Disconnection

Disconnection
Originally uploaded by _william.

Masha took this shot of old computers stacked up in what used to be the metal shop at Pinnellas Tech.
First they phased out the metals program. Then they junked all the old computers.

A letter on art

I like the process of making art., but i'm unsure of the goal.
when i was younger i fantasized about a 'Great Art' that could communicate "the same message equally to all people.'
The aim was always truth, beauty and justice.
Somewhere along the way i learned that art could be a dialog rather than an icon.
So I tend towards the subjective.
Much of the work that i did in my youth was lost or stolen. some things were simply abandoned because i had no place for them. Other times i convinced myself that the work lacked merit and discarded it only to turn around and see happy scavengers driving off with large oil paintings.

I often paint eyes and faces, even when i try to avoid objective representation. I also tend to see faces and figures in tree bark, clouds and dust on the floor. I'm told that our brains are wired to recognise faces as that trait has 'adaptive signifigance.'
I still ponder the notion of 'objective art.' often i find this in religious work.
I do find your photos particularly clear. they seem to point to recognisable truth beauty and even justice, (the crumbling face of F. Marcos?)
You also offer lucid descriptions of the subject and the circumstances.
Generally I believe that 'art' does several important things:
1) It awakens a great (or small) question and brings us closer to our natural curiosity.
2) It shows us things as they are, from documentary work to intricate spiritual diagrams, art trys to show the world as it is,
3) art always has a mark of humanity. It extends a 'Hand of Kindness' across oceans and centuries offering some kinship with the creator.

At sun set once i looked down the brick street that ran through that part of town. Some of the bricks had the name of the manufacturer, "Augusta Block," embossed on the surface. the other bricks were smooth but the glint of the fading light showd another feature on the smoth faces. each brick had four shallow dimples near one side. As i reached down to touch them, I realized that they were fingerprints left by the person who handled the bricks while they were still wet. The same red paving ran in all directions. churches were made of these bricks, stores and appartment houses, in nearly every city where i've ever lived.
Most days i would not have noticed these marks, It was just the sun on that particular day, in that particular place. I wish that i had a camera, but i don't know what exposure would reveal those prints and their signifigance to me at the time.
-bill

Sunday Best

Dad Gran
Originally uploaded by _william.

In The Net

interrupt
Originally uploaded by _william.

Newton was fascinated by "the net," the beautiful purple alloy that he made of antimony regulus and copper. Upon close inspection, one can see that the alloy has a surface made up of small crystals separated by interstices. Newton's predecessor and source, "Eirenaeus Philalethes" - the American alchemist George Starkey - first discovered this alloy and named it "the Net," on the basis of its physical appearance. Like Newton, Starkey believed that most of ancient Greco-Roman mythology was really encoded alchemy. The story that Vulcan, the husband of Venus, caught Venus and Mars in bed, in flagrante delictu, became for him (and for Newton), a recipe for "the Net." According to the myth, Vulcan made a fine metallic net and hung the two lovers from the ceiling for all the Olympians to see. Now in alchemy, "Venus" usually means "copper," "Mars" means "iron," and "Vulcan" means "fire." Hence "Venus" referred to the copper in the alloy, and "Vulcan" to the intense heat used in making it. Since the antimony regulus that is added to the copper is itself reduced from stibnite (antimony sulfide) by the addition of iron, "Mars" (iron) was thought to be present in "the Net" as well. Voila - the whole myth becomes a recipe for "the Net."

__ From "Newton"s Alchemy"

Namo Guru Arya Tara Ye

Namo Guru Arya Tara Ye
Originally uploaded by _william.

I take refuge until I am enlightened in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. By the positive potential I create by practicing generosity and the other far-reaching attitudes, may I attain Buddhahood in order to benefit all sentient beings.

May all sentient beings have happiness and its causes,
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and its causes.
May all sentient beings never be separated from sorrowless bliss.
May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free of bias, attachment and anger.

Reverently I prostrate with my body speech and mind,
And present clouds of every type of offering, actual and mentally-transformed
I declare all my negative actions accumulated since beginningless time
And rejoice in the virtues of all holy and ordinary beings.
Please remain until cyclic existence ends
And turn the wheel ofDharma for sentient beings
I dedicate all the virtues of myself and others to the great enlightenment.

om tare tuttare ture mama ayur punye jnyana pushtim kuru ye soha

Predictions of the Amazing Brin!

Author David Brin has been on a roll with predictions he made in his speculative novel Earth,(1990.)
So far fifteen improbable events from that novel have come to pass, including the tragic flooding of New Orleans. While I've enjoyed several of his novels, lately his writing has taken a more socio-political direction.

Egotastic! - The Entertainment Blog

Egotastic! - The Entertainment Blog: "Egotastic! is an entertainment blog focused on movies, music, television, and celebrities"

It's not that the entertainment bussiness needs support. As much as I feel that I should write an homage to Eddie Guerro, or something about Garth Brooks or Lindsey Lohan, that field is covered. Besides, Egotastic! looks good.

