FROM INSIDE AND OUT: Aazaleas, rhododendrons, mushrooms?, lillies of the valley

after the rain, a bit of thunder, not lightning, everything looked so bright:

The snow is long gone, the tulips have faded, the summer is coming on too fast..... lots of bright colors (the Cardinal was our winter red friend).

From the dining room:
Shells on the mantel:
Books . . . .

NOW THE OUTSIDE!!

azeleas

new growth, just saw the Christmas Tree stand in the basement!:

rhododendrons
very earthy:
lillies of the valley (what valley?)

Winter, Spring, moving towards the summer. Like some kind of mortality count-down.

.

THE OTHER SIDE, a wonderful (fabulous?) read?

A serendipitous find in the library.....


or how I found Alfred Kubin's THE OTHER SIDE





I was in Bierce, the Libary at the University of Akron. I was wandering around the Meyerink/ CALVINO area in the Ps.



There was a book that caught my eye, THE OTHER SIDE. One of those truely generic sounding titles, but with a publisher NOT TO MATCH: DEDALUS. a temptation to read the blurbs . . . further curiosity..... reading.......



A bit of research indicated it was the Kubin's (a full time artist) only novel. He wrote it while depressed (how could I go wrong?), too depressed to draw. The year was 1908, he was a friend of Kafka. Kubin illustrated it as well.



I am not yet finished, but its a wonderful piece of creative fiction. ATMOSPHERIC, it is the definition of an atmospheric novel. BLEAK then BLEAKER...... the 'universal' for Bleak . . .



Its a dark brooding tale, mythical places, grotesques ( a swordsman with scars on each cheek that gave him the appearance of having 3 mouths....), ideas ('In death the subject becomes a diagonal between time and space.') . . .





from an erudite surrogate:


http://www.babelguides.com/view/work/9070


or: http://www.alfred-kubin.com/Kubin-Werke1.html for some art.... or a video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3lkl3_expo-alfred-kubin-18771959_news



+++++++++++

The book is both out of print, and costly to buy (I am severly tempted to own a copy). And I may put it in my librarything.com list, as read, but in comments 'procurement pending.'




an excerpt, and the art to go with it:





From: THE OTHER SIDE by Akfred Kubin, 2000 Dedalus European Classics, 2000. pp 137-139.

III: The Confusion of the Dream

That night I went to sleep with
momentous thoughts in my mind. Rather less momentous was the dream I had, but it
was so strange I feel I must recount it here. I saw myself standing by the great
river, looking across longingly at the Outer Settlement, which appeared more
extensive and picturesque than it was in reality. As far as the eye could see
was a confu­sion of bridges, towers, windmills, jagged peaks, all
inter­spersed and interconnected, as in a mirage. Large and small, fat and
thin figures were moving around in the chaos. As I looked across, I could sense
the miller standing behind my back. 'I killed him', he whispered and tried to
push me into the water. To my astonishment my left leg lengthened until I could
step into the seething throng on the other side with no trouble at all. Now I
heard ticking all round me and saw a large number of flat clocks of all sizes,
from a clock for a tower, to a kitchen­ clock and right down to the tiniest
pocket-watch. They had short, stumpy legs and were crawling all over each other
in the meadow like tortoises, ticking excitedly. A man dressed in soft green
leather and wearing a cap like a white sausage was sitting in a tree bare of
leaves, catching fish in the air. Those he caught he hung on the branches and
they dried in an instant. An old fellow with an abnormally large trunk and short
legs approached; apart from a pair of grubby drill workman's trou­sers, he
was naked. He had two long vertical rows of nipples; I counted eighteen. With a
great deal of huffing and puffing he filled his lungs full of air, now the left
side of his breast swelling up, now the right, and then, with his fingers
running up and down the eighteen nipples, he played the most delightful
accordion pieces. At the same time he moved in time with the rhythm like a
dancing bear as he let the air out. Finally he stopped, blew his nose on his
hands and threw them away. Then he grew an enormous beard and disappeared in the
tangle of hair. In a thicket nearby I disturbed some fat pigs. They ran away
from me in single file, getting smaller and tinier until, with loud squeals,
they disappeared in a mouse-hole by the road.

Behind me - it made
me feel uncomfortable - the miller was sitting by the river studying a huge
sheet of newspaper. After he had read it and eaten it up, smoke came pouring out
of his ears. He turned the colour of copper, stood up and clutched his sagging
paunch with both hands, all the time tearing up and down the bank, sending
fierce looks in all directions and emitting shrill whistles. Finally he fell in
a heap on the ground, turned pale, his body growing light and trans­parent
so that one could clearly see two little railway trains whizzing round his
entrails. Each seemed to be trying to catch the other as they shot like
lightning round one loop of his gut after another. With a shake of the head and
somewhat taken aback, I was about to offer to help the miller when my words were
cut off by a chimpanzee planting out a circular garden round me at top speed
from which thick clusters of fat, apple­ green stems like giant asparagus
shot up out of the damp ground. I was afraid I was going to be trapped within
this living fence, but before I really knew what was happening, I was liberated.
In his convulsions, the dead miller, now no longer transparent, had laid a ring
of hundreds of thousands of little milky white eggs, from which legions of slugs
emerged and at once devoured their procreator. A pungent smell of smoked meat
spread, causing the fleshy stalks to decay and collapse. In the distance the
Outer Settlement disappeared in a web of shimmering violet
threads.

I noticed a huge shell lying conveniently by the bank of
the river, like a rocky reef, and jumped onto it. Another disaster! Straining
with the motion, the shell opened and the business became precarious. Inside I
could see quivering heaps of gelatinous matter and. . . I woke up.

139

a most enjoyable book, and finding proves the observation below:

+++++++++++++++++++++++

que me figuraba el Paraíso bajo la especie de una biblioteca


http://www.palabravirtual.com/index.php?ir=ver_poema1.php&pid=314


Jorge Luis Borges, 1960

POEMA DE LOS DONES in EL HACEDOR

Nadie rebaje a lágrima o reproche
esta declaración de la maestría
de Dios, que con magnífica ironía
me dio a la vez los libros y la noche.

De esta ciudad de libros hizo dueños
a unos ojos sin luz, que sólo pueden
leer en las bibliotecas de los sueños
los insensatos párrafos que ceden

las albas a su afán. En vano el día
les prodiga sus libros infinitos,
arduos como los arduos manuscritos
que perecieron en Alejandría.

De hambre y de sed (narra una historia griega)
muere un rey entre fuentes y jardines;
yo fatigo sin rumbo los confines
de esta alta y honda biblioteca ciega.

