy Place

I need a better blog.

Simple templates are OK
But i can see the limits of this one.
I'd ditch the whole 3-column thing for fast loading and readable.

But then again I'm such a tweak that i'd have it all cluttered and slow with floating menus or some crap that i don't need or understand.

Central Casting: solutions

Gloria,

Since
you draw and carve well, people who drop out miss the opportunity to
work with a talented artist.
Don't let this happen again. currently you could
promise a finished product to enrolled participants. You would need to
work this out with the art center for billing etc, but, you could offer the option of casting their work for them.

we would need to consider several possibilities:

• Casting In the last class vs. Casting as an additional service.[CICor CAS]


• An optional casting fee for those who want the work done for them.


• An incentive for people who also enroll in Thobe's Casting class


• The Just Wax, "Wear it as it is," option. just stick the damn thing on. It'll look fine.
  

• Work around forthe people who drop out.
  

• You need to plan your classes, and hand out material on a day by day basis.
  

• If you give participants the
  whole content, text and subject matter, they will believe they have aquired the knowlege.
  

• Traditionally proffessors hand out a 'syllabus' which states the goals of the class,detailing the
  materials and methods to be explored during the course.

• The syllabus can be an
  inspirng document but it should out line a series of events, a list of
  reqired texts and an expectation. An expectation
  could be that students present a wax model suitable for
  casting by a perfessional casting service/person.


• A syllabus describes the
  Outline of the class and the goals and the requirements.
  

Please
do consult with us. Masha, William, Thobe and I all have
willingness and expertise in lost wax casting. There is also
that Brett/Brad fellow, who is now a monitor. [Moustachio?]

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Gloria tells me that her second summer class was cancelled, partly due to lack of interest (people want to produce a finished piece), and partly because she has better paying gigs painting murals. that means that we will probably have Casting on Thursday.

Still Looking...

Searching for people
Zabasearch
Pretrieve
These two have been mentioned on television. Neither provides a great deal of information. Instead they refer you to other search tools. Once you have located the county databases you can start narrowing things down. Try to locate records from public or government sources. there may be a charge (small) but this is often better than paying a service to provide them for you.
zabasearch won't work in Firefox so try IE.
Joshua Fraser at Clemson put together this extremely clever deployment of Google Maps api along with some other search techniques. This page runs lots of javascript, and there are separate frames forthe different parts inut/output. So you browser needs to have those enabled too.

What's the Word?

Give it a Chance. Say it in semaphore. Flag it!

Thanks to W.J. Bethancourt III

Grey Lichen

My Toy Canyon 

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I found this direction.
Caught Looking again.

AVI test

FEEDMAPS

Remember This?

The Infrastructure of Democracy
Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World
March 11, 2005


I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.
1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all -- increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.

II. Decentralized systems -- the power of many -- can combat decentralized foes.
1. Terrorist networks are highly decentralized and distributed. A centralized effort by itself cannot effectively fight terrorism.
2. Terrorism is everyone's issue. The internet connects everyone. A connected citizenry is the best defense against terrorist propaganda.
3. As we saw in the aftermath of the March 11 bombing, response was spontaneous and rapid because the citizens were able to use the Internet to organize themselves.
4. As we are seeing in the distributed world of weblogs and other kinds of citizen media, truth emerges best in open conversation among people with divergent views.

III. The best response to abuses of openness is more openness.
1. Open, transparent environments are more secure and more stable than closed, opaque ones.
2. While Internet services can be interrupted, the Internet as a global system is ultimately resilient to attacks, even sophisticated and widely distributed ones.
3. The connectedness of the Internet – people talking with people – counters the divisiveness terrorists are trying to create.
4. The openness of the Internet may be exploited by terrorists, but as with democratic governments, openness minimizes the likelihood of terrorist acts and enables effective responses to terrorism.

IV. Well-meaning regulation of the Internet in established democracies could threaten the development of emerging democracies.
1. Terrorism cannot destroy the internet, but over-zealous legislation in response to terrorism could. Governments should consider mandating changes to core Internet functionality only with extraordinary caution.
2. Some government initiatives that look reasonable in fact violate the basic principles that have made the Internet a success.
3. For example, several interests have called for an end to anonymity. This would be highly unlikely to stop determined terrorists, but it would have a chilling effect on political activity and thereby reduce freedom and transparency. Limiting anonymity would have a cascading series of unintended results that would hurt freedom of expression, especially in countries seeking transition to democratic rule.

V. In conclusion we urge those gathered here in Madrid to:
1. Embrace the open Internet as a foundation of 21st Century democracy, and a critical tool in the fight against terrorism.
2. Recognizing the Internet's value as a critical communications infrastructure, invest to strengthen it against attacks and recover quickly from damage.
3. Work to spread access more evenly, aggressively addressing the Digital Divide, and to provide Internet access for all.
4. To protect free speech and association, endorse the availability of anonymous communications for all.
5. Resist attempts at international governance of the Internet: It can introduce processes that have unintended effects and violate the bottom-up democratic nature of the Net.

I'm Sorry For Your Loss

This recent bombing seems to have served Bush well.

The attacks also overshadowed the continuing divide between Bush and Blair and the other leaders on how to tackle global warming.

