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

2005-05-27

ON THE ROAD
Bruce is off buying a bathing suit | We can't very well swim in the hotel's pool in the buff | He's more likely o come back with something like this while I'd settle for the more modest boxer or gym trunks | Our favorite eatery has closed its doors, so we'll have to find someplace new | In teh meantime, it's shepard's Pie at Press Cafe | Quite filling, actually |

Posted by: Will Brady / 17:55 (0) comments

TRAVEL

Montreal Bound

This time tomorrow we'll be looking over the skyline of la belle citi from the Hotel Gouverneur Place DuPuis | We'll most likely see the Museum of Fine Arts Edwin Holgate exhibition | We plan on seeing the new Cirque du Soleil performance of CORTEO [bought tickets months ago] and get in on Sunday's annual Free Museum tour | I'll be checking the site and the e-mail at Presse Cafe so drop a line if you'd like |

Posted by: Will Brady / 00:41 (0) comments

The following site is likely to become a runaway hit | Chinese Arithmatic | This week's New Yorker Magazine violates and victimizes a poor patient with an embarrasing condition by printing a lot of info about him that would make it possible for him to be identified. A serious HIPAA confidentiality violation. Not to mention the coarse use of common gutter talk | Go read it |

Image: "Fleet's In" by Paul Cadmus |

Posted by: Will Brady / 00:16 (0) comments

2005-05-25

OTHERS' ART

Kenn Brown's digital artistry knocks me over | Here's more from his website Monolithic Art |

Accidental discovery from: EYE a "computer graphics portal" |

Posted by: Will Brady / 09:02 (0) comments

IRAQ QUAGMIRE
An Infantryman's Point of View | Thanks for the courage of stating your opinion |

Posted by: Will Brady / 08:49 (0) comments

PLANNING FOR THE PAST
Retrovert gadfly and politician yearing for a mesozoic future Lamar Alexander has gone public in opposing the development of wind turbine energy "...for at least the next two years because they are costly, unreliable and unsightly." | According to an Associated Press release on Monday, Alexander,

"...chairman of the TVA Congressional Caucus and chairman of the Senate Energy Subcommittee, sent a letter to TVA's board, asking the federal utility to halt construction of the 300-foot-tall structures in its seven-state region.
"These oversized windmills produce a puny amount of unreliable power in a way that costs more than coal or nuclear power, require new transmission lines, must be subsidized with massive federal tax breaks and, in my view, destroy the landscape," wrote Alexander.

Alexander said he objects to the noise and visual pollution from wind turbines, which often are located on ridgetops and can be seen for up to 25 miles.
Heartening to know that we have such idiots in public office, isn't it?

THANKS TO: Ken Bosley for this update

Posted by: Will Brady / 08:25 (0) comments

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS ???

The Marines show what it takes when they get "a few good men" together | Text from the official DOD approve USMC website reads as follows:

HADITHA DAM, Iraq (May 18, 2005) -- As the Global War on Terrorism progresses, the Marine Corps continues to use an intimidating pieces of machinery on the ground …the M-1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank.
     The tanks, which weigh up to 70 tons and provide awesome firepower, were introduced into the Marine Corps during the early 1990s and are usually incorporated into initial ground assaults.
     “When insurgents see us rolling into town, they may set off an (improvised explosive device),” said Gunnery Sgt. Richard J. Layton, a tank commander with 4th Tank Company, 1st Tank Battalion in support of 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment. “But, that doesn’t phase these big guys and we just keep rolling right through it.”
     While the tanks hardly ever have a chance to use their heavy weaponry, they are always ready to respond to any insurgents’ mortar or RPG fire if the need arises.
     “We have a 120 mm main gun, a .50 cal. (heavy machine gun) and an M-240 medium machinegun on each vehicle,” said the 1994 Overbrook Senior High School graduate. “We just sit tight and wait to see if anyone wants to fire on our troops, so we can respond back with deadly accuracy.”
     Tanks also provide security for ground troops in cities. The tanks ...easily breach buildings and walled off sections in towns that the Marines need to enter. “A lot of Marines would be injured or killed if we weren’t there to hit an IED first or enter a heavily fortified section of a city,” Layton said.
     It has been said that tanks are becoming a thing of the past. But according to Layton, that is wholly inaccurate. Some people say the need for tanks is ending.
     “My response to that statement is, ‘You can’t win in the air without planes and you can’t win on the ground without tanks,’” Layton said with a huge smile.

How this got past the US Government censors is beyond me | After all, since it now seems certain that the Newsweek "...trash the Qu'ran..." story was patently false [yeah, right], this, obviously, must be just another twisted joke | Oh those madcap boys in the field | Couldn't they just have been happy with a Dream Girl picture?

