The Saddest Sentence…

I’ve ever heard was just reported on the News Hour
a few minutes ago.
“A sixth young girl was sent home, she is not expected to live.”
This is of course in reference to the shooting in Pennsylvania.
“..sent home. She is not expected to live.”
She is being sent home to die with her family. Maybe in the scope of things, a better situation than finding your daughter already dead. The family will be by her side if death comes. But how horrible is that?
To see those horse drawn carriages that most of us think of a quaint bringing the parents to the funerals of their children I can only think, “How unfair”.
I don’t care for fairness anymore. The NRA is wrong and needs to be fought at every level. Charleston Heston can stay in his mansion grasping his flintlock as his poor brain turns to goo. Guns kill people, people with guns kill children.
Stop it.

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Pledge of Allegiance History

1892 The Pledge of Allegiance and the salute are devised.

1898 First flag salute in New York State.

1919 Washington is the first state to make the pledge mandatory.

1924 “Of America” is added to the pledge.

1935 Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to say the pledge.

1940 U.S. Supreme Court rules that public school students may be expelled if they don’t say the pledge.

1942 Congress strikes the extended arm salute and codifies that the pledge be said with the right hand over the heart.

1943 U.S. Supreme Court reverses itself, ruling that students have a constitutional right not to say the pledge.

1954 “Under God” is added to the pledge.

2002 The 9th U.S. Supreme Court of Appeals rules that “Under God” is unconstitutional.

2004 U.S. Supreme Court throws out the 2002 federal court decision.

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The Saudi’s – Oil – & Funding Terrorism

Ran across this article in US News & World Report. Not a publication I normally read but this article was interesting.

The Saudi Connection
How billions in oil money spawned a global terror network
By David E. Kaplan


It traces the money Bin Laden and Al Qaeda use to fund their terrorist activities.
Here are just a few quotes;

"The team soon realized that its most basic assumptions about the source of bin Laden's money--his personal fortune and businesses in Sudan--were wrong. Dead wrong…

And where did it raise most of those funds? The evidence was indisputable: Saudi Arabia. America's longtime ally and the world's largest oil producer had somehow become, as a senior Treasury Department official put it, "the epicenter" of terrorist financing.

Starting in the late 1980s--after the dual shocks of the Iranian revolution and the Soviet war in Afghanistan--Saudi Arabia's quasi-official charities became the primary source of funds for the fast-growing jihad movement. In some 20 countries, the money was used to run paramilitary training camps, purchase weapons, and recruit new members.
The charities were part of an extraordinary $70 billion Saudi campaign to spread their fundamentalist Wahhabi sect worldwide. “

It goes on to say;

“Saudi largess encouraged U.S. officials to look the other way, some veteran intelligence officers say. Billions of dollars in contracts, grants, and salaries have gone to a broad range of former U.S. officials who had dealt with the Saudis: ambassadors, CIA station chiefs, even cabinet secretaries….
Washington's unwillingness to confront the Saudis over terrorism was part of a broader strategic failure to sound the alarm on the rise of the global jihad movement. During the 1990s…”

Give it a read. It gets scarier and the reporting seems to be indepth.

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An E-mail From Marty

To the gang at No Land Grab, Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and Curbed I got an e-mail from Marty Markowitz. today.
He writes;

“Thanks John.a pleasure to meet you and yes, Atlantic Yards will become a reality in just a few years.”

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A Little More on the Atlantic Yards



I am reluctant turn this blog into a one issue blog so I will get back to art sailing and politics soon.
But first a little more on the Atlantic Yards, the development of the Nets Arena, Housing and shopping at Flatbush and Atlantic Aves. in Brooklyn.
The bloggers and readers of No Land Grab, Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and Curbed have come to this blog and expressed their anti Atlantic Yards, views in the comments area. I moderate the comments but am willing to post them all as long the language is appropriate. So far most are passionate but polite.
So… Comment away.
I do have to say they totally wasted their time and energies. The Atlantic Yards, are going to happen. All the blogs and endless hours posting, marching and campaigning are to no avail.
I happen to be eating in a new local restaurant this weekend and met Marty Markowitz. The man is of course a Brooklyn cheerleader but there is no doubt in the man’s mind that the Atlantic Yards will happen.
So this Tuesday vote for candidates that support the project and lets get Brooklyn growing.

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Comments from the people at No Land Grab Are Shrill And Desperate

It seems the bloggers of No Land Grab saw fit to comment on my “Build The Arena” post below.

They wrote;

Anonymous said...
dear blogger. there happens to be a little thing called the Constitution and another little thing called democracy which you seem to have forgotten.

It’s nonsense of course. There is nothing in my post that advocates suppressing free speech and/or protesting against something that troubles you. Also my call to vote for candidates that support the Project is what every voter has the right to do.
It seems the people at No Land Grab do not want to see anyone support candidates that are for the Atlantic Yards Project and they use the Bush technique of calling anyone anti American who disagrees with them.
The fact is the Atlantic Yards Project will be a very positive project for Brooklyn that will not only brighten a dismal corner of the borough but shops and restaurants will grow up to service the visitors to the Arena, and the new residents of the apartments. The entire area will grow and many new businesses will come to life.
I lived in the village when the Westway project was fought and defeated. That was a colossal mistake. Now instead of being able to have safe access the water development that is beautiful, we have six lanes of roaring traffic between the neighborhood and the promenade that would have been hidden under ground.
Don’t allow this opportunity to slip away, support the Atlantic Yards Project and support candidates that will enable the Project.

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Build The Arena

Over at No Land Grab they are working hard to stop the Atlantic Yards Development that will include the Nets Arena, housing, shops and turn a dismal area of Brooklyn into a vibrant exciting area to visit. All desiged by one of the hottest architects in the world right now, Frank Gehry.

There are many in the sports media that are looking forward to the jobs that will be created and the transportation hub of the subway and LIRR will fill the arena and the shops and restaurants.
Brooklyn is on fire right now and needs this project. Should the displaced people be compensated, yes and the smart ones took the money and bought homes, in Brooklyn.
This election, please only vote for candidates that support the arena.

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I.D. Vs. Evolution

The last post on the Vatican’s article rebuking Intelligent Design netted a couple of responses one of which is here in part.

“While the curriculum proposed by the proponents of ID in the Pennsylvania case was questionable as to whether it was more religious than scientific, there are numerous counter examples in the geological record, fossil evidence, and other fields of science that call into question many of the assumptions drawn from theory of evolution.

Good scientific method (which by the way was originated by Grosseteste, a Catholic priest) and intellectual honesty demands that all evidence be considered and taught in order to discover and understand the laws governing God's creation. However, current evidence calling aspects of evolution and uniformitariansm into question are not taught in our schools. It's important to remember that science never proves anything; it only investigates and must accept that even one counter-example can call into question a theory that has been accepted for centuries.

Thus, Copernicus and Galileo should have been accepted. So too, should Michael Behe's (a Catholic) work in "Darwin's Black Box", as well as other scientists' work that demonstrates evidence of Intelligent design as opposed to random chance behind the origin of life and the universe, be examined honestly and taught since it adheres to the scientific method.

Aristotle's theory of spontaneous generation and Ptolemy's geocentric model of the solar system was held onto for centuries despite evidence to the contrary simply because of the scientists' reputations and because their theories were accepted by the culture. Our current society is permeated with attitudes derived from Darwin's work (e.g. social Darwinism), uniformitarianism and the so-called enlightenment that pits religion against science when it was the world view of Christianity that gave birth to the scientific method during the middle ages (i.e that we can know God better by understanding His creation). It has been the work of devout Christians that have made great advances in science. (e.g. Bacon, Mendel, Pascal, Einstein, etc.) Will we fall into the trap again of rejecting scientific evidence and thought simply because it bucks established cultural norms that claim that faith and scientific reason are at odds with each other?“

The sentence that most telling is “So too, should Michael Behe's (a Catholic) work in "Darwin's Black Box", as well as other scientists' work that demonstrates evidence of Intelligent design as opposed to random chance behind the origin of life and the universe, be examined honestly and taught since it adheres to the scientific method.