Enciclopedias, atlas, el Oriente
y el Occidente, siglos, dinastías,
símbolos, cosmos y cosmogonías
brindan los muros, pero inútilmente.

Lento en mi sombra, la penumbra hueca
exploro con el báculo indeciso,
yo, que me figuraba el Paraíso
bajo la especie de una biblioteca.

Algo, que ciertamente no se nombra
con la palabra azar, rige estas cosas;
otro ya recibió en otras borrosas
tardes los muchos libros y la sombra.

Al errar por las lentas galerías
suelo sentir con vago horror sagrado
que soy el otro, el muerto, que habrá dado
los mismos pasos en los mismos días.

¿Cuál de los dos escribe este poema
de un yo plural y de una sola sombra?
¿Qué importa la palabra que me nombra
si es indiviso y uno el anatema?

Groussac o Borges, miro este querido
mundo que se deforma y que se apaga
en una pálida ceniza vaga
que se parece al sueño y al olvido.

it happens at night in the library,

"One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries." THE LIBRARY AT NIGHT, by Alberto Manguel, p. 14.

I did read a short book, a one act - one actor - play yesterday, UNDERNEATH THE LINTEL. About a somewhat anal librarian. His job was to check books in from the night return box. One day he found one that was overdue . . . . 113 years overdue. He took it upon himself to collect the fine, lost his job in the process as he circled the world hoping to re-coup some of the fine from whom is never clear. But it turned out that that the borrower was an immortal, like a Zebra plant. Itas a fun read..... like any good librarian he documents his hunt . . . its almost Biblical.

a few pictures (clicking them could make them jumbo!)


A crab apple tree in the yard:

a little closer, promies a boutiful harvest for the squirrels:

Up close, rather pretty, attractive to bees...

Holly blooming, a premonition of Christmas and snow? already a reminder?

be well,
.
.

AMAZON dot COM, and a re-read

when you put something in your cart any price change on your wishlist or lists is noted, I bought season 5 for 20 bucks a week ago, but put this off, now its DOUBLED!!

Please note that the price of Smallville - The Complete
Sixth Season has increased from $20.99 to $42.99 since you placed it in your
Shopping Cart. Items in your cart will always reflect the most recent price
displayed on their product detail pages.

so when amazon says one left in stock, they might be on the level....

recently read:

.
AND I FINISHED A RE-READ of near biblical proportions! and please, forget the movie version! of BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES
.

I read BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES in 1988, a gift from a New Yorker to a guy from Ohio, leaving NYC for LA (a move that was more an extended vacation with great friends).

SO I reread it, as the inscription was May 5, 1988 . . . re-reads are rare with so much out there to READ the first time.

ITS IS A GREAT READ, pulling you from page to page, maybe dislocating your shoulder at over 600 pages….

Memorable scenes: A chic dinner party where the highbrow token, an author, re-tells the story of the Mask of Red Death. Not acceptable party banter, right?

A billionaire dies in a restaurant, soon to serve an Imelda Marcos type. The super rich corpse can’t pass through the revolving door so its hoisted out the Lady’s Room window.

And more….. a book that plays the race card, the jewish card, the political hack card, the cop on the beat card, the wasp card, the entire deck flies . . .. the oppurtunistic British tabloid journalist . . . god, the WEALTH CORRUPTS CARD . . . what are these cards anyway?

On review called it ‘the novel that defined New York in the 1980s”; others, residents of the Bronx, felt defamed and insulted and rediculed Wolfe (like Grace was rediculed after Peyton Place came out, but I doubt WOLFE LIVE in the Bronx).

659 pages, page of NEW YORK, from the Superrich to the freshly incarcerated crack dealers. AND FEW BETWEEN, a lack. No common man (the cops came close . . .). And to think, today’s superrich HEDGEFUND types makes the 80s wealth look like government cheese…..

The LONDON TIMES, on Feb 7, 1988 said:

An incandescent sizzler of a novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities casts a lurid
satiric glare over contemporary New York. Essentially, it is a tale of two city
boroughs: Manhattan and the Bronx. The former toweringly brandishes the city's pinnalces of wealth and fashion: 'There it was, the Rome, the Paris, the London of the twentieth century, the city of ambition, the dense magnetic rock, the irresistible destination of all those who insist on being where things are happening.' Nearby, the 'Sargasso Sea of the Bronx' festers with its rotting depths of dereliciton.

no matter where you live (I lived in Quees and Manhattan -- not a monolith of Wealth, but so . . . ) you can enjoy this.....
.
.
.

john's books

check this:

http://www.librarything.com/authorcloud.php?view=jbeckhamlat

what
do
you
think
?

forget that foreign tribal strife (sunni/shia; broken up serbia)

think here, in the US of A....

cbs2.com/local/Grant.High.School.2.707352.html

Apr 24, 2008 5:27 am US/
Grant H.S. Increases Security After Culture Clash

VAN NUYS, Calif. Grant High School will increase a police presence following outbreaks of shouting between Armenian and Latino students at the end of an Armenian genocide remembrance assembly.

The disruption broke out at the Van Nuys school around noon on Wednesday, said Susan Cox of the Los Angeles Unified School District. No arrests were made and there were no injuries reported.

The shouting apparently started with Latino students taking issue with the program. School police quickly intervened.

"The students that were involved in the friction were sent home with their parents," said Principal Linda Ibach.

"We did ask the parents to pick them up themselves. Some of the students were suspended over the next couple of days. We will sort all that out on Monday when the students return."

Ibach said extra officers would be deployed at the campus through Monday "just to make sure that we are all calmed down."

(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. )
.
.
.
.

Avatar: 3 meanings, I ran into satan's avatar at Giant Eagle.....

want one? http://avatars.jurko.net/

Avatar
from Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 25, 2008 is:

avatar • \AV-uh-tar\ noun
1 : the incarnation of a Hindu deity (as Vishnu) 2 a : an incarnation in human form, b : an embodiment (as of a concept or philosophy) often in a person *3 : an electronic image that represents and is manipulated by a computer user (as in a computer game)


Example sentence:
Before they started playing the game, Aaron and Kyle customized their avatars.


Did you know?
"Avatar" derives from a Sanskrit word meaning "descent," and when it first appeared in English in the late 18th century, it referred to the descent of a deity to the earth -- typically, the incarnation in earthly form of Vishnu or another Hindu deity. It later came to refer to any incarnation in human form, and then to any embodiment (such as that of a concept or philosophy), whether or not in the form a person. In the age of technology, "avatar" has developed another sense -- it can now be used for the image that a person chooses as his or her "embodiment" in an electronic medium.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

.