2000 PUNCH

PUNCH'S MORAL OPERA
The script of a Punch and Judy show performed in Boston several years ago By Will Stackman

Drums

Drums,
originally uploaded by _william.

From the late 1980's Jamie and I practicing
bodhrán
drumming

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Those Two Again 

The name of the thing is the thing itself.

synecdoche

For the Consideration of the G8 Delegates

Sacred Cow 

Unsent letter.

Please forgive the personal and self indulgent nature of the following post

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A,

Mom reported a problem with the wiring. She offered her new adress when I asked but said that she couldn't find it. I preferred not to look up the scrap she provided with respect for the possibility that she was vague on purpose.

I assumed that you would be willing to share or not. I have all the reply that I need.
Sorry to surprise or shock you with questions about the Estates of ECM and HCF I recall being told about 'money in escrow,' after the time of HCF's passing. There was a specific figure named. I thought it prudent to ask.

GWW had told me on several occasions that he and MCW received 'tuition remission' from the state of New York because they worked in education. I was told that this also applied in PA as well as NY. Tyler was an inexpensive place for me to attend. I'm also pretty sure that my account with the cafeteria went unpaid during the spring term. I was not allowed to go through the line like other students and so i simply stole PB and J sandwiches for my meals or asked Mom for a weekly donation of fifteen dollars which she had budgeted for my expenses. I also had to buy school supplies with this money. You may have been present for some arguments over this.

I was accepted a RISD. My 'discipline' problem there was not a consideration in my acceptance at that school. According to a letter that was among the school papers you sent, they still considered me a candidate for enrollment. Dad made it painfully clear that I could not get a summer job before college. He wanted me enrolled.

His reasons for keeping me from trying for RISD were partly economic and partly punitive. Mom kept up with the great theme of learning disabilities. In his analysis Dr. Rothman found no real evidence of Learning Disabilities per se. while some of my behavioral issues seemed to correspond to LD, testing revealed high aptitude in most cognitive functions. Effective study habits were called for.
Sadly Mom and Dad were not able to teach effective study habits.
I was fortunate to later encounter fine teachers who either disbelieved the LD 'diagnosis,' or demonstrated study methods that overcame handicaps.

Doubtless, this seems to you like a well of self pity. But these matters come to bear constantly on aspects of my life. Futhermore they are part of the childhood that you and I shared. You seemed to place some value on that relationship in one of your communications.

After 1984, My relationship with Mom and Dad had become strained to the extreme.
We had two meetings here where things seemed to go well. he expressed his hopes about renewed communications with his brother and his concern that I continue to press on towards tangible career goals. Then afterwards I would receive the most scathing letters from him, inferring my involvement in all sorts of criminal activities, making specific allegations about murder and attempted murder, and of course he said that I was no longer welcome in his life. From you letters I read that you were dangerously involved in risky activities at least up until the time of Moria's birth. I did not writ many letters back then, but we spoke on the phone. For a while you consulted Masha regarding your interest in locating your natural family.

It must have been around 1988. We made a trip to Guatemala. I recall picking out some baby things, perhaps a red jaspe jumper, I'm sure that they would have been the wrong size. Masha and I sent them, knowing that it was but a small gesture. I'm not sure if you ever received them. You did say that every body went to Guatemala.

At the time you still talked to Mom and Dad, visiting them around holidays. It seemed like a bad idea for me to continue to do so. At least I could respect their wishes in that respect.
When you spoke with me and accused me of abusing you as a child, I felt some remorse for being a bullisome older brother, but it seemed we had worked out some semblance of an adult relationship. I worried about you constantly. Your reports from Fell Street were distressing to say the least. I also felt your anger jealousy and rage. It was the last blow, crushing my faith in the family.
Mom tearfully rejected me. Dad seemed capable of a conversation, but his condemnation had a threat behind it. You also described me as a monster. Diedre had also turned her back on me (although it may seem otherwise.) It was my decision to offer nothing of myself to people who would turn and use my own words against me.

So I remain a monster to you. But I will not come near you or your family ever because of that. I wish you no harm nor have I ever wished any of you harm. Indeed I did not write to you for many a long year. There is no comfort in that, but it left you to grow and live your own life.
So, You may cherish the old communications and the memories because they are bittersweet and they are close to your heart but I remain out side. I have had my loves and my little triumphs in life, but I cannot share them with you. You have much more anyway. Your daughters, you are proud of them; your husband, you love him; your work is meaningful in it's way; you contribute something to the great work of human kind.

I had hopes that you might throw the old monster a bone, some picture of the old dungeons, the chains, perhaps some photos of the old days, before he was a monster.
But you have had your own problems and now I have burdened you with more.
There are so many things I would have liked to discuss with you. But you have been busy.
You have taken the time to send nice letters, some poems and even the writings of one of your dear friends. Sadly I can offer nothing in kind. We may share a past but our values differ. So far nothing I can say makes any difference. I would rather die than have you recount my crimes. Indeed I have been dead since I read Father's Millennium letter.

So write your letters to the sun or the wind. You will find better siblings there.

My Little Problem: Fixed

After a brief shambolic interval, where the last quarter of my template went missing, My Little Problem has its boots back on..

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Post pictures With Blogger

Now You can post directly from you Blogger interface without additional software like Hello and Picassa.

Mount Analog

Moon Dogs