I would refer anyone interested to Michael Behe’s “Darwin’s Black Box” which seems to be the main text of the proponents of Intelligent Design.
Unfortunately it is published by a science teacher as a scientific text. Reading any of the reviews reveals it is not supported by any proofs what so ever.
My reply to the letter above follows.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. It has challenged me to formulate my thoughts on the subject.
Please indulge me a little time to reply.

I want to review Dava Sobel's "Galileo's Daughter"

"In 1609, when Suor Maria Celeste (his daughter) was still a child in Padua, Galileo had set a telescope in the garden behind his house and turned it skyward. Never-before-seen stars leaped out of the darkness to enhance familiar constellations; the nebulous Milky Way resolved into a swath of densely packed stars; mountains and valleys pockmarked the storied perfection of the Moon; and a retinue of four attendant bodies traveled regularly around Jupiter like a planetary system in miniature.
"I render infinite thanks to God," Galileo intoned after those nights of wonder, "for being so kind as to make me alone the first observer of marvels kept hidden in obscurity for all previous centuries."
If you haven't read this book it is a wonderful account of Galileo and his daughters faith.
Also I refer to this article in Physics Web that discusses the "proofs" of Pythagoras. Pythagoras is, of course, known for the "proof "of the right triangle. The concept of the formula was know well before Pythagoras but it was his "proofs" that set the rigorous scientific standards that were used by Galileo and are still used by our scientific benchmarks today. The right triangle is in some ways an easier "theory" to explore than the more emotional challenge of evolution.
"Thomas Hobbes (1588- 1679) saw a display copy of Euclid's Elements opened to Book I Proposition 47, Pythagoras's theorem. Pythagoras's theorem is important for its content as well as for its proof. But the fact that lines of specific lengths (3, 4 and 5 units, say) create a right-angled triangle was empirically discovered in different lands long before Pythagoras. Another empirical discovery was the rule for calculating the length of the long side of a right triangle (c) knowing the lengths of the others (a and b), namely c2 = a2 + b2. A Babylonian tablet from about 1800 BC shows that this rule was known in ancient Iraq more than 1000 years before Pythagoras, who lived in the sixth century BC. Ancient Indian texts accompanying the Sutras, from between 100 and 500 BC but clearly passing on information of much earlier times, also show a knowledge of this rule. An early Chinese work suggests that scholars there used the calculation at about the same time as Pythagoras, if not before.
But what we do not find in these works are proofs - demonstrations of the general validity of a result based on first principles and without regard for practical application. Proof was itself a concept that had to be discovered. In Euclid's Elements we find the first attempt to present a more or less complete body of knowledge explicitly via proofs."
Proofs.
There are no scientific and there cannot be scientific "proofs" applied to belief. We believe because it resides in our "souls".
There can only be "proofs" applied to scientific tenets. Can evolution be "proven" NO! Are "proofs" available to keep the "theory" of evolution the most viable explanation of the origin of species, YES! Should they be challenged vigorously YES!
Do such "proofs" exist for I.D.? I'm sorry no such "proofs" exist, nor does Mr. Behe attempt to provide any. His book is devoid of any scientific "proofs", only opinions that cannot be challenged. The phrase "irreducibly complex" that he uses to define his "theory" merely says "we can't know so we shouldn't try to know".
My thesis is not a debate of evolution vs. I.D. but how believers reconcile their belief in the modern world in the face of scientific exploration. Just as Pope Urban VII censored Galileo's realistic observations of the solar system unjustly, I.D. tries to deny realistic observations of the origins of life. How then do we find God in this? Intelligent Design denies any belief in GOD.
I will argue that belief is not denied by scientific exploration and that observation of the majestic wonder of life will only make our beliefs stronger. I believe that is why Professor Fiorenzo Facchini wrote in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper 'It is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."
In other words IMHO I.D. is a philosophical/religious discussion NOT a scientific one and should be separated from science classrooms. It is this philosophical/religious discussion that should be engaged in the appropriate forum.


Here is food for thought. In the quest for the origins of our species it is widely believed that we (humans) first appeared in central Africa from one common ancestor. Fifty thousand years ago central Africa could have easily been called an Eden. The Leakey's "Lucy" (or one of the early homo-sapiens) could be the "Eve" that we are all descended from. Discounting whether I am a monkeys uncle (sorry) hasn't "science" taken a step towards verifying a crucial part of the first book of the Torah (known to us as Genesis)? Could it be that sound "science" will lead us to our origins rather than an a denial of the real world around us? Could it be that God, who created this so very real world, will in his own time and wisdom reveal it to us through our vigorous scientific exploration?



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The Vatican Gets It Right

In an article in the NY Times the official Vatican newspaper takes the side of evolution.
It reads in part;

ROME, Jan. 18
The official Vatican newspaper published an article this week labeling as "correct" the recent decision by a judge in Pennsylvania that intelligent design should not be taught as a scientific alternative to evolution.

"If the model proposed by Darwin is not considered sufficient, one should search for another," Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna, wrote in the Jan. 16-17 edition of the paper, L'Osservatore Romano.
"But it is not correct from a methodological point of view to stray from the field of science while pretending to do science," he wrote, calling intelligent design unscientific. "It only creates confusion between the scientific plane and those that are philosophical or religious."

The article was not presented as an official church position. But in the subtle and purposely ambiguous world of the Vatican, the comments seemed notable, given their strength on a delicate question much debated under the new pope, Benedict XVI. "

I am glad to see the Vatican step away from Intelligent Design as non-science. It was, after all, Pope John II who pardoned Galileo after 400 years. The trial in Pennsylvania and the school board in Kansas shows just much our education system is under attack by people who cannot reconcile their faith with modern science.
Pope Benedict has taken an important step for Catholics to study science in the real world.

The New York Times articles require registration but are free.



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My life is complete. I have seen the goat with a tire around it's middle.

The Robert Rauschenberg show at the Met is a very worthwhile show. It concentrates on the period between 1954 and 59 and has most of the most well known "combines". There are some canvases that are clearly cashing in on his popularity, the summer house series, but most are unique.
I didn't know about Black Mountain and his studying under Joseph Albers. Again the Bauhaus influences our culture. It also becomes clear that Jasper Johns was close to him, the coca cola piece could have been made by Johns, and there are hints at what Louise Nevelson was doing.
What is remarkable is the fact that he was a very good abstract expressionist without all the goodies hanging off the canvases.


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”The incompetence of the prosecution of the war has been at times bewildering.
The incompetence of the anti-war effort remains surpassingly bewildering.”

This is the closing sentence to a commentary on the front page of Global Security.
The article talks about Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq who is camping out in front of the Shrub’s ranch in the Texas heat.
It turns out, according to this article that the P.R. firm of Fenton Communications who has been allied with Move On.Org is generating a lot of the publicity. It now seems the plight of this woman is part of a larger, national P.R. campaign that may or may not have her best interests at heart.
A look at Move On.Org’s page will find it plastered with Mrs. Sheehan’s image and articles of the vigils that are surrounding her.
The article in Global Security asks;

“Media relations firms serve an essential function in the information food chain, and David Fenton is certainly a fine fellow. But what purpose is served by the high visibility of this PR firm in the Cindy Sheehan matter? After all, the entire point of the Cindy Sheehan phenomena is that she is simply a citizen, speaking truth to power. Now she has been visibly repositioned as simply a pawn in the Washinton spin machine.”

After the march in New York in February before the U.S. went into Iraq the anti-war movement just dried up. The article chronicles Fenton’s involvement with Win Without War which purported to be a not for profit anti-war organization. The article goes on to state;

“On closer examination, Win Without War was revealed as a paid media buy. It was an advertising campaign, hosted at Fenton Communications, with a cast of hundreds of thousands hauled out at demonstrations to give the media buy legitimacy.
Once the war actually started, the paid media buy ended, and the anti-war "movement" as well.”