SPRING IN OHIO!

Some Tulips
A few grape hyacinths

what is this blossom?

daffodils in front of the house
a large hyacinth

A few nice things about AKRON

1 I can see the BIG DIPPER, that is a constellation (grouping of stars) in the northern Sky. I could often see Orion from apartments, is would come and go with the seasons. But the BIG DIPPER (ursa major, ok)

2 I can see the north star (follow the the bottom stars in the dipper of the big dipper. To faint for city views. AND IT NEVER MOVES!! Maybe GOD IS THERE?

3 SPRING is here, tulips, buds on trees, Dogwood Trees in bloom. Crocusses, daffodils. Ants . . . spiders, leaves, short pants….


4 A cabbage butterfly (I don’t recall butterflies in NYC, there were monarchs in chicago); and a large bumble bee.

5 Bluejays in White Dogwood trees…….

how are things there?

Put a clock (or something) on your page.

http://www.springwidgets.com/widgets/byCategory/8?page=2

Chimera, has a beautiful sound . . .

I do prefer the adjective form to the root:

chi·mer·i·cal
/kɪˈmɛrɪkəl, -ˈmɪər-, kaɪ-/

–adjective 1. unreal; imaginary; visionary: a chimerical terrestrial
paradise.
2. wildly fanciful; highly unrealistic: a chimerical plan.

THE REAL DEAL:

chimera
http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2008/04/21.html

Word of the Day Archive
Monday April 21, 2008

chimera \ky-MIR-uh\, noun:

1. (Capitalized) A fire-breathing she-monster represented as having a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail.
2. Any imaginary monster made up of grotesquely incongruous parts.
3. An illusion or mental fabrication; a grotesque product of the imagination.
4. An individual, organ, or part consisting of tissues of diverse genetic constitution, produced as a result of organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering.

Asa Whitney, with no previous experience and having nothing but his faith and self-assurance to tell him he was not pursuing a chimera, began to outline how he would get a railroad across the vast, uninhabited middle of the American continent to the Pacific shores, where the lure of Asia beckoned, within reach.
-- David Haward Bain, Empire Express

She seems to spend most of the book sobbing, throwing up and generally marinating in a stew of self-absorption while searching fruitlessly for that chimera, her true self, inexpertly aided by astrologers and new-age therapists.
-- "Cutting through fantasies to crazy life", USA Today, December 2, 1999

These "chimeras" can be created because of our power--derived from the recombinant DNA technology developed in the early 1970s--to move DNA from one species to another.
-- Bryan Appleyard, Brave New Worlds

Chimera comes from Latin chimaera, from Greek chimaira "she-goat, chimera."

Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for chimera
.
.
.
.

the Baptists of Barberton Ohio: What makes a Red State Red? GLOBAL WARMING as VOODOO SCIENCE

when I grew up Barberton was the Big City!

An atavistic post compared to the one under it; Barberton is world famous for its holy men: a previous minister (HOGAN) at this very church had a son who was arrested for bank robbery in 2005 to support his online gambling addiction (after having seen the corrupting movie NARNIA none the less see: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/11/magazine/11poker.html?_r=1&oref=slogin )

are they as good at meteorology as they are experts at family values:

"Humanity is not responsible for the variations in weather temperatures."

"It's time to abandon the global - warming hoax before the lights go off for good."

A letter to the editor in the AKRON BEACON JOURNAL,

Akron Beacon Journal (OH) - April 16, 2008

GOING DARK ON VOODOO SCIENCE

In response to the March 30 article headlined, ''Cities around the world go dark for global warming '': The article spoke of a ''worldwide campaign to highlight the threat of climate change.'' Homeowners and businesses around the globe were urged ''to turn back to candle power for at least 60 minutes.''

Reading this, I came to acknowledge once more the real threat in climate change is not the climate. It's the religious boondoggling and voodoo science behind it. ''Going dark'' is indeed the direction we are headed if we ignore the God-provided resources he has supplied, such as the abundance of oil we have within our own borders. Humanity is not responsible for the variations in weather temperatures.

Our climate today is no measurement of what should be the ideal. There is no certainty as to the size of glaciers, and they change continually. Data from all four major temperature tracking outlets show that global temperatures have dropped significantly in the last 12 months.

More snow and ice cover the Northern Hemisphere than at any time since 1962. There are record levels of Arctic sea ice, record levels of cold and snow in many U.S. states and European nations. God has given us a cultural mandate (Genesis 1) to care for and use the resources he has created for us. We need to do this. It is morally inexcusable to neglect the benefit to all mankind. It's time to abandon the global - warming hoax before the lights go off for good.

Brian Prong

Pastor, First Baptist Church Barberton

+++

and the world is flat, monsters wander the edges of the oceans; the sun orbits the earth, and the moon is made of cheese!

.

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)

CHOOSE A NEW MISSION!!! boldy lay back and let it do the work for your (slacker mission approved)

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) is a scientific area whose
goal is to detect intelligent life outside Earth. One approach, known as radio
SETI, uses radio telescopes to listen for narrow-bandwidth radio signals from
space. Such signals are not known to occur naturally, so a detection would
provide evidence of extraterrestrial technology.

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/index.php

OK, I used to do this, but a software issue made it a problem, now they write, after over a year. So I tried the new program, and it works.

ever see CONTACT? remember the line:

S.R. Hadden: They still want an American to go, Doctor. Wanna take a ride?

I wont get that chance, but, every little bit helps. SO JOIN UP!!!

APril 16, 2008
Dear jbeckhamlat:

We'd like to invite you to reconnect with SETI@home. Our records show that you've been with SETI@home since 28 August 1999, but it's been 386 days since you last returned a work unit. We want you back, and here's why:

These are exciting times for SETI@home. Last year we implemented a new SETI@home data recorder at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. This recorder is attached to a state-of-the-art multibeam receiver, so we can now measure signals from 7 positions on the sky at once, with greater sensitivity to weak signals compared to the data from the flat feed antenna we've used since 1999. We've greatly increased the sensitivity of our data analysis, and the likelihood that we'll find the first signs of extraterrestrial life. We're also close to releasing a second application, Astropulse, which will look for extremely short pulses of astronomical (and possibly intelligent) origin.

With these new developments comes an increase in required computing power, for which we depend on people like you. We hope you will consider signing back on with SETI@home, and help in this wonderful scientific venture.

If you experienced problems running SETI@home, please try any of the resources listed at: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/sah_help.php including the new BOINC Online Help System which lets you talk live, over the Internet, with a help volunteer: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/help.php

We thank you for your involvement in SETI@home, and hope that you rejoin us in our search for signals from other worlds.