Rodin

The artist must create a spark before he can make a fire and before art is born, the artist must be ready to be consumed by the fire of his own creation.

Auguste Rodin

Quick Topic

Discuss Blog and Flickr
I started a message board just to try it out.Contribute at will.
If these work out i may post more of them, instead of comments.

house gecko of Vohemar

Again exploring Google Reader, I found that the Photostreams on Flickr present well as blogs. Farl. whou travels a great deal in Southeast Asia, always adds informative descriptions to the images he posts.

house gecko of Vohemar:




I have to assume that they are the common house lizard in Northeast Madagascar as they were all over the place in Vohemar. That the gecko blended oh-so well with the pink walls of the beach cabin we were staying may even show that it may be one of the everpresent chameleons in the country. I only had one shot so you can actually detect its hurried movement as it scampered away when I took out my camera.

the gold dust day gecko or Phelsuma laticauda
(ID thanks to Ian or reservoir frog)
Vohemar, Northeast Madagascar, East Africa"

I particularly like the image of this brilliant Day Geckko.

Pat: A tribute from Dervala

Ok so I'm testing this Google Reader service.
Nonethe less this is a tribute and a portrait of an unique person. Dervala is always worth reading.

Pat: "My email address attracts crud like a Swiffer. Every day, the spam filter sweeps hundreds of messages into a Junk folder. Because I often get genuine messages from people I don?t know, I flick through it once in a while, and whenever I rescue something from a real person, it makes me wonder about the ones I?ve missed. This one I couldn?t miss. The subject line read ?Sorry to inform you that Pat died in her sleep 8-21-05.? It took me three days to open it, and three weeks to sit and write this. When I was twenty, I went to Valencia for a year learn Spanish. That first week I huddled in a hotel above a sex shop, counting my traveller?s cheques for comfort. I had no idea how to find work or friends or a place to live. In the lobby, I met a Californian who had come to Spain to forget a Greek love affair. Debbie showed me the in-cup heating element she used to make tea in her room, and cried because, at 42, she knew now she would never have children. I pitied her, and decided I liked Earl Grey. Debbie was moving on to..."

Read the whole thing. It's a lesson in how to write a memoir.

About those elections--Clipped from Bavid Brin.

20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA

Did you know....

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry. http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers. http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on v otes counted by ES&S machines. http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee. http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates. http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes. http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm

11. Diebold is based in Ohio. http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states. http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of Global Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States. http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0312/S00191.htm

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years. http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio. http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates. http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother. http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation. http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm

Color charts

These charts show the hex code for the color in the box.
The Tables were made with inline CSS.

This is #8BB4AE

This is #F8E78B

This is #D26347

This is #7E4F33

This is #FFC9B4

This is #C0D4AF

The second one is a little wilder The colors were sampled from an artist on Flickr.

This
is #3B3CFF

This
is #BAE905

This
is #7071FE

This
is #F36368

This
is #FB3095

This
is #891B50

This
is #FF68FF

This
is #3E3D37

This
is #A24EAE

This
is #798B14

How Much Can It Hurt?

How Much Can It Hurt?
Originally uploaded by _william.

Scan from a Saint Petersburg Times newspaper image.
A museum in Tampa has hosted an exhibit of actual human bodies, brightly colored, and partially disected to show the function of muscles and skeleton.
These figures were prepared in China from unclaimed corpses.
Because of their anonymity, these people have been transformed into a macabre educational tool, forever frozen in life-like postures, their bones and organs exposed to the curious eyes of thousands.

Tag cloud

part of a play

A Music Lesson

By

William C. Wheeler

CHARACTERS

JACK A man in his mid-forties with longish hair, a touch of gray and thin wire frame spectacles that slide off his nose.

CHRIS A young woman, high school or college age: She is pretty and talented and apparently quite street smart.

The Music room

The room has three windows showing tree-tops and a second story across the street. By the window, a narrow table holds an old manual typewriter. There are two chairs near Center Stage,with music stand, a table off to ONE side, littered with papers and an unobtrusive piano. A print by a known modern artist hangs on the wall.


SCENE 1
(Jack stands Back stage a the cluttered table with a metronome ticking while Chris playsa simple Bach tune on the Viol.)
Chris

(Stops suddenly on a dissonant chord)

Jack

(Stage dir)
What?

Chris
I'm sick of this.

Jack

(Stopping the metronome)
You're doing fine.

Chris

(Propping the Viol on her knee)
I feel like nothing's happening.
(She looks at the clock an then her watch)
Maybe I should Catch the next bus.

Jack
(Giving the metronome a wind.)
If you want to cut it short, I understand.But I can't really give you a decent critique unless you play the piece through.


Chris
Music should be fun: Right? You said that.