The point here is that there is no “organic” movement to end the war. By the fact that marches and now Mrs. Sheehan are touted by a P.R. firm once the heat is off and there is no more money paid to the P.R, firm the issue just dies.
This gets back to my post yesterday wondering where the actual anti-war movement is.

The incompetence of the anti-war effort remains surpassingly bewildering.

Indeed.

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A Slight Change

There will be just a slight change to the blog.
I am going to be using a larger font on my posts. I just felt the type was too small against the dark background. I hope it looks better to you. Could be I need another eye exam.

Media And The Truth

My friend Steve has been railing against the lack of courage in the media. There is no question this administration went to war on false pretenses yet the media has acquiesced to the charge that any dissent is un-American.
There are a few voices to be heard. Maureen Dowd (NY Times requires registration) has returned from her book tour and taken up the torch right where she left off. Her writing is witty but trite. I can say she has guts and is unrelenting in her insistence that the administration face the consequences of its actions. And of course there is the ever verbose Andrew Sullivan, a gay, Catholic, conservative. But Steve is right. Where are major media outlets on the Iraq issue? Where are the songs that speak to the hypocrisy? No where. They have stayed with commerce and refuse to budge.
Meanwhile a woman who has lost her son camps in the Texas heat and the Shrub refuses to see her while he has a vacation. His vacation from reality is leaving our country in dire straights and the media hides their collective heads in the sand.

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They Are Having Their Effect

I got off the subway today because of a young man with a backpack.

He got on the subway and stood in the doorway as a lot of young men do, staking out his territory by the exit. Short and dark his packpack was conspicuous in its size. In his left hand he held an electronic device with a wire that led up to a large pair of headphones.
I’m sure it was an MP3 player but the image of a large stuffed backpack and a device with a wire held in the hand of a young dark skinned man was just too much.

The conductor announced the closing of the doors and I was out as they shut.

Nothing happened, all the passengers got home safely. Terrorism isn’t the act it self it is the thoughts that we now live with every day.

Despotism

A friend of mine sent me a link to a 1946 film Despotism produced by the Encyclopedia Britannica Films. I’m not sure how or why he came across this film but it was interesting to see the simple style of an “educational” film of the era. He asked what I thought and I replied.

With the war just over, Truman in office and the death of Roosevelt still fresh there was a strong utopian movement. Communism was not the evil threat it would become in the fifties. How to keep from falling back into another world war was on everybody’s mind.
The even distribution of wealth was not looked down upon as an ideal as it is today. So this film takes a simplistic propagandistic view of democracy vs. despotism. But it makes a few good points that are relevant today.
These quotes are from the film.

“The spread of respect and power in a community is influenced by certain conditions which many observers measure by means of the economic distribution and information scales.”
“If a community's economic distribution becomes slanted, its middle income groups grow smaller and despotism stands a better chance to gain a foothold.”
If wealth is power, the concentration of wealth in the upper 1% has increased dramatically since Reagan coming to office.

“Look beyond the legal formalities of an election in measuring a community on the power scale to see if the ballot is really free.”
Anyone want to open up the Florida election results again?

The film goes on to talk about education and dictating to young minds.
“See how a community trains its teachers.”
"Bear this in mind. Young people cannot be trusted to form their own opinions.”
“And when teachers put such training into practice, despotism stands a good chance.”
The intimidation that many school boards are using on teachers to teach creationism comes to mind today.

Where are we today? We have an administration that came to power in a questionable election. Has insisted on tilting the judiciary towards the religious right, willfully lied to the people to start a war, is trying to change the constitution to define marriage according to their religious views and recently manipulated the legislature to press a right to life position in the case of Terri Schiavo.

The assault on Social Security is the battle to dismantle the programs that Roosevelt put in place. When Bush talks about the “ownership” society he is describing a society that truly evolutionary in that it will be all out survival of the fittest with no social programs.
It’s a silly film but it has some lessons that are being unlearned.
Just my opinion.



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It’s autumn.

I like the idea of following the cycles of the sun and moon. I never understood why the summer solstice, when the days start to get shorter is called the beginning of summer. It’s more an end than a beginning. Same with the winter solstice, the days start to get longer and the rebirth of Mother Earth is on its way.
At least the autumnal equinox is called autumn. I find it the most wonderful of seasons. Certainly spring with all its color and sexual verve is exciting after the doldrums of February and March. But the clear sky’s and perfect temperatures after August’s frightful heat, humidity and haze is so refreshing.
Maybe it’s the bitter sweet knowledge that so perfect a time of year is leading us into the depths of winter. But we are soothed and cajoled by autumn. With its warm days and brisk winds for the best of the sailing season and the cool nights that make being under the covers a joy.
So here’s to autumn. Not so much an ending but a bucolic and wonderful season that stands on its own.

AAaaahhhh…….

I spent the first weekend of the season on "Peregrine". It rained Saturday night but my enclosure for the pop top and a cockpit canopy kept me dry. It’s great to be back on the water and Oyster Bay is glorious this time of year. It was a long cold winter now it’s time to sail.
More on sailing as the season develops.


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A Year Latter
Today marks the first year since the start of the Iraq war. Bush has his cronies out in force protesting that the WMD’s were not the reason we went to war. But if you read Bush’s speech to the American people on March 20 2003 you will see that Bush used the WMD’s as the main reason we were sending our troops into Iraq.

Here are a couple of quotes,”, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.”
Clearly the “disarm Iraq” relates to the WMD’s and he infers that the entire world is in danger of nuclear harm.

He goes on to say “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.” How much more clear can he get? He says we are fighting to stop an outlaw who has WMD’s.
Don’t let his peons tell you differently.

He closes the speech with this little gem,” We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities. “
This is a reference to 9/11. He is saying that your homes and lives are at risk if we don’t go to war. He uses the fear of more bombings in our cities. That is not what a responsible President should be doing because he knew it was not true.
The speech was cynical and calculating. He used the speech to instill fear into all Americans.

Well to date NO WMD’s have been found and now over 500 American soldiers are dead, over 10,000 Iraqis are dead, 200 Spaniards are dead, and the Iraqi people live in chaos.

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Super Tuesday indeed.

Tomorrow we vote. As usual NY is voting when the outcome is no longer in doubt. In the past I have used my vote to keep the dialogue alive by voting for Jessie Jackson and Jerry Brown. Not that I would have wanted either to be President but I wanted to keep the democrats in the news and continuing to talk about ALL the issues.
This time I will vote for the front runner and IMO opinion the next democratic nominee for President, John Kerry.

The Remodeling is in Phase II

The Russians left today!!
They cleaned up and left today at 4pm. I have new bathroom and most of a new kitchen. Both came out great. Now my work starts. I have to strip the kitchen cabinet doors and put new hardware on them, all 18 doors, then paint the kitchen and hang the center fixture, an old factory glass shade. Then I have to paint the rest of the apartment. Whew. Lots to do but the ordeal of construction is over. Yeah!!

On to Politics

Did you hear President Bush’s speech yesterday on gay marriage? Today he is goading on the right-wingers in the congress to amend the constitution to ban gay marriage. The constitution? This is a religious fight and we cannot have zealots messing with the constitution to pawn their brand of religion on the country. This is an administration driven by religious fundamentalists no less dangerous than the ruling power in Iran. Separation of church and state means just that keep government and religion separate and the objection to gay marriage is religious. Even thinking of amending the constitution for a religious belief is wrong.
To quote President Bush’s speech ;

“An amendment to the Constitution is never to be undertaken lightly. The amendment process has addressed many serious matters of national concern, and the preservation of marriage rises to this level of national importance.
The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith.

Marriage cannot be severed from its cultural, religious and natural roots without weakening the good influence of society.”