-- The SETI@home team
To not get any more email from SETI@home, please click here.
SETI@home - http://setiathome.berkeley.eduSpace Sciences Laboratory / 7 Gauss WayUniversity of California, Berkeley, CA 92740-7450

a thing to contemplate, click play.....

Full Earth-rise!
Full-Earth-rise has been captured by Japan's Kaguya lunar orbiter.The just-issued movie was



taken on November 5, 2007. Credit: JAXA


r u thinking yet?

clinging to my remote, paranoid in a small town....

JEANNIE C RILEY - HARPER VALLEY PTA



relates to this clip:

Peyton Place: movie trailer



where is Jeannie???

the new acrobats in the yard: legs or springs?

They jump, the grab; they dangle, they shake; then they dine - can you name the beastie?

if i hang the bird feeder higher they can reach it from the branch, this had worked. At least when there was snow on the ground.

READ ON, perhaps I can send them back (or forward?) in time??

safer than American Airlines: Time travellers invited back from the future

more incredible than time travel; check the origin of the video below: 2007 IdeaFestival in Louisville, Kentucky -- some type of nonsequiter oxymoron mixup?

FOUND IN AN OLD EMAIL:
from the Guardian (LONDON)

Concerned that people will have forgotten his convention by then, Mr Dorai is urging volunteers to publicise the event to future generations by carving the details into clay tablets and burying notices in time capsules. He has slipped invitations on long-lasting paper inside dozens of obscure books in the MIT and Harvard University libraries.

****
-I was in the stacks at the University of AKRON's library looking at random books, praying to the Gods of Serendipity, when I noticed one book on literature has last been check out in the mid 1990s!

that got me to weed my hotmail.... AND while
i was weeding my hotmail, I found the above 'party announcement' (above) was in one of the older (the oldest are some from 2003) . . . that is still interesting.

am I saving too much?
one of 2400 emails in my inbox (key emails stay there, there are about 30 folders by topic)


From: jbeckhamlat@hotmail.com
CC: John.Beckham@latimes.com; jbeckhamlat@hotmail.com
Subject: inviting people from the future to the event
Date: Sun, 8 May 2005 10:02:46 -0500

read:

The organiser, Amal Dorai - a masters student in electrical engineering and
computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - aims to test the
theory of time travel by inviting people from the future to the event.

The invitations ask visitors to turn up on the MIT campus at 8pm on
Saturday . .

from:

Time travellers invited back from the future

David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday May 5, 2005
The Guardian

One of the strongest arguments against time travel is that we are not overrun with curious tourists from the future. A university student in Boston plans to change that, by inviting budding Doctor Whos to the world's first time traveller convention this weekend.

The organiser, Amal Dorai - a masters student in electrical engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology - aims to test the theory of time travel by inviting people from the future to the event.

"We are doing this as a very low-risk, low-cost way to investigate the possibility of time travel," he said. "I think the probability they will come is very low, but if it does happen it will one of the biggest events in human history.

"Of course, no time travellers doesn't rule out the possibility of time travel, they could have just decided not to come to our convention."

Physicists believe some kind of time travel is theoretically possible, but it will take hundreds or even thousands of years to work out the technical details.

Concerned that people will have forgotten his convention by then, Mr Dorai is urging volunteers to publicise the event to future generations by carving the details into clay tablets and burying notices in time capsules. He has slipped invitations on long-lasting paper inside dozens of obscure books in the MIT and Harvard University libraries.

"If we put them inside books that are only touched every 50 years or so then they'll stay there and people in the future might learn of the convention. The big danger is that it's forgotten. Once that happens then it doesn't matter if someone invents time travel, we won't be able to see it."

The invitations ask visitors to turn up on the MIT campus at 8pm on Saturday and include precise latitude and longitude coordinates. "Time travel is a hard problem and may not be invented until long after MIT has faded into oblivion," they note.

Visitors from the future are advised to bring proof of advanced technology, such as a cure for cancer or a working nuclear fusion reactor. Sonic screwdrivers are optional.

"Because of the small chance of time travel I think people will be sceptical," Mr Dorai admits. "But I hope time travellers won't take that as an insult. If what they bring as proof doesn't satisfy us then they could always go back into their future and grab something else."

Professor Neil Johnson, a physicist at the University of Oxford, said Mr Dorai may not be wasting his time. The weird world of quantum mechanics suggests time travel could one day be possible through tiny holes, loops and channels in the fabric of spacetime.

"We're talking a long, long time in the future to be able to do this but it's not impossible," Prof Johnson said. "It would be very hard to send through something that weighed anything, like machines and people, but you could conceivably send messages through light and radiowaves. The chances of somebody from the future turning up on Saturday night are pretty remote, but they could get a phone call."
-
-
a __________________________ video of hope:

from youtube
Added: February 19, 2008
Michio Kaku, leading theoretical physicist and author, on "Parallel Worlds and Time Travel." Captured at the September, 2007 IdeaFestival in Louisville, Kentucky



that song, IN THE YEAR 2525 comes to mind . . . the late 60s . . . the era of dreams and rebellion. DO YOU YOU remember this song??

!

Before you listen to Congression Testimony

or sweeping statements from the ruling class, watch and listen!! and maybe read along (its ok to mouth the words to yourself). enjoy the garrison state.....
.

raise a little hell, wear colors, smile knowingly

V:
Good evening, London. Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any bloke. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat. There are of course those who do not want us to speak. I suspect even now, orders are being shouted into telephones, and men with guns will soon be on their way. Why? Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to the now high chancellor, Adam Sutler. He promised you order, he promised you peace, and all he demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent. Last night I sought to end that silence. Last night I destroyed the Old Bailey, to remind this country of what it has forgotten. More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Parliament, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.
.
.
.

Richard Wagner Die Walküre --Berliner Philharmoniker

motiviated? god, I think I am rising out of my chair..... grab my feet!

WALK SCORING, how fun is that walk you plan?

www.walkscore.com

my address gets a low score, as you cannot walk a garden path to a Starbucks; they don't seem to count a speed limit of 25, quiet neighborhood, and dogs ON LEACHES (yes, on LEASHES!)

fun to watch your walk map itself out, simple to try... so try it!

.
.

tidbits from an Akron evening

The relocation is increasingly complete.

Some big city things have appeared in new forms . . . innocent, no; homey, no; QUAINT, in a quaint way. Contributing to my metamorphisis from city dweller to small town observer….. where is Franz?

Last night we were watching tv, and during a scene about a kid being hit by a truck there was an odd circus music -that didn’t match the scene. So we Paused the show (the joy of digital); the circus music continued.

