Short Notes: will brady's ruminations

A blog adjunct to rondak.org [click on the globe] | Perspectives on: human rights; environmental concerns; life as a visual artist; 21st century feudalism; progressive politics; aboriginal culture; new urbanism; permaculture; sustainable technology; non-traditional families; achievable utopias

2004-04-24

new e-mail addy | I've signed up for the experimental gmail service. You can send me stuff to will.brady@gmail.com |

Posted by: Will Brady / 12:13

access to rondak.org | Well, the site is back online but some glitches still seem to be extant | You can address this in the meantine by typing in www.rondak.org/wbj7.htm ~ or click on the globe to the left | Since I manually code all my pages (I don't use any web editing software and because I link the images on the blogspot site into my own directories using a full name spellout, that's why the pictures don't show right now | Cleartel tech support says that this ought to be resolved by some time next week |

Posted by: Will Brady / 11:01

2004-04-23

pyrrhic victories | Wave, one of a group of solo expeditioners to the North Pole, is calling it a wrap and going home | He'll get to see the Pole, but from the air as his rescuers lift him back from the polar cap | and Ben Saunders, another of the hearty adventurers, continues on the route as of 21 april 2004 |
Not to be outdone, though a group whose adventure is much shorter in duration, check out the surf riders in Maui | You'll neex a current version of Quicktime to watch the fun |

Posted by: Will Brady / 02:54

v-- photo credit: Tami Silicio, published in The Seattle Times and Australia's The Age

is somebody watching you? | While conducting a google search on Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron, I came across the following site's listings about covert electronic war initatives | Maintaining that there is an elaborate government conspiracy to control the average person via the use of complex electronic tools, the site is extensive and certain to keep one on edge | Here's another link about D. E. Cameron who was, no doubt, an evil character, and of whose exploits we should never forget | Raven's site identifies a number of shortwave and internet links that argue the existence of such a cabal | Raven's authors warn that some of the links on their own list have a "negative side" in that:

...a (very) few of the short wave broadcasters speak in ways that make one wonder if they are religious and racial bigots and homophobes. A regular shortwave listener may hear some opinions by some broadcasters that may make you wince. However, they are very small in number....

Some of the commentary on the site identfies Dubya's practice of quarantining dissent as evidence of this conspiracy | Does this mean that such a conspiracy against the average person (on the planet) exists? | I'll leave that question for you to conclude |
It does give one pause, however |

Posted by: Will Brady / 02:00

2004-04-22

censorship | there is a group about whom I wrote in the recent past (not, incidentally, the folks identified in the blog entry about quarantining dissent) who has aggressively sought to censor me | Cleartel seems to think that's okay | At least, they don't or didn't make any effort to determine what the issues were in the situation |
     I am working at getting this matter resolved | In the meantime, pages to the rest of my site -as well as the connect to the images I put up on this blog- are temporarily down |
     Curious that when someone has difficulty in the spotlight, - particulalry if it casts them in what they believe may be a less than favorable light - their first response is to try to censor the people who write about them |
     Makes me wonder what else it is that they don't want others to know about them |

Posted by: Will Brady / 23:17

2004-04-20

wind generation / local heroes | I know it's an old saw to speak of harnessing the energy from the mouths of politicians, but I can't resist | Yet it is real wind generation I wish to speak of right now | And it's a technological route to be followed which doesn't cost gazillions of taxpayer dollars (lord knows, the for-profits don't wish to invest any of their own money to make money - just look at ENRON) |
     So it was with interest that I read of Jeff Nichols' efforts to power up his house and business | With an up-front cost of $31,000 [USD] it's still cheaper than a Lexus SUV (hell, you could buy two wind generators by comparison) |
     Hats off to Mr. Nichols for forward thinking |
     Incidentally, I realize that wind generation might not work for everyone, everywhere | Nichols' location and situation make it well suited for the task | But for those it does work, go for it! | and read that article from the Manitowoc Herald Times | It has a lot of detail in it that spells out clearly the affordability aspects of the project | Check out Baywinds website which provides even more detail on wind generation | And, after arming yourself with information go to your local state's representative to help them put together legislation that makes it easier for individuals to do this kind of thing |

Posted by: Will Brady / 08:59

morons ain't stupid | At the same time Dubya seeks to renew and strengthen the so-called Patriot Act, the smart folk at morons warn us about the FBI attempting to make it easier to violate the Fourth Amendment | What gives here?
     It ought to be obvious | Just as the preening, ambitious senator from Rome in USA Network's Spartacus (shown only last night) when facile leaders try to con the public down the slow road to dictatorship, we can expect that they will do all they can to seize (or develop) the tools to empower themselves |
     But I want to talk about spme real smart folks at the moment, not those other morons who ruthlessly seek to corrupt and eviscerate the The US Constitution and what it stands for |
     The site is dense with information | It can take time to get through what they have to offer to viewer | Unlike many Yahoo Group members, they seek an audience of a more thoughtful mein |
     The Morons "About Us" page notes "...We don't use a lot of graphics. We figure you're here to read, not to look at a bunch of goofy 200k images that you have to download across your 9600 baud modem. We're philosophers, not designers...." | Just the kind of people we need to get us through the era we we live in ~ thinkers, no impulsive irrational actors on a stage |

Posted by: Will Brady / 00:18

2004-04-19

historic preservation | My friend Ralph Parady was able to dis-assemble the Joseph Goodspeed house in the Tylerville section of Haddam, just across the river from us |
Ralph's an independednt house contractor, gets hired for specialty jobs | At the moment he has a spate of restorations, new additions to historic homes and, taking down old houses | But he's done modern stuff as well | Two projects ago, he built a four story oval shaped "trilobite house" on the side of a steep hill, overlooking Moodus Reservoir |
jas goodspeed house, haddam ct

But saving a structure is another art form all its own | slowly removing each piece so that it can be used again, either for reconstructing the building all over, or for adaptive reuse elsewhere | Is it worth the effort? | Well, the boards that clad the house that this picture is from were solid chestnut. Over an inch thick each of them | Nowadays, chestnut goes for over $17 /per linear foot, and that's not for boards as wide as those taken down |
The Goodspeed house was framed out in the early 1800's | It was the family home of two families of importance as far as locak history goes | And although the porch was falling down before it got taken down, the structure was quite sturdy | Not a single nail in the posts and beams |

Posted by: Will Brady / 22:52

farmland preservation efforts | What you see here is the barns of one of the heritage farms in Moodus, the Dill Farm | It is also one of the painting projects I'm working on, though from a slightly different vantage point | When it's done. I'll see about putting the image online | The image is taken around 7 in the evening [GMT + 5 hours] and the red buds of the maples are teased out in the light of early sunset |
For more about farmland preservation efforts in Connecticut, click here and here |

the easter egg party | We went to an egg painting party at Buddy and Bob's last weekend | Over 60 dozen eggs to dye, paint, mark up and draw upon | I did about six of them | There were about 20 categories for juding including: most religious, most Asian (Buddy collects Aisan art and porcelain), most original, most political, ugliest, dumbest, and an "adult" category (there were two entries for this; both got photographed but won't be online here) |

Posted by: Will Brady / 22:37

since 12 june 1999