There is no question that Bush and the right wing Christians intend to have their religion dominate every aspect of our lives.

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Remodeling Redux

Day 13 Friday 2/20/02
Disappointment. I get home to find no work has been done. I had been brought home by Artie who cut up some plywood for shelves etc. and to find the work not done was really a bummer. It could be it was the 13th day. I called Gregory who said “I told you” well his English is not the best so I didn’t understand. Ultimately I see why but that is not enough to appease me. There was/is only for hours work to finish the bathroom and that would have wasted a day of one of his most valuable men. So on Tuesday two guys will come finish the bathroom and get started on the kitchen. Oh well it will soon be over then my work starts. I still have to paint the entire apt and strip and paint the kitchen cabinets.

Day 14 Tuesday 2/24
Walking home from work I ran into the real estate broker who sold me my apt. and she said a smaller one bedroom in this building ended up in a bidding war and got $15K more than asked! In just five months I‘ve already made good money on the apt.
Outside my building is a big truck and I asked the driver if he had delivered a stove and fridge. Indeed my new appliances are here. They are stainless and black, very cool. There is loud Russian rock and roll blaring on my portable radio and Vitali is painting away in the bathroom the floor in the kitchen has a layer of luan down and the counter is gone. Progress at last! There might be a chance the Russians will history by the end of the week but I am afraid to jinx it so just go in my bedroom and close the door.

Light at the End of the Tunnel
The remodeling continues.
I have a toilet. Yeah!! Of course nothing is going the way "Vitali" would have hoped. First the floor is lower so he had to cut the toilet drain down to the floor which was messy to say the least. Then a plastic part broke inside the flush mechanism, luckily the super had the part. Now he is installing the pedestal sink and he just found out the floor is not level so he will have to shim the base. I looked up the sink on the web and found the Toto pedestal sink is pictured with the same faucet I chose.
Vitali is Gregori's main man and he stoically goes about his business and solves each problem in a methodical way.
I bought towels today and will get a rug, shower curtain and new toilet seat tomorrow while I am near BB&B. Those of you with out a Bed Bath and Beyond it is a one stop urban supplier for all the things for the NYC apartment. We couldn't live without it.
By the time Vitali left the sink was in and working a third layer of plaster is on the walls which are now ready for paint and we set the placement for all the towel bars glass shelves and even a four foot stainless shelf which sits high in the wall opposite the mirror so the door will clear under it. Supplies not needed every day will live there. A trip to the Container Store will fill that shelf with matching boxes.
By the time I get home from work the bathroom will be usable. Next the kitchen. The good news is Gregori wanted me to order the appliances today to be delivered on Tuesday. I know he is ready for this job to be done which is good for me. The faster the better.

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Love & Marriage

Two friends of mine waited three hours and got married in San Francisco yesterday. They have been a couple for many years and have the protection of same sex couple benefits but yesterday they were allowed to do what most people in America take for granted, they are “married”. I don’t want to go on too much about same sex marriage per say. With the divorce rate at 50% or higher in America the straight world should embrace anyone who wants to build a long term loving relationship with another person.
What I really want to talk about is way our President has defined the argument. He and his Christian right government talk about the “tyranny of judiciary “.. He has decided that the judiciary branch of the government is the enemy. In other words the executive branch wants to rule without the benefit of the courts. This is a direct assault on the way we govern ourselves. The last time Bush used the word tyranny he bombed the crap out of Iraq. Take a look at the judges Bush has put forward. Charles Pickering, Priscilla Owen, Miguel Estrada these people are right wing ideologues looking to use their judgeships to put forward a Christian fundamentalist view. They openly oppose abortion, same sex marriage and will support the executive branches abuse of privacy. There is no difference between the Bush administrations stacking of the judiciary with religious zealots and the Imams controlling the Iranian government.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, said.
"We are pushing a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. We're working on one, we're trying to bring everybody together," he said. "When you have a runaway judiciary, which we obviously have, that has no consideration for the Constitution of the United States, then we have available to us through that Constitution [a way] to fix the judiciary."
This no less than an attempt to circumvent the legal system which does not fit their view of morality.
I think we should all be thankful for Mayor Gavin Newsom's brave and historic dictum to allow same sex marriages.

Now I know most of you waiting with bated breath for the latest report on the remodeling. Well the toilet just got hooked up and I am hoping for a working sink by the end of the day. I’ll update the work latter this evening.

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Thank You and Good Bye Dr. Dean

Just a quick political note before I get back to the report on the remodeling. Last night I wrote the following to as many places on the Howard Dean web site; as I could find.

"QUIT NOW!!
As a Vietnam veteran I will be voting for the man who not only fought in Vietnam but led the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.
Your campaign is over. You have done well now go home."

Today we wake up to hear he will announce the end of campaign. Do I think he listened to me? Of course not but each message is tallied. Whether you write your congress person or the White House, be sure to state your position right up front and keep the message short. Basically you will be sending a pro or con message and it will be counted as such if you keep it brief.

Howard Dean was good for the party and made the race interesting and has kept the Democratic Party in the headlines. It is now up to Kerry and Edwards to continue the dialogue and make the case against what I feel is the most dangerous administration since Eisenhower. Eisenhower allowed South America to be plundered by corporate thieves and threw out Iraq’s last chance for democracy by supporting coup that put the Shaw in place. Now the Bush administration has turned Afghanistan into a mire and lied to the American people to start a war that was planned long before 9/11.
Can Kerry win it? It will be a long hard road and the Christian Right will be fighting with all their efforts. But the fight has to at least define the position against a government of ideologues.

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Day 10 Tuesday 2.17.2004

Its 4:45 and Sasha just left. He’s in a little bit of trouble because it’s his wife’s birthday and he had hoped to get out early. But it turned out to be a long day in the bathroom. Today he had to fit all the floor tiles which are on a diagonal and cut the wall tiles around all the pipes. To finish it off he set the threshold before he left. The threshold is the best part, Gregory bought a black and green marble threshold that looks so classy next to the green tiles. He usually uses gray marble but he knew this was a great finishing touch.
Gregory took me to the paint store where I got the usual primer and decorators white but for two walls I am using Benjamin Moore #1583 a light celadon, it’s just enough to pick up the color of the floor.
It seems like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sasha will do the grout in the morning then the plasterer will do his second coat and then the painting after that all the appliances and towel bars etc. It could be a bathroom by the end of the week.

Day 9 continued

The toilet is now sitting in the tub and the floor tiles are being laid. They really look great. Sasha is at the point of fitting them around the toilet and the pipe for the tub cut off. Slow work but he is good and meticulous. With the toilet out I am off to stay in Manhattan with friends. Back in the AM to buy paint and see the progress.

Day 9 Monday 2/16/04

It’s the little things.

Sunday was a day off so I won’t count it as a day. It was a good time for me to look at the work and make a few notes. The fact is that no one will know the room as well as you. The crew certainly knows how to do their job but they have tunnel vision. Ultimately I am the designer on the job and the general contractor is not on the site through the entire process so I need to watch all the details without slowing the work down.
The kitchen and bathroom share a common wall. I saw that the electric outlet that the fridge and stove plug into was right in the hole where the medicine cabinet goes. There is a range hood going in over the stove and it needs electricity. Now is the time to run that power BEFORE the medicine cabinet is screwed into place. Alec showed up a little after Sasha and he understood immediately that now was time to run the power so when we start the kitchen that wall will not have to be opened up. It got done and power to the medicine cabinet is now run. There is still the issue of the bath not draining. When the demo was done the drain got plugged up. I won’t be happy till that is fixed. Anyway the cabinet is now in place and the door is being hung. Hopefully Sasha can get back to the tile work in another hour or so. It’s 10:30am.