AN ICE CREAM TRUCK had stopped at the corner, with tiny kids cutting through the yard (“we have to get a fence” Paul declared). We live on the corner….. an ice cream truck. I used to see them in Chicago, but they were not musical. Little Kids without parental supervision did not run through the streets, adult tourists stopped mostly.

Like the Pied Piper with Good Humor bars . . . . (I did not run out, next time maybe).

Dogs barking in a highrise are not a good thing. Here one neighbor has a hound that is so cute. (I petted it once). A basset hound or a fat aged beagle. Its owners walk it and it howls skyward with a deep low voice (like the train whistle in the distance at night). It tries to run, imagine a dwarf cow gallopping…. Not the intrusion of a dog barking all day home alone in a downtown condo…. A plaintive whine its not, kind of a happy howl…..

Then we took the trash to the curb. Then, for the first time in 20 plus years, I could see the Big Dipper and North star, and Orion was out there sinking, with a crescent moon near …….

The squirrels cannot reach the bird feeder anymore. Well, now they jump STRAIGHT up, grab on, hang on, and its a bird seed buffet. They jump, about 4 feet. HOW?! Paul told me about it, I cannot wait to see it. Persistant beasts. No longer tree pigs, but some kind of acrobatic land hog?

What next?? Icecream trucks playing music; stars, trash pickup, the flying Wallendas of rodent-dom? Oh, no doubt my humming bird feeder will be next, to watch as the happy howler bays skyward.

David Guetta v. the Egg

Luis Miguel - Por Debajo De La Mesa

So fine . . .

Por Debajo De La Mesa Lyrics

Artist: Luis Miguel

Album: Romances

Por debajo de la mesa

acaricio tu rodilla y bebo

sorbo a sorbo tu mirada

angelical y respiro de tu

boca esa flor de maravilla

las alondras del deseo

cantan, vuelan, vienen, van.

Ever thought of Film School?

[after this you will send me back to Roth so fast......]

why not give film appreciation a try on your desktop?

http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=europecinema

now, in the best of Bertolucci's DREAMERS' cinematheque junies , get some fresh fruit that's seen its day, wine, and cigarettes, and kick back......

http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=europecinema
LESSONS INCLUDE:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_play_list?user=europecinema

europecinema's Playlists

Brideshead Revisited - Documentary [eng] 6 Videos
[Documentary, 2005]

Dirk Bogarde - Documentary 5 Videos
[Documentary 2000]

Federico Fellini - Documentary 8 Videos
Review of Fellini's most popular films (Le Notti di Cabiria, Amarcord, Casanova, Dolce Vita, I Vitelloni, Giulietta degli Spiriti, Otto e Mezzo)

Ingmar Bergman - Documentary [eng] 4 Videos
Review of the most outstanding films of Ingmar Bergman.

Ingmar Bergman - Interview [Swedish+Eng sub] 6 Videos
One of the latest interviews granted by maestro Ingmar Bergman

Irene Papas in Electra (1962) 12 Videos
Directed by Mihalis Kakogiannis
Original Music by Mikis Theodorakis

Laurence Olivier - A Life - Documentary [eng] 16 Videos

Luchino Visconti - Documentary [eng] 12 Videos
[Documentary 2002]

Maria Callas Assoluta (Documentaire) [fr] 12 Videos
[Documentary 2007, in French]

Maria Callas in Pasolini's Medea [ita+eng sub] 12 Videos
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini (1969)

Pier Paolo Pasolini - A Filmmaker's Life [eng] 3 Videos
[Documentary, 1971]

Pier Paolo Pasolini poeta [ita] 5 Videos
In this rare documentary Pasolini recalls his childhood and youth in Friuli. He also explains his feelings as a poet about the Italian language and literature.

Pride and Prejudice - Documentary on the series 3 Videos
Documentary on the famous TV adaptation of "Pride and Prejudice" from 1995 and its impact on Jane Austen's work reception by a wider audience.

Siamo Donne (1953) 5 Videos
- Segment "Alida Valli" directed by Gianni Franciolini
- Segment "Anna Magnani" directed by Luchino Visconti

Thomas Mann - Documentary [German] 5 Videos
Documentary on Thomas Mann and his family. The programme offers original footage of the great German writer.

Vivien Leigh - Documentary [eng] 6 Videos
Biography of Vivien Leigh. The documentary contains interviews by John Mills, Trader Faulkner, Olivia De Havilland, Rosemary Geddes, Maureen O'Sullivan, Alexander Walker and Hugo Vickers. Footage from her most important movies (Gone with the Wind, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ceasar and Cleopatra and The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone)

countdown to armageddon

SIX for the WASHINGTON POST; while other's ..... suffer pangs and arrows of outrageous management....

{{ newly played ZELL IN DC recordings at npr.org, click to listen and read more:
click 'listen' to and hear his ..... loud tones:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89446846

Recording Shows Tribune Owner Zell's Fiery Side by David Folkenflik

}}}}}}}}}
now, back to the show

http://www.pulitzer.org/

PULITZER PRIZES
2 0 0 8


PUBLIC SERVICE
The Washington Post

BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
The Washington Post Staff

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The New York Times

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
The Chicago Tribune Staff

EXPLANATORY REPORTING
Amy Harmon of The New York Times

LOCAL REPORTING
David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

NATIONAL REPORTING
Jo Becker and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post

INTERNATIONAL REPORTING
Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post

FEATURE WRITING
Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post

COMMENTARY
Steve Pearlstein of The Washington Post

CRITICISM
Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe

EDITORIAL WRITING
No Award

EDITORIAL CARTOONING
Michael Ramirez of Investor's Business Daily

BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY
Adrees Latif of Reuters

FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor


FICTION
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (Riverhead Books)

DRAMA
August: Osage County by Tracy Letts

HISTORY
What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press)

BIOGRAPHY
Eden's Outcasts by John Matteson (W.W. Norton)

POETRY
Time and Materials by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins)

POETRY
Failure by Philip Schultz (Harcourt)

GENERAL NONFICTION
The Years of Extermination by Saul Friedlander (HarperCollins)

MUSIC
The Little Match Girl Passion by David Lang (G. Schirmer)


SPECIAL CITATION
Bob Dylan

an AMERICAN GOLDFINCH, the yellow bird

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/American_Goldfinch.html

you can hear its bird call sound on this page!