CREDITS FOR FINDING THIS TO: Ron's Log and AmericaBlog | Pix Credit to image of woman on plane: AirVenture's Nose Art |

Posted by: Will Brady / 04:09 (0) comments

APOCALYPSE

Preparing for the "Time of the End" | Tim Boucher has some thoughts on the psychological function of the apocalypse |

     ...the word “Apocalypse” comes from the Greek “apokalupsis” which means something which has been revealed or uncovered. The meaning was thus not originally associated with the end of the world or the final destruction of civilization, such as it is today. Apocalypses, revelations, were a genre of literature which rose to popularity in Palestine in the 3rd century BCE
     ...Apocalypses were historically described in the form of a dream or a vision, which is pretty much how we do it right down to the present day as well. Aside from what we said above about the image of the Apocalypse acting as a means to mentally “clean house,” I think it’s also especially important to look at it as a genre of protest literature.
     Part of the power of the sheer act of creating and identifying with a story is that your subconscious mind has a difficult time differentiating it from reality. If you immerse yourself in it deeply enough, you’ll actually experience it as though it were real - on a lower level of course, but it’s still an experience. As protest literature then, Apocalypses let people mentally act out their fantasies of revolution and retribution. Their enemies are punished and those on the path of good find out that their actions and value systems will be vindicated at some point in the future.
     As described above, the genre of Apocalypse literature arose most likely among a group of people who were being oppressed, and who felt like they didn’t have an appropriate voice in the society. If you look at modern day Apocalyptic literature, you will find exactly the same thing.
     The way I see it is there are two main camps (well okay, with a lot of sub-camps). On one side, you have the hardcore Christians - people typified by the Rapture Ready website. People who fear that their value system is slipping away from its position of dominance. As they lose power, they begin to cling to stories in which they gain back that power.
     Then on the other side of the fence, you have the vast roiling sea of outsiders, conspiracy theorists and counter-culturalists. This is a diverse crowd of course, but they share a set of common characteristics.

He says a whole lot more, some of which speaks to my own beliefs on how Apocalypic topics are "played" these days...

Consider for a moment that this is true. That what originally started as a form of Apocalyptic protest literature, was later seized upon by people in power to establish their own legitimacy. By playing upon the fear and superstition of works like the Book of Revelations, people in power are actually intentionally trying to push our centuries-long programmed buttons.

Meander around Tim's website for further clarification on this issue.

Image source: William Blake | Blake was regarded, in his day, as a briliiant artist, lithographer and doom-saying crackpot | Others now see that he had some clear vision and message for those of us living today

Posted by: Will Brady / 03:16 (0) comments

2005-05-24

ARCHITECTURE

Philadelphia's City Hall building, a masterpiece of French Renissiance

architectural style, has been magical to me ever since my adolescence when I first saw it |
     Here's two glimpses | The larger one looking up from Broad Street from the south side of the building | The smaller one is the view from just below Logan Circle on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway |
     The Parkway is a marvel to behold itself | Traversing roughly northwest from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Parkway is home to several museums [the Franklin Institute, Rodin Sculpture Garden and the Academy of Natural Sciences among them], a main branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia and a couple of elaborate formal founatins all line the Parkway's route |
     Built up between 1919 and 1935 The Parkway stands as testimony of what public spiritedness can create | Perhaps some of the Robber Barons of the Roaring Twenties had a conscience about giving back their due | Quite unlike the greedy bastids that have profited from the latest Gilded Age in this country, who have thus far provided only show trials and feigned innocence after staling the public trust blind |

Posted by: Will Brady / 22:40 (0) comments

HUNGER PANGS

People get hungry no matter where they are and what they do for a living | This is a candid shot taken while visiting a veterinary office | Mmmm! Mmmm! | Chinese food? | No, just sandwiches and pickles |
Mind you, I'm no innocent in this department | Years ago, in college, I had an early morning bio anatomy lab | We dissected animal cadavers | I used to stop by on the way to class and grab a coffee and a bite and nibble while working | Nobody much said anything about it until I brought in jelly donuts | When a big glob of red jelly oozed out that back for all to see, the professor came over to me and asked if I would like to have my own personal area the rest of the semester | Appreciative of the larger work space, I thankfully agreed |
It wasn't until yyears later that I realized some of my fellow students got grossed out at the sight of me eating while cutting carcasses up that prompted her to give me my own spot away from the rest of the group | I wasn't alone though | My partner, a no-nonsense farm girl went with me | She like eating donuts, too |

Posted by: Will Brady / 22:17 (0) comments

OTHER VOICES

" 'Terrifying powers work within us, or are carrying out their work through us,'
Auden wrote [in 1940] and these powers could never be fully eradicated - not through art, education, economics, politics, or any other means.
This did not mean [that] one should stand by and allow those who chose to act on their evil impulses to continue. It did mean, however, that another approach must be taken in fighting them.
No one could operate from the assumption that he was immune to infection or was not causing a form of the disease itself.
The flip side to this belief was that a higher consiciousness - the truest and best of human thinbking - was equally potentially present in every human soul. Auden hoped to increase his own and others' awareness of the "Hitler" in all of us as well as the devine."

Sherrell Tippens

Find out more about February House, Ms. Tippen's group biography [as it were] of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane And Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, And Gypsy Rose Lee, Under One Roof In Wartime America |

Posted by: Will Brady / 09:33 (0) comments

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