Day 7 Friday 2/13
I hadn’t realized it was Friday the 13th and the day went reasonably smoothly. The tiles and Gregory showed up as planed a little after 2pm. The tile man is Sasha and he has less command of the English language than the rest of the crew. Between Gregory, Sasha and myself we came up with a plan for getting around the medicine chest and I have asked for dark baseboard or “saddle” that matches the floor to go over the white tile on the sink/toilet wall. It’s a little unconventional but will look finished when it’s all done. Even with no language between us Sasha and I convinced Gregory it was the right solution. So Gregory is off to other jobs and Sasha starts the tile. I am thrilled to see this phase started.
It is great to see the choices I made in the show room look good together. I stuck my neck out when choosing the floor tiles they are a green and black sort of “agate” look. They have a bit of texture so I won’t go sliding across all five feet of bathroom floor. Did I mention the bathroom is tiny?

Day 8 Saturday 2/14.
Sasha has got most of the whole pieces on the wall of the tub surround by noon. After his lunch, they all carry Tupper Ware lunches and tea, he is starting on all the cuts around the faucets and nozzles.
I spent the morning at the container store and Bed Bath & Beyond scoping out new towels, storage boxes and shower curtains. I should have a scrap of the floor tile to take with me in the next day or two. I managed to get out of both stores with only a $5 trash can but will have to bite the bullet soon and buy all the stuff when we get closer to completion. With the green of the floor I think the towels, rug and shower curtain will be sage or celadon. The wall color will also be celadon with the wall opposite of the mirror staying white. Of course I’m getting ahead of myself. I think the walls and floor will take through Monday.

The Walls Came Tumbling….UP!!!

Day 6 Thurs. 1/12
It’s 12:30 and walls are all closed up and the cement board is going down for the floor tiles. It’s so much better now that the walls are closed I can almost sense that a bathroom will exist here in a few days. These boys don’t mess around.
There is of course plenty to do. Next the floor gets tiled then the tub surround and sink wall gets tiled and then all the “accessories” get placed. Each tiling job has wait times involved so things will speed up then come to a sudden halt. I decided to put a grab bar in the shower. I may not need it now but I think it will be a safety feature that is better added now rather than latter.
There is a little delay in that the floor tiles will not be delivered till tomorrow at 1pm. They could have started the floor today but all is well and the half day wait won’t hurt that much. It’s a bit anti climatic, the room still looks like a construction site and the hallway into the apt. is still piled with tools, plaster, workmen’s cloths and the pieces and parts yet to be installed, but today was a good day.
On another note it is freezing here in NYC but a small ray of summer just showed up in the mailbox. The mooring permit arrived for ”Peregrine”. This is always a welcome sign that Oyster Bay will indeed thaw out and sailing and lounging about in the sun is coming.

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Ah… The life of a home owner.

The following is brief description of the remodeling that will go on in my apt for awhile. Since it is a major factor in my life I’ll let it take space in the blog.
The remodel includes a total redo of the bathroom from the floor up and just the floor new counter, sink and appliances in the kitchen.

Remodel Diary

Day 1 Thurs. 2/5
The Russians have landed!
Gregory said they would show up at 8:30 so of course they showed at 7:50 while I was still in the shower. I let them in and they started covering the floor and taping up plastic while I finished my shower.
The ordeal has begun!!
By the end of the day the bathroom was rubble with all the walls exposed to the studs and the ceiling out.

Day 2 Fri. 2/6
One lone Russian had the sad task of finishing the demo by himself. The job was done by 3pm and Gregory showed up and pronounced the job “good” the bathroom however looked like a bomb went off. I am now living in a wrecked bathroom and the rest of the apt encased in plastic to keep the dust at bay. It will be a long weekend.

Day 3 Monday 2/9
The plumber showed up and started to rough in new copper with new fittings and cut off valves. All was going well when the super Adam shut off the water to the toilet and the pipes were cut. When Adam restored the water we had a flood from above. The toilet in 5A overflowed when the water went back on. Adam had to break into the apt and fix their toilet that was not draining before they start work again. My bathroom was soaked but since the walls were out there was nothing to get damaged. I worried about the apt below because she has worked so hard to make her apt a showcase.

Day 4 Tues. 2/10
No issues with the apt below so work continues the plumbing is roughed in and the new framing is starting. It’s great to see the new work starting. After another discussion about putting the medicine cabinet in the wall I pull the cabinet out of the box and insist that be set into the wall. I ran off to work at noon and let the Russians do the work.

Day 5 Wed. 2/11
I am now staying with friends as the bathroom has little or no function. I returned this morning to find just one workman putting up the cement board. It is 10am and the ceiling is up and the tub wall is rocked. The GFI plug is in the middle of the blank space I want to put shelves in so after a bit of explanation it will be moved next to the medicine chest which is in and set well into the wall. It’s important to see each detain so changes can be made easily as you go.

1/27/04

$350 Later

Now that I am a home (apt.) owner I’m sure this is just the first of many such sagas.
I awoke Monday to find the power off in most of my apt. Only the kitchen and bathroom had power. Thanks for small favors. After determining it was not the building I got a couple of young Russians in to find the problem. Of course they couldn’t show till 7:30 pm and at 9pm they still had no idea where the problem was so I sent them home to return in the morning.
They came at nine and took up where they left off and by noon had all the power on and all new outlets installed. Between them they had about 15 words they could speak in English and I only know “Da” and “Niet”. For the longest time I didn’t hear very many “Da”s only “Niet’s”. But they went about their business. They saw last night that I don’t where shoes on the carpets so they took their shoes off without being asked and Alec brought flip flops to wear today. They worked fast and cleaned up. Nice guys.
It did cost $350 but with 5 hours work for two guys and the hardware it’s not great but not horrible. They were sent by the contractor who will start the remodeling of the bath and kitchen so I was glad to see good workers show up. I will have them wire the track lighting and other fixtures instead of doing it myself because if there is a problem they can find it. The wiring here is from the sixties and pretty out dated so it’s best to pay a few bucks and have it working well.
Ahhh….. the life of a home owner!

12/15/03
It has taken longer to get back to the blog than I had hoped. Moving is an epic that seems to have no end. I had lived in my last apartment for over 25 years so even the idea of a move was foreign to me. I am a service brat, having lived all over the states, Northern Africa and Europe so you might think I could move with ease but I think that worked against me. I settled, some would say burrowed, into a home for so long that inertia set in. But life moves on and all worked out for the best I am now a home, apartment, owner. I will say that now that I own, the hardware store rarely goes a day without a visit from me. How can there be so many little projects?
Did everyone see the second part of Angles in America? Mike Nichols fielded one of the strongest casts to be seen in a film made for television. Tony Kushner has written the best play about the plaque that is AIDS and maybe one the most profound pieces on the human condition. It’s a must see.
The North East has seen two big snowstorms and so far we are early in the season. Both storms happened on weekends. It’s great when it snows in the city on a weekend. Everyone gets out to play in snow. Now that I am a Brooklynite Prospect Park is where I headed to. I was going to go skiing but decided I wasn’t familiar enough with the park to ski it. I hiked in past lots of families sledding on gentle slopes and found some back trails that were still without footprints. The park has woods that are as old as the park and were just set aside by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux with very little changes which makes the wooded areas over a hundred and thirty years old. In the crystal white of the snow storm it was a magical walk. My hike lasted over two hours coming across the occasional cross country skier and a few snow shoe tracks. All in all a great way to see the park.
I hope to be back on a regular schedule with this blog now that things are settling down a bit. Please check back often.

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This blog will be back after I get moved.
After 25 years in the village I am off to Brooklyn. The accumulated debris of 25 years is a major event to deal with. But a new chapter is about to open. Please check back near Halloween when the blog will be back and running. Till then write something every day.

Black Out 2003

NYC seems to be back to normal but each conversation starts with how did it effect you? Our crane camera man had the best story. He just put in a new pool on his 2-1/2 acre place in Brewster. They noticed the "fountain" in the pool had stopped spewing and stereo went silent so.... they made sure the beer was still cool and went back to partying. He lives in an area that has black-outs so at sunset he started the generator and watched a DVD. Life is tough.