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/American_Goldfinch.html#sound


remember the long, painfully long dark nights of winter? well now! now every week the length of daylight grows by almost 20 minutes!:

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=44313

April 8, 2008 Rise: Set:

Actual Time 6:57 AM EDT 7:59 PM EDT

Civil Twilight 6:29 AM EDT 8:27 PM EDT

Nautical Twilight 5:55 AM EDT 9:01 PM EDT
Astronomical Twilight 5:20 AM EDT 9:36 PM EDT
Moon 8:02 AM EDT 11:45 PM EDT

Length Of Visible Light: 13h 58m
Length of Day 13h 01m

Tomorrow will be 2m 41s longer

the days are growing by almost 3 minutes a day!

what is this yellow and black bird?

CLICK twice for large PICTURE!

My brother Joe came and put in screens on Saturday, now we have fresh air—spring is in the air. I was his helper (or anti-helper). Fresh air . . .; the ORKIN man came at the same time, there were ants and spiders (nothing can be done- they walk on their fingernails….) and Lady Bugs (or some other beetle) . . . then on Sunday we picked up sticks, a task Sisyphus could relate to. Things look better, soon greener.

And new birds! What are these birds? A canaries? But the black feathers, canaries are all yellow, I thought …. Yellow oriole maybe? A northern oriole? Then there are similar birds in red, not Cardinals, small red birds.

I cannot wait for fireflies!!!

a few early words from Philip Roth (enjoy the video)

"He was better off, I thought. No sense carrying dreams of Tahiti in your head, if you can't afford the fare."
--
page 120, GOODBYE COLUMBUS, by Philip Roth, Modern Libraries Edition.

Finished it moments ago. Some brilliantly accented dialog rich in sentiment. Intra-family relations forshadow Portnoy.

oy, time for library (as Neil Klugman the main character must have thought a million times no? )

and Columbus refers to the Capital of Ohio -- GOODBYE COLUMBUS is a nostalgia filled song honoring the school town . . . libraries and OHIO, what more could one want?

and a comment from the eggheads,

But back in the Patimkin house there is no relief for Neil. The wedding of Ron and Harriet offers an array of middle-aged couples that can only serve to confirm Neil's worst expectations of what the Jewish bourgeois lifestyle amounts to. Many of these people are affluent, but they have paid dearly for their success with emotional frustration, physical decay and spiritual emptiness. They are locked into their tradition of hard work, materialism and puritanism couple with a narrow-minded outlook on everything outside their own circles, and they also suffer from rigid sex rolrs where the male is the provider and the female the excessively proper housewife. There is no room in their lives for joy, passion, or any individualism except mere eccentricity.

(Page 84 of LOVE AND IDENTITY: NEIL KLUGMAN'S QUEST IN 'GOODBYE, COLUMBUS' By: Nilsen, Helge Normann. English Studies, Feb87, Vol. 68 Issue 1, p79, 10p; (AN 7087468)

hum, now an amusement:

slacktivism ENHANCE YOUR VOCABULARY (and mind)

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slacktivism&defid=304835

slacktivism

1
The act of participating in obviously pointless activities as an expedient alternative to actually expending effort to fix a problem.

Signing an email petition to stop rampant crime is slacktivism. Want to
really make your community safer? Get off your ass and start a neighborhood
watch!

2

The search for the ultimate feel-good that derives from having come to society's rescue without having had to actually gets one's hands dirty or open one's wallet.

It's slacktivism that prompts us to want a join a boycott of designated gas
companies or eschew buying gasoline on a particular day rather than reduce our
personal consumption of fossil fuels by driving less.

a note from Dr. McCain

now all i need is the 'no fighting in here, this is the war room!' clip.

Cake Update

OH, I did not make the cake.

A purchase: West Side Bakery 2303 W Market St Akron, OH 44313 (330) 836-4101

it was Lemon with butter cream icing and rasberry filling.

and its near gone! and very good. Lemon is a spring flavor . . . .

cakes and celebrity

Tomorrow is Paul's birthday, I am prepared in advance - from one of akron's best bakeries:

++++++++++++



Over the weekend I went to the book fair, in AKRON -- there are books in Akron. My brother drove (he looked for post cards).


It was written up in the BEACON JOURNAL -- and I regret not seeing this, the copy of a "$600 limited edition of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. . . . The cover is made of alumnimum instead of cardboard." The most expensive book I saw was a readers advance of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD for about $20,000. A lot of Civil War books (some of Akron still thinks its going on, like the Japanese soldier lost on Islands still fighting WW II).

I did get a book, well 3 in fact (Goodbye Columbus by Roth; Silas Marner - in a BOX, very old, and a paperback:


________________________________
MICROCELEBRITY

today's best read:
An article in Wired [ ironic it still comes out in hard copy] calls people with blogs, facebook pages, myspace users, not vain, -but microcelebritities (talk about annoiting inflated self image). I may rename the page from LIFE IN THE SKINNGER BOX to the Amazing Adventures of an AKRON Anderoid)


http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/15-12/st_thompson

in part:

Microcelebrity is the phenomenon of being extremely well known not to millions
but to a small group — a thousand people, or maybe only a few dozen. As DIY
media reach ever deeper into our lives, it's happening to more and more of us.
Got a Facebook account? A whackload of pictures on Flickr? Odds are there are
complete strangers who know about you — and maybe even talk about you.

from WIRED in DECEMBER (I am behind in my reading, is the Iraq war over?)
hum, and CLIVE did not coin it, its in the urban word dictionary, and over a year prior:


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=microcelebrity
microcelebrity

One who gains a cult or mainstream following due to viral internet
distribution. Does not refer to those who have gained limited or cult followings
through traditional media. Does not refer to has-beens or "B-list"
celebrities.

submitted: by LI in Los Angeles, CA Sep 14, 2006

if i had that following my google ad money would let me near retire to a fine homeless shelter, time to prepare a few birthday things....


NITE NITE

Watering holes and the Decline of Newspapers

taken from wsj.com without the benefit of clergy.

Bars across the world face the cutbacks in the news industry - clearly a profession dominated by a few drinks . . . in SF, Boston, NY, Chicago, and afar . . .

Absinthe makes a legal comeback!

an article on legalization (in red) then a video down bottoms UPway

liberated from the sfgate.com:

Alameda distiller helps make absinthe legitimate again

Stacy Finz, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
.
It was the drink of choice for 19th century painters, poets and writers.

Vincent van Gogh sliced off his ear while sipping it, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso painted it, French poet Paul Verlaine cursed it as he lay dying in his bed.

For nearly 100 years, the United States and many other nations banned it.

Absinthe. "It leads straight to the madhouse or the courthouse," declared Henri Schmidt, a French druggist urging his own countrymen to outlaw the green liquid in the early 1900s, which they did.