Jack
Umm, well
Chris
Yeah, you did.
Jack
I think I said that Music...
Chris

(finishing for him)
...Should be enjoyed.
(she tucks the instrument under her chin and rudely saws the motif from "Purple Haze")

Jack

(Interrupting)
By both the...
Chris

(Pausing her music and joining to finish his sentence)
...the listeners...
Jack and chris

(Together)
...And the audience.



Jack

(buttons down the old metronome and grabs a hefty sheaf of paper,)
What do you want to play?

Yolk-of-Night

Yolk-of-Night
Originally uploaded by _william.

The Forseeable Future

Crystal Dark

About Pancreatic Cancer

From Wikipedia
 Pancreatic cancer

 
Diagnosis

 Early
diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is difficult because the symptoms are so
non-specific and varied. Common symptoms include abdominal pain, loss
of appetite, significant weight loss, jaundice, digestive problems, and
depression.
Pancreatic cancer is usually discovered during the course of the
evaluation of these symptoms by e.g. abdominal CT. Endoscopic
ultrasound (EUS) is another procedure that can help visualize the tumor
and obtain tissue to establish the diagnosis.

Treatment

Treatment of pancreatic cancer depends on the stage
of the cancer [1] Recent advances have made resection of tumors that
were previously unrescetable due to blood vessel involvement possible.
The Whipple procedure is the most common surgical treatment for cancers
involving the head of the pancreas.

 Prognosis

Patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer typically
have a poor prognosis because the cancer usually causes no symptoms
early on, leading to metastatic disease at time of diagnosis. Median
survival times from diagnosis of 3-4 months are not unknown.
Pancreatic cancer occasionally may result in diabetes. The insulin
production is hampered and it has been suggested that the cancer can
also prompt the onset of diabetes and vice versa.

Whipple's Procedure 

The Whipple procedure is a technique of
pancreaticoduodenectomy, or surgical removal of pancreatic cancer. It
was named for American surgeon Dr. Allen Whipple who devised the
procedure in 1935 and subsequently came up with multiple refinements to
his technique. (Surgeons in training are often quizzed on the
refinement he made that provided the most improvement in outcomes to
that date: the use of non-absorbable silk over absorbable catgut
suture.)
The first resection for a periampullary cancer was performed by the
German surgeon Kausch in 1909.

The Whipple procedure today is very similar to
Whipple's original procedure. It consists of removal of the distal half
of the stomach (antrectomy), the gall bladder (cholecystectomy), the
distal portion of the common bile duct (choledochectomy), the head of
the pancreas, duodenum, proximal jejunum, and regional lymph nodes.
Reconstruction consists of attaching the pancreas to the jejunum
(pancreaticojejunostomy) and attaching the common bile duct to the
jejunum (choledochojejunostomy) to allow digestive juices and bile to
flow into the gastrointestinal tract and attaching the stomach to the
jejunum (gastrojejunostomy) to allow food to pass through.
Originally performed in a two-step process, Whipple refined his
technique in 1940 into a one-step operation.
Using modern operating techniques, mortality from a Whipple procedure
is around 5% nationwide (3% in high volume academic centers).

See
also: Pancreaticoduodenectomy 

loss

... we will continue to Love you in ways you cannot understand...

I lost contact with my family, my adoptive parents and my sister many years ago.

It's not as though that had any thing to do with anything.

It's just the thing at the root of everything.

Reminder

I thought I'd add a couple of notes here

Just some Unfinished Business from the past.

American Red Cross

DONATE if you can
American Red Cross

DONATE if you can

Remember to Floss Daily

Remember to Floss Daily
Originally uploaded by _william.

One Of Kokoro's Animatronic Dinosaurs. From an ehhibition in the eighties

This was taken the day before the exhibit opened.
The first time I saw this thing moving, I felt that sudden chill that comes long with primal fear.
I laughed it off, but I remember the same feeling when I was a kid, finshing in a rowboat and I looked over the side to discover that I was surrounded by sharks.
The museum’s presentation was oddly minimalist, if not humorous.
We had a light crew install Scaffolding, like at a rock show, and all the walls and barriers were black.
The T-Rex and a Blue Apatasaurus where set in an arena as if they were fighting.
For me, the best part was watching the installation. The figures were shipped in pieces an had to be assembled and programmed for each installation.
Kokoro’s crew was all Japanese. These guys were artist/engineers. When the long neck of the Apatasourus developed a kink, they just cut it open exposing the hydraulics and wiring. After finishing the repair, the same engineer replaced the foam, repainted the skin to match the rest of the animal, and then reprogrammed it from a laptop so that Its motions coincided with the T-Rex.
The Minmalist setting of the creatures really set off the drama of the robotics.
It made things scarier. Without the addition of a fake landscape backdrop, there was no Psychological distance. You were there in the room with a predator the size of a bus.
And about the Flossing. It was hard to resist the temptation to throw in a few jokes. After a hundred lecture tours It becomes automatic.