This will be the first of a few stories.

E-COOPS.ORG

I have been asked to exchange a link with E-COOPS.ORG. A new site for those in NYC looking for work and building a web community. It’s very new and he is just starting to get his links together. I hope it works and gets allot of traffic.
You'll find the link in my "recommended" area to the left and my link will be in his NY Bloggers area.
If you visit his site rate my blog at 8 or above. Actually I am looking get some traffic here so if you like my ranting pass the URL on to your friends.

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Tar Baby.

Well the “Arnold” is in the race for Governor and from the first moment he was making news. The look on Leno’s face was priceless when he said he would be running. Rush Limbaugh is calling Arnold a closet liberal because Arnold said that he wanted businesses to come back to California so that the state government could collect enough tax revenues to provide social programs.
Of course only in California would a recall get Larry Flint, Gary Coleman and Ariana Huffington into a travesty of democracy. There is no question in my mind that like the 2000 election the Republicans will subvert the law to get what they want.

Al Gore gave a speech to the members of Move On.org. The gist of the speech can summed up in the following quote.

"Americans have always believed that we the people have a right to know the truth and that the truth will set us free. The very idea of self-government depends upon honest and open debate as the preferred method for pursuing the truth -- and a shared respect for the Rule of Reason as the best way to establish the truth."

"The Bush Administration routinely shows disrespect for that whole basic process, and I think it's partly because they feel as if they already know the truth and aren't very curious to learn about any facts that might contradict it. They and the members of groups that belong to their ideological coalition are true believers in each other's agendas."

Of course he was preaching to the choir. He went on to say

“Millions of Americans now share a feeling that something pretty basic has gone wrong in our country and that some important American values are being placed at risk. And they want to set it right.”

With the farce in California and the fact that many Americans have bought into Paul Wolfowitz’s idea of how America should conduct itself in the world. We are on a hard, mean spirited road that has no regard for the rule of law.

The sad part is we are reading every day of another American soldier dying and now we are seeing car bombs going off. If the resistance in Iraq has car bombs these are not just Ba’ath party members taking pot shots but a group that has bomb making resources and secret places to make those bombs.

Like Brer Rabbit we are stuck with both fists in the Tar Baby.


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The Tour de France

Three weeks twenty one days nineteen days of hard riding. There is a champion with five consecutive wins and a determination to try again. It was Lance Armstrong’s hardest tour since he got off his bike in the mist in 1995. That was the year that Fabio Casartelli crashed on the descent of Col de Portet d'Aspet during Stage 15 of the Tour de France and died. Two days latter Lance won the stage and dedicated his ride to Fabio. I was lucky enough to meet Lance after his first tour win and I brought the picture of him winning that stage to sign. I said it was a great ride, he said it was the best day of his career. Now he is with a select group of riders that have won the Tour de France five times and stands with Miguel Indurain having won his five all in a row. But that is just the highlight of a hot, the hottest on record, tour that saw a massive crash the first day out. The best American besides Armstrong, Tyler Hamilton broke his collar bone in that crash and was not expected to finish. Instead he finished fourth overall and had the ride of his life on stage sixteen where he attacked and won the stage.
Go back to stage seven and listen to the heroics of France’s Richard Virenque take the day and go on to win his sixth pokadot jersey as King of the Mountains. We will never know what might have happened if Joseba Beloki had not crashed in front of Lance in stage nine. Beloki will be lucky to ever ride again having broken his femur at the bottom of a hairpin curve that sent Armstrong cross country to miss rolling over him. Beloki was second at that point and real threat.
Then there was the come back of Jan Ullrich. After missing the last tour with a blown knee he was back and dangerous. He tore up Armstrong in the first individual time trial making up a minute and a half bringing himself within thirty four seconds of the lead. At that point there was only fifty seconds separating first and third place.
The day after Lance’s disastrous time trial it was all he could do to hang on to a fifteen second lead as Ullrich powered up stage thirteen. At the end of the day eighteen seconds separated first and third. Never the previous four years had Armstrong faced such a tight race that late in the mountains.
Two days later Lance had recovered. Ullrich attacked on the Col de Tourmalet and dropped Lance who had to wait and be patient till his speed matched the German. He caught up to Jan and Ullrich again tried to attack, this time it didn’t work Lance held his wheel. The on the next and final climb for first time Lace attacked but it was short lived. A young boy held out a musette bag that hooked Lance's handlebars and he went down. Mayo rolled right over him. Tyler Hamilton seeing the yellow jersey down sprinted ahead and told Ullrich to wait which he did. Lance pulled himself up to the group then… he was off and running. He won his only stage in this years tour dropping the big German and the Kazak in his wake. It was not the two to three minutes we are used to seeing in the past but it was enough.
Then came the final time trial. Raining and dangerous the roads were an accident waiting to happen. Ullrich had to press to have any chance of a win and Armstrong kept the pace high. Their times jockeyed between Ullrich pulling ahead by six seconds and Lance pulling him back. Then Ullrich was down. Even though he got right up it was over. Lance could ease up and make sure he had a safe ride. His tour was won.
This was a great tour. Lance is the big story but each day brought heroics and valor.
There is no sport like the The Tour de France .


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"THERE WILL COME SOFT RAIN"

There will come soft rain and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire.

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,

If mankind perished utterly.

And Spring herself when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

SARA TEASDALE

Heroes Just the Same

Today was one of those special days at the Tour de France . It was 90 degrees on the road from Nevers to Lyon, a total of 230 kilometers or 143 miles. At 35 kilometers Stuart O’Grady a strong and crafty veteran of the tour and Antony Geslin the third youngest rider on the tour sped up to take the first intermediate sprint points and then decided to keep on going.
The only thing harder than a two man attack on the peloton is a one man attack which is almost impossible. That is exactly what Geslin tried the day before for two hours before being caught. O’Grady and Geslin not only attacked, they put as much as 18 minutes between themselves and the pack (peloton). They kept the peloton at bay for four hot grueling hours. Their effort was heroic and like tragic Greek heroes, doomed to fail. They maintained the lead until the very last kilometer then the peloton bearing down on them at 70 kilometers and hour gobbled them up. O’Grady finished 20th Geslin finished 59th. The new king of the sprinters Petacchi whizzed by the entire field to an easy fourth win in this years tour.
Do we feel sad that O’Grady and Geslin did not beat the odds? Well… yes but tonight they are the talk of France. They are being praised for an epic effort and they will not be forgotten. They are why we watch the the Tour.
Yes Lance Armstrong will be the big story tomorrow as they encounter the mountains. The fight for the overall lead will begin as Lance and Jan Ullrich contest the worst the Tour has to offer.
But today was for two brave young men who risked all.


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All is right with the world

The Tour de France is under way and Lance Armstrong is in great position just one second out of first place with a team mate ahead of him. The US Postal team had a great day on the team time trial. They started off slow and were 14 seconds off the pace at the first time check but when all was said and done they had won their first ever team time trial. Their margin of victory was enough to put Victor Hugo Pena into the overall lead and the yellow jersey. He became the first Colombian to ever wear the ”Maillot Jaune”.
This could prove to be a hard fought tour with Jan Ullrich in the best shape since his win in 1997. Unfortunately Tyler Hamilton was involved in the huge crash on day two and is riding with two fractures of his collar bone. I don’t think he will make it up the mountains with that kind of pain. Too bad, it would have been great to see two Americans battle it out for the win.
Tommorow we see the first of the mountains. The tour is always won in the mountains.
So enjoy the tour and root for Lance but watch the small stories the breakaways and the little triumphs. A stage win in the tour can make a small town boy a hero for life.
It’s the best sporting event in the world.

Rain Rain Go Away!