Now it seems that no one can remember exactly why it was prohibited. Some say it was the chemical thujone found in the herb wormwood, used to make absinthe, that affects the brain. Others say it was a plot by the wine industry to put the popular spirit out of business. And there are those who believe it was a case of baseless hysteria, not unlike "Reefer Madness," the 1936 propaganda film about marijuana.

Earlier this year, a lone Washington, D.C., lawyer took on the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau in an attempt to lift the ban. After some legal wrangling, the agency agreed - with some limits.

Last week, St. George Spirits of Alameda received the news that, after seven applications, the federal agency had approved its label, the final obstacle before going to market. On Monday, the small artisan distillery sold its token first bottle, becoming the only American company since 1912 to sell absinthe in the United States. Then the staff took a moment to celebrate.

"We made champagne and absinthe cocktails, which rapidly degenerated into just sipping absinthe out of the bottle with crazy straws," said Lance Winters, a 42-year-old master distiller at the seven-employee company.

-

-





For 11 years Winters experimented, adding a little of this and little of that. No matter how close he came to perfection, each new batch had to be dumped down the drain to comply with federal dictate. But come Dec. 21, St. George will begin selling 3,600 bottles of its Absinthe Verte. That's too few to distribute to big chains, so for now the company will offer it at its Alameda tasting room and at limited liquor stores for $75 for a 750 ml bottle.

The 25-year-old company, started by Jorg Rupf, a German distiller who moved to the Bay Area to attend law school, is most known for its Hangar One vodka, but it also makes single-malt whiskey, grappa and a number of eau de vies.

From the beginning, absinthe was Winter's baby. The brewer-turned-distiller liked the challenge of blending his grape-based brandy with locally grown herbs like wormwood, absinthe's most important - and controversial - ingredient, plus tarragon, basil and mint.

Winters also uses anise and fennel.

"Absinthe is really complex," he said. "There are a lot of powerful botanical ingredients all fighting for dominance. So you strive for balance."

St. George will compete with three other absinthe distillers - the Swiss Kubler, French Lucid and the Brazilian Absinto Camargo. All have begun importing the licorice-flavored spirit into the United States in recent months. It was the Kubler distillery that hired attorney Robert Lehrman to end the prohibition, while Lucid was the brainchild of Ted Breaux, a New Orleans chemist who reverse-engineered an old bottle of absinthe to devise his formula. He worked with a French distillery to reproduce it. All have paved the way for U.S. distillers to sell their own perfected versions of the drink, which are likely to hit the shelves soon.

Lehrman said Yves Kubler, who produces a few hundred thousand bottles of absinthe a year, saw a real market for the spirit here and was eager to tap into it. So in 2000, Lehrman started making inquiries of federal regulators only to determine that the fight would be a tough one.

"When something has been banned since 1912, it's hard to get it undone," he said.
But Lehrman persevered. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau officials said they were willing to accept absinthe formulas that fall under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations that the drink contain no more than 10 parts per million of the chemical thujone, but the word absinthe on the bottle's label had to be small and used with a qualifier like St. George's Verte or Kubler's Swiss Absinthe Superieure.

Lehrman said thujone in mass quantities "is bad stuff," but small amounts are found in a number of herbs, ingredients and materials, including sage and cedar, and are considered fairly harmless. More notable is absinthe's high alcohol content, typically 120 proof or more, about 50 percent higher than vodka and whiskey.

"Look, absinthe is bad the way Jack Daniels is bad, the way Skyy Vodka is bad," says Lehrman. "The worst component is the alcohol. If you drink too much, something bad will happen."

But in 1905 the Swiss government was convinced that it was absinthe alone that turned a law-abiding citizen into a homicidal maniac. After Jean Lanfray, a 31-year-old laborer, killed his pregnant wife and two children, the Swiss government banned the spirit. Although Lanfray had sampled a bottle of absinthe before breakfast that morning,
officials failed to take into consideration that he had also consumed Creme de Menthe, cognac and soda, more than six glasses of wine and a cup of coffee laced with brandy, says Barnaby Conrad III, the San Francisco author of "Absinthe: History in a Bottle"
(Chronicle Books, 1988; the publisher is not affiliated with this newspaper).
Conrad, an artist and journalist who traced the downfall of absinthe in his book, says the drink became synonymous with the degeneration of the world's most famous bohemians, from Van Gogh's infamous ear cutting to Verlaine's debaucherous sprees of sex and rage.
Even Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying "After the first glass, you see things as you wish they were. After the second, you see things as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, which is the most horrible thing in the world."

But Conrad says absinthe was probably the least of these artists' problems.

"Van Gogh suffered from schizophrenia, a disease that went way back in his family, and

Verlaine was a raging alcoholic," he said.

The author believes that absinthe merely became the scapegoat of politicians. Its controversy was probably fueled by the wine industry, which was threatened by the popularity of absinthe.

But the mystique of the famous liquid only adds to its allure, says Conrad, who has sold more of his books in the last five years than in the first 15 of its existence. Many young enthusiasts entranced by its folklore have tried ordering absinthe on the Internet, hoping not to get caught. Some modern-day moonshiners even tried distilling it at home.

"It's the forbidden fruit factor," says the author.

And that, he says, will certainly help sales.

"Just because you drink absinthe doesn't mean you're going to become a creative genius," Conrad warns. "But it will tickle your imagination as it tickles your brain cells."

Why the mystique?

Modern absinthe got its start as a medical elixir in the late 18th century but became immensely popular as a drink in the mid-1800s, especially among the avant-garde.
Edgar Degas created his famous painting "L'absinthe" of a woman sitting in front of a glass of absinthe, and Pablo Picasso painted "The Absinthe Drinker" during his blue period. Ernest Hemingway is said to have been a consummate absinthe drinker and was known to have a glass or two before running with the bulls.

Freelance writer C. contributed to this report. E-mail Stacy Finz at sfinz@sfchronicle.com.

The Chicago Sun Times had a contest. about the name of WRIGLY FIELD being sold; a TRIBUNE 'intern' entered with the support of a team of Tribunites. So there are those in the media with a mischievous sense of humor:

Easter bunnies, from the cute to the homicidal. check the video!

Alice's friend, the late rabbit: Everyone's favorite, BUGS!

Ah, a cute bunny!

and another cute bunny:

Frank, the bunny from DONNIE DARKO:

not so cute, but a great movie, with a fine line about Graham Greene - a woman at a parents meeting protests the teaching of his work, THE DESTRUCTORS, another parent asks if she 'even knows who Graham Greene is' to which the judmental censor replies, "I think we've all seen Bonanaza."