In “Alice’s restaurant” Arlo Guthrie talks about the “Last Guy”. He says when you have it bad someone always has it worse than you. At some point there is the last guy and no one has it worse than him.
While it’s true our sailing season has been dismal so far, there is a couple who have it worse than us. Last weekend Oyster Bay saw 60 knots and lightning strikes everywhere. My friends Ron and Kathy are great sailors and cruise the Sound and points east each year in their Niagara 35, a beautiful Canadian boat. They had only gotten a one hour shake down cruise in before last weekend when they were hit by lightning. Now their boat is on a mooring close to the marina where the mast lays in the yard torn apart and the prospect of all the electronics, including every inch of wiring may have to be replaced. Even if the weather changes by the 4th they face a month of repairs.
There are many perks to owning a 25’ boat. I have a 44’ Cheoy Lee one side of me and Ron and Kathy’s 35’ Niagara on the other I am the smallest boat in the area, and the shortest mast for 200 yards.
The weather will change, and we will enjoy one of the greatest sailing areas in America soon.

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”First Cities” at the Metropolitan museum


”First Cities” the exhibition now at the Metropolitan museum is a look at the great communities that arose and thrived in the fertile wedge that brought forth crops in the spring and stories to fill the seasons. Many of these ”First Stories” are ingrained through out the great religions of today.

The land between the Tigris and the Euphrates was silted over each flood period and became verdant when the water level dropped. The myths of the birth and death cycles can be found in the rhythm of these seasons. This was the land now called Iraq.
The vocabulary of images, idols and Gods is remarkable in their variations as well as their similarities. There is no question that these were an ancient people with long standing trade traditions. Beliefs as well as grain were traded freely. The show manages to point up the regional and individual cities traits that make each city stand out alone.

Certain rulers came to great power and skewed the regions wealth to put their gods to the forefront. High craftsmen kept ancient traditions and cities alive. The story tellers and craftsmen depicted their gods so beautifully that everyone in the region recognized and revered the story of that deity. This practice lasted and sustained the Byzantine mosaics and early Renaissance frescoes. These simple direct depictions of the gods created the first myths that traveled and took hold in the Mediterranean region.
The craftsmanship of the period is extraordinary in its precision and use of very simple tools. Lapis lazuli is used as the beard of a bull in the "Great Lyre" with bull's head and inlaid front panel, ca. 2550–2400 B.C. I love the scorpion god in the lower panel under the flowing Lapis Lazuli beard. In the "Standard of Ur," ca. 2550–2400 B.C.; Early Dynastic IIIA. Mesopotamia, Ur, (Click on ”Mesopotania” on the map.) The Lapis is used as a background to bring the white luster of the shell figures out in the light.


It was from these city states that the first laws were written. The first religions were transferred and assimilated by neighbors. After all when you are a good neighbor you support your friends even if you don’t buy their ideals. Isn’t that what we are all about? We claim to love freedom and the utmost freedom is of religion and that is why our government CANNOT take any oath, prayer or creed from any one religion. If we say ”In God We Trust” we have made a choice of one god over another. This goes against the freedom of religion. I’m sorry but the ”In God We Trust” that was put on our coins during WWII is hurtful to the republic. Acceptance of all Gods and credos is the only answer in a true democracy.

The ”First Cities” at the Metropolitan museum can help make the world understand that we are one people with similar yet gloriously different souls.

"Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives."
Abba Eban

I remember a story of King Arthur as a boy learning about the world from Merlin. Merlin would turn the young Arthur, who he referred to as “Wart”, into various animals. On one occasion Wart was turned into a bird. As he flew around Camelot Merlin asked him
"Wart, why do we have wars?"
"Because someone attacks," responds the young King Arthur.
"That’s right. They do it for boundaries," adds the Merlin.
"You humans just don’t understand," retorts Archimedes the Owl. He jerks his head in disgust and shakes out the irritation by vibrating his feathers. "You’re always killing off your own blood for those silly boundaries. You’re no smarter than an ant. You don’t realize that MIGHT DOESN’T ALWAYS MAKE RIGHT."
Arthur looks over at Archimedes, squinting his eyes as all children do when they’re very confused. "What are boundaries?"
"Imaginary lines on the earth," responds Archimedes. "When you’re a bird those stupid lines don’t exist. Of course we protect our home territories, but we do it in a different manner. We posture and squawk, but we don’t have gang wars against our own kind, like humans do
"Archimedes has a good point. When you see from a higher perspective, there are no boundaries, and so there’s no reason for fighting," says the Merlin.
Boundaries are very reason nations can exist but there was a time that the known world was made up of “city states. In the exhibition now at the Metropolitan museum there is a look at Mesopotamia’s ”First Cities”. The exhibit is from the heart of civilization, the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, now called Iraq. The land now being readied for Bush’s attempt at ”nation Building. It was from these city states that the first laws were written. The Greek city states are what the west has patterned our architecture and our very form of government on.
The current “boundaries between Iraq, Iran and Turkey are now going to be looked at allot closer and the Iraq, Turkey border is going to contested either now or in the near future. The real boundaries are ethnic and religious and they sweep across the borders with little real consideration to the various ”nations”.
It may be that the ancient system of city states is more appropriate to the current situation. Look at the party in power here in the states. They take the view that states rights are equal to or more important than the nation and they have a point. Each region has its own needs and rights. Could Iraq be more unified with regions (states) of like minded people who then come together to form a nation? Where does it say that all the people in Iraq have to be one ”people”?
Even in Europe nations formed late and regions within countries are more important that the whole. Italy only became a nation 1861 (17 March 1861, Kingdom of Italy proclaimed; Italy was not finally unified until 1870)
Secular Arabs, Sunni’s and Shii need not be put into one pot and stewed together. It may be an easier solution for Bush and his “nation builders” but it is ultimately not up to them.

Manet/Velazquez at the Met

The Metropolitan museum currently is showing Manet/Velazquez through the end of June. The premise is that when in 1838, King Louis Philippe opened the Galerie Espagnole at the Louvre, placing on view his extraordinary collection of hundreds of Spanish paintings French painting changed and was forever influenced by the Spanish. Whether you buy the premise or not the exhibition is extraordinary. It has 150 paintings by Velázquez, Murillo, Ribera, El Greco, and Zurbarán and masterpieces by the 19th-century French artists they supposedly influenced, among them Delacroix, Courbet, Millet, Degas, and, of course, Manet. The exhibit also includes more than 30 works by American artists such as Sargent, Chase, Eakins, Whistler, and Cassatt, who studied in France. You can see the way the compositions influenced the French and the backgrounds were done the Spanish way. The exhibit works hard to pair like subjects and compositions but a look at the painting itself shows that the French painters had another idea of what art was to look like. The Spaniards painted in the way paintings had been done since the renaissance with finished surfaces and attention to detail all in a very realistic way. One look at Manet’s paintings and you can see the subject is the paint itself. Bold strokes of color make up the facial features and realism is left behind. Certainly all the painting have recognizable subjects and the Americas Eakins and Sargent go a long way towards realism but the brushstrokes in the cloths and backgrounds are pure paint.
This is not a one visit type exhibit for two reasons. One, it is just too large to be seen on one go round and the academic challenge the curator has set up is worth thinking about. In my opinion the curator has to work to develop his premise but it is not without merit. The obvious correlation is in the compositions and the use of color. The rich earth tones are used to create subjects that grow out of the canvasses.
These shows are almost impossible to be seen on weekends. An afternoon towards the beginning of the week is best and it will have more people in it than you hope then.
I know I will be back and then it will be on to ”Art of the First Cities”.

You’ve got to love city kids these days.

Walking down Madison Avenue on a Friday afternoon can be daunting. There are office workers dashing out of every doorway and charging for the subways the bus stops or running into the streets to steal the taxi that just pulled over for a fare. A peaceful stroll it isn’t. Just as I was getting into the pace of things along came a teenager in the bus lane kicking his skate board. Madison goes north he was heading south and paid no attention to the bus that brushed by him. Behind me came his buddies weaving in and out of the pedestrians who were unnerved by the trio zipping along the sidewalk. The last of this group was younger and doing his best to keep up. As he came to a corner a woman was brought up short because he swooped right in front of her and he never slowed his pace. He kicked a couple of times to get his speed up at the same time he reached into his pocket a opened his flip cell phone. From the sound of his voice it had to be his mother. I heard him say “Yes, we’re on our way.” Skate board, baggy pants and a cell phone. The tools of daily life for the New York teenager.

While listening to Elaine Pagels, she talked about a friend who had just died. She went to her church and the pastor asked if her friend was a “Christian” and she said “No”. She was told he was in HELL. She, of course, rejected this judgment.
When I was in Spain at Torrejon Air Force Base outside Madrid, attending “Catechism” we shared the church and the Sunday school with the Protestant and Jewish children. We were being taught about “original sin” and being told that only Catholics could be forgiven by God for our sins in the confessional. We had to clean up and get out because the Protestant Sunday school had to use the classroom in a couple of minutes. I asked (I was 8 years old) about the Protestants who were about to come into the class. I was told they couldn’t enter heaven because they didn’t believe as we did. From that day on religion became a study NOT a belief. After all how could the kid you played kickball with be a PAGAN and still be your friend? It couldn’t be true.
Elaine Pagels wrote the The Gnostic Gospels in 1979. Everyone has heard of the Quram’s Dead Sea Scrolls and their relation to the bible, to St. John and to Jesus. But the “Gnostic Gospels” are left out of the lexicon or canon. In 1945 a series of scrolls were unearthed that proved to be one of the earliest “gospels” of the Christian faith. They were banned and became a mark of rebellion for the “Gnostics”. This censorship forever marked the Christian faith. They allow for free thinking in relating your belief and the actual knowledge of the world. This was not allowed in the 3rd century. Christianity (there was only one “Christianity” in those days) was being dispersed to the masses in a very dogmatic and strict way. The Gnostic Gospels could not be part of the Bible because of their open relation to the hereafter and for their open reverence of the female in relation to God. I see a connection in the Gnostic Gospels to the matriarchal religions of the past as, I am sure, did the church “Fathers”. After all, hidden in the sands of Ephesus was the multi breasted statue of the last Goddess Artemis. She is last connection to great matriarchal religions and the Gnostic Gospels, also known as the Gospel of Thomas, acknowledged this.
How can we clean our desks off and make way for the next religious group after just hearing we are only ones to be able to get into heaven? How can we believe we will leave our good friends behind? How can this be true?
In a word. It CANNOT!! We are all children of this world. We are all children of Gaia.


“Bet you weren’t ready for that No! No! No!!” More to come.

You’ve gotta love the French.

The “shrub” decided to invade Iraq and Cherq told him to stuff it. It was more fun to see Putin slam Blair in Russia when he wasn’t expecting it but the French should have gone along. Well that’s what Bush thought. And now today the working class has taken to the streets to protest lengthening the time it take to pay into their retirement. We, the “Super Power” of the world don’t have the chance to even engage in the conversation. We have a shaky social security that we must pay into till we reach 63 and the payments are based on what we paid.
The workers in France have shut down the most of the transportation in the entire country with just the hint that they would have to work 2 more years for their pension. They do not let the government get away with the least infringement on their entitlements. Here in the “Super Power of the world there is no guarantee of any pension EVER. And let’s talk about health care. My friend “L” who works here on a green card knows that he has to get on a plane to France if he gets seriously ill. The major companies that he works for here take taxes out of his check and claim him as an employee but “L” is a freelancer and receives NO benefits from any of the major companies that hire him. Well he’s a foreigner. Yes but I am not. I work as an employee for a few major companies and because each of them claim me as an employee I cannot claim self-employment nor am I entitled to any of the healthcare the give to “permanent” employees. I am a self-employed person and I have to pay my own health care yet I am not allowed the deductions for the business I am running.
I applaud the workers of France for laying down the line that the government cannot cross. They have a strong economy and yes they pay a hefty tax burden. But their children can see a doctor when they are sick and when they get old there will be a pension to keep, them without watching state after state do away with medicade.
We have a welfare state that is in deep trouble caught between the right and the left wasting people’s lives and amazing amounts of money. As we watch the stubborn left and the righteous right decimate any chance for a middle ground we watch our President wage war in the name of the dead at ground zero. The bombing in Saudi Arabia put the lie to that. Al Qada is alive and well bombing the C**P out Iraq was NOT in the name of terrorism. He stands on the podium and takes the accolades for being a war hero while strapping us with debt that we may never repay.
Yes you gotta love the French.

The blog will be updated about 2-3 times aweek during the summer.

Now that Peregrine is in the water and safely tied to her mooring I can get back to some writing.

The recent earthquake in Turkey that took the lives of 83 children and the Tornadoes in the midwest remind us that we are here at the mercy of much larger forces. Our existence can be fleeting and we need to make the best of every minute.

I hope you all caught the Dixie Chicks cover on Entertainment Weekly. Seems the “Chicks” haven’t lost any fans after saying they were embarrassed by President Bush. The cover shows everything they were called during the flap. They had a lot to lose and they continued to speak their mind hoping their fans would stick with them well the tour looks to be a success. That they managed to compete with the wars headline is a testament to the strange mix of reality and entertainment that fills the media.

After fifty years the secret papers of Senator Joseph McCarthy have been released. It’s a period in U.S. history that continued to undermine the democracy here until the end of the Viet Nam war. The xenophobic fear of communism that led to the cold war and our entering the Viet Nam war is still with us. The 58,000 dead American soldiers and the countless Vietnamese killed came straight out of the madness that McCarthy embodied when he was allowed to destroy U.S. citizens. Not until that last helicopter left the roof of the U.S. embassy in Siagon was the era over. Why did it take fifty years to get these papers out in the open? We have know for decades that the “McCarthy era” was an evil and a mar on our democracy. These papers should be part of every high school civics class.

“My dictatorship has only one aim: to make any sort of new dictatorship impossible in Turkey”
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk 1881-1938


Is there a new Ataturk to be found in Iraq? Carving a new republic out of the dying Ottoman Empire Ataturk turned his countries future towards the west. In the present political environment the one thing that’s stands out in his vision for his country is the complete and militant separation of religion and state. On a visit to Istanbul I wondered through the book bazaar and ended up in front of the university. There was a small protest going on in front of the university it seems Islamic women students wanted to wear scarves to cover their heads. This is seen by the government as an expression of religion that is not allowed in school, the workplace or any civic situation. The group on the steps of the school numbered less than a hundred to the untrained eye but in the plaza before the school were three phalanxes of riot police all decked out in the latest gear of lexan shields, kevlar vests and helmets with visors but they were not carrying batons but automatic rifles. This was over wearing scarves! Oh did I mention the TANK????
No an Atataurk will not emerge in Iraq. There will be no separation of religion and state in the newly “liberated” Iraq. Saddam tried to run the country in a fascist socialist manner and denied the populist of their religious freedom. The religious will find a way to celebrate their belief and they demonstrated that in Karbala by chanting beating themselves with iron whips and slamming their heads with swords till their white robes were covered with blood, all the while calling for U.S forces to get out of Iraq NOW!!. This, I’m sure, was not the welcome Bush was hoping for.
We pride ourselves in separating our government from our religion. The reason is to protect different religions from being suppressed by a government dominated by any one religion. Turkey separates the government from the religions to protect the government. Iraq will have to find a way to bring their different faiths in line with a governing system that can encompass all the people of the region. Not an easy task.

“The world is divided into two parts…
Those with boats and those without boats.”
Roy Fridge

A major part of my “Peregrination” is sailing. The blog has had to be put on the back burner while I have been getting Peregrine ready for launching.
We have had a cold spring after being teased in March with warm weather. The last few days have been warm and sunny so I have had to scramble and work every day on her. Now just one more coat of wax and…. SLASH!