Now, click it twice, and watch, the most famous movie bunny, anyone seen my holy hand grenade of antioch?

HAPPY EASTER!!!!!!!!!!!

March 8-9 Blizzard Photos

A car STUCK in the street, a rescue effort by local plows, the chokeberry (home of the robbins).

An amazing snow, late in the season, worst (best?) in 40 years . . .

how lost is Persephone?

maybe she needs an Atlas, get it?

something wrong with google, pics wont post, will edit them in later.....


A few quotes from the Akron Beacon Journal this past weekend:

The sheriffs tried, “A Level 3 snow emergency has been declared in Summit County, meaning only emergency personnel are allowed on the roads”

The mailmen tried, but “One carrier was still stranded on Knollbrook Drive at 3:30 p.m. after becoming stuck 51/2 hours earlier, he said”

The plows tried, but “In Stark County, the roads were so bad that a Plain Township snowplow slid off Beverly Avenue Northeast and needed help from a front-end loader.

The nurses tried, and the hotels helped: “''We picked up 70 rooms,'' including 30 to 35
that Akron Children's Hospital rented so nurses could stay overnight, he said.”

The frugal ruled, “The city still had salt but was using it judiciously to conserve, he said. Only major hills were being salted, but Valle said cars were still having trouble negotiating them.”

the worst March snow in 10 years

I thought we were getting off early, in this our first winter in Ohio. Almost spring. There had been days in January with highs near 60 if not in the low 60s.

Now, a ton of snow. Blizzard warning, more heavy snow coming. Cover up and sleep.

But on my way to section a grapefruit I saw birds, you can gauge the amout of snow from the tree branches, or my tin plate on top of the bird feeder.

There were 4 bluejays, a cardinal, assorted titmice, and that fat loud bird (I have my audoban guide to birds of eastern north america, but that one .....)

this follows the ice storm of earlier this week. Yesterday at this time there was NO SNOW in the yard.

10 inches, 12? 15? once its like this who cares. AKRON is snowed in . . .

GUNS FOR EVERYONE! on COLLEGE SHOOTINGS......

"If people can vote and serve in the military at age 18, they should be able to carry a concealed gun," he said. ( Charles Smith, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Rifle Association)

Bill would lower concealed-gun age to 18


By MICK HINTON World Capitol Bureau
3/5/2008
Last Modified: 3/5/2008 1:32 AM


OKLAHOMA CITY -- A bill that would lower the age at which people can carry concealed weapons from 21 to 18 is headed to the state House for consideration.

"In my district when you turn 18, you already have 16 years of experience with a gun," said Rep. Jerry Ellis, who added that he was exaggerating to make his point.

[[ take a moment and watch this video



]]
Ellis, from southeastern Oklahoma, is the author of House Bill 2232, which was approved 15-1 on Monday by the House Judiciary and Public Safety Committee.

The bill was requested by the Oklahoma Rifle Association, the state affiliate of the National Rifle Association, said Ellis, D-Valliant.

Charles Smith of Yukon, executive director of the state association, said the reason for passing the bill is simple.

"If people can vote and serve in the military at age 18, they should be able to carry a concealed gun," he said.

Rep. Marian Cooksey, R-Edmond, who cast the lone dissenting vote, said she realizes that sometimes, especially in rural areas, fathers teach their sons how to hunt and handle a gun at an early age.

"I'm not against guns," she said. "But, I wonder whether 18-year-olds are old enough to carry them. I am here to vote for what I think is right."

A week ago, the judiciary committee approved a bill that would allow 21-year-olds to carry concealed weapons on college campuses and sent the bill to the House.

Ellis emphasized that his bill has nothing to do with that measure, sponsored by Rep. Jason Murphey, R-Guthrie.

But Rep. Lucky Lamons, a former longtime Tulsa police officer, said that if these bills both pass, an 18-year-old would be able to carry a concealed weapon into a college classroom.

Lamons, D-Tulsa, said he realizes that it is difficult for lawmakers to vote against legislation dealing with the Second Amendment's right to bear arms because they don't want to be perceived by their constituents as being against guns.

Lamons said college officials are quietly contacting legislators to express concerns about Murphey's bill but that administrators don't want to speak publicly against gun-carrying laws.

"It's a sad day in Oklahoma and the United States that we are even looking at these issues," Lamons said.

Rep. Mark McCullough, R-Sapulpa, who was not present during the committee meeting when the vote was taken, said he is still struggling with the merits of Ellis' legislation.

"I am a staunch supporter of gun rights and have a permit myself," said McCullough, a lawyer and a former assistant district attorney.

He and Lamons agreed that the Legislature needs to consider the bill's ramifications.

"This is something that we ought to have robust discussion about before we do this," McCullough said.

Meanwhile, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation says it is having a difficult time keeping up with all the applications for concealed-carry licenses. The OSBI has to run security and background checks on applicants within 90 days.

"We are absolutely inundated," OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said. "We are barely able to process applications in the time frame allowed by law."

More than 60,000 Oklahomans are licensed to carry concealed weapons. Licenses granted in 2006 totaled 9,591. That number jumped to 16,426 in 2007, according to the OSBI.

TIME TRAVEL STIMULUS click till it plays

Sealed With A Kiss
by
Brian Hyland
Album: Greatest Hits Released: 1962

This archetypal American high-school teen love song was composed by Gary Geld and lyricist Peter Udell. The duo began their writing partnership in the early sixties and wrote over 100 songs together. One of their first songs was this, which they wrote in 1960 and was a hit for Brian Hyland two years later. Hyland said in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "Sealed With A Kiss was recorded about a year before I did it by The Four Voices, who had a sound like The Brothers Four. It dragged and didn't have any life in it, so it wasn't a hit. I told them we should do it. Gary Geld was a classically trained musician and he had been inspired to write it from a finger exercise for the piano."

This was Hyland's biggest hit in the UK, but 2 years earlier in the US at the age of 16, he enjoyed an American chart topper with "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini."

Lyrics:

Though we've got to say good-bye
For the summer
Darling, I promise you this
I'll send you all my love
Everyday in a letter
Sealed with a kiss
CHORUS:
Yes it's gonna be cold, lonely summer
But I'll fill the emptiness
I'll send you all my dreams
Everyday in a letter
Sealed with a kiss
I'll see you in the sunlight
I'll hear your voice everywhere
I'll run to tenderly hold you
But, Darlin' you won't be there
I don't wanna say good-bye
For the summer
Knowing the love we'll miss
Let us make a pledge
To meet in September
And seal it with a kiss
(instrumental)
(CHORUS)
Sealed with a kiss
Sealed with a kiss
Sealed with a kiss