opponents of the proposed mosque and community center to be built in lower manhattan speak in hushed tones about the sanctity of ‘the shadow of ground zero’.
perhaps a little reality checking is in order:
- “hallowed ground” – within a three bock radius of where the world trade center used to stand are 3 liquor stores, 11 bars, 17 pizza shops, 18 bank branches, 10 shoe stores, beauty salons, and porn stores flying american flags… not to mention street vendors and food carts (including two serving muslim food). there are also 10 churches, a hare krishna facility, and a muslim prayer center (not affiliated with the new mosque). visitors to the scene of the worst terrorist attack on american soil are welcomed by solemn memorials and a visitors center amid the noise of reconstruction. they can also buy porn and sex toys, play the ponies and take care of all manner of personal business… all within blocks of ‘hallowed ground.’ the proposed location of the center is two blocks from ground zero… why don’t we make all of manhattan protected/hallowed ground?
- “13-story mosque” – no one has proposed building a 13-story mosque. the proposal is to build a 13-story ymca-like community center with fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court), a 500-seat auditorium, a restaurant and a cooking school, exhibition space, a library, art studios, a 9/11 memorial (what?!?!?!?) and childcare facilities… oh… and a mosque. usnews says that calling the entire building a mosque is a bit like referring to the empire state building as a 103-story walgreens because the pharmacy chain has a store on the ground floor.
- “bad bad muslims” – the 9/11 terrorists were a fringe movement from a religion with more than one billion members. how much outrage would there be if plans were submitted for a new church to be built within two blocks of the alfred p. murrah federal building in oklahoma city, the site of the worst terrorist attack on american soil before 9/11… an attack committed by a christian? can anyone say ‘two sets of standards’?
nothing said here will change anybody’s mind… too bad.
adele was a freelance advertising copywriter in helsinki… until she went on maternity leave. her new project is imagining/creating scenes featuring her sleeping baby. this one is called ‘up!’.
very creative, very cute!
http://milasdaydreams.blogspot.com/
i continue to receive forwarded emails from well-intentioned and otherwise intelligent people that contain old news or recycled mis-information.
yes, i understand that the power that courses through you when you forward an email to (potentially) hundreds of people .
yes, i understand that joining a group of people who share a belief in something found on the internet makes you feel less alone, and socially validated… even if the group you’ve aligned yourself with is mis-informed.
yes, it’s perfectly reasonable to assume that i haven’t seen your latest online discovery… even though i am a webmaster who is online constantly, and sees things way before you ever would.
please do us both the courtesy of reality checking before forwarding. the best way to do this is to visit snopes.com, where you can find out quickly whether there is any truth whatsoever to the information you are about to blindly pass on to others.
and, even if what you want to send me turns out to be real… i’ve probably already seen it.
please forward this to everyone you know! it’s important!!!!!
there is nothing like a well-written thriller to take one out of the day-to-day. it is unusual to find an author who comes out of the gate fully developed and can sustain their formula all the way through… but desmond bagley is the real deal.
i don’t even remember which one of his books i picked up first, or where i got it… but immediately upon finishing it i went straight to half.com and bought everything he’s done.
on vacation? in bed with the flu? work and/or life getting you down? curl up with any of bagley’s books and you won’t want to put it down.
alistair maclean said “i’ve read all of desmond bagley… he’s better than i am.”
he was right.
i like profit as much as the next money-grubbing capitalist… why shouldn’t i be able to charge a zillion dollars if that’s what the market will bear? fortunately, most of the work i do does not impact large ecosystems, or require huge infusions of taxpayer dollars. rather than discuss whether there is anyone in bp management who still deserves to have a job (or keep their salary), i propose the following:
companies get to charge whatever they want for their services; they get to make insane profits, and their executives get to be richer than god. if what they do, however, goes wrong… defined as negatively impacting the environment, taxpayers, or anyone who was minding their own business before the company came along but now has to deal with the after effects of the company’s actions, every executive on the senior staff, and the top three majority stakeholders in said company have to return the last three years of salaries and/or profits, in the form of a fund to be used to attempt to right the wrong; if there’s any money left over, it can be applied to fixing other such cases. in addition, any executives not sent to prison for their actions will be required to spend a minimum of one year volunteering for a social or humanitarian organization.
it seems equitable to me, and well worth the risk for those big payouts… for any moral person.
the ‘triangle of life’ earthquake safety theory has been touted as a better method of staying safe during an earthquake than the traditional ‘duck and cover’ method. the ‘triangle of life’ theory says that falling objects such as doors, walls, or large appliances will come to rest in angled positions, leaving triangles of space in which safety can be found.
the only problem is that both the theory and the man responsible for it have been discredited:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/triangle.asp
http://www.fema.gov/hazard/earthquake/eq_during.shtm
http://earthquakecountry.info/dropcoverholdon/#notrecommended
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/faq/?categoryID=6&faqID=141
the real issue is that a very small percentage of homeowners here in the bay area have followed through on earthquake readiness preparations: laying in supplies of food and water, flashlights, blankets, tools, emergency preparedness plans, outside-of-area contact networks to facilitate communications, etc.
eventually the big one will make us stop what we’re doing and pay attention.
i wrote the following for the june issue of the grubb co. newsletter. written and produced by yours truly, the newsletter goes out to as many as 15,000 homeowners every other month.
as of april 22, 2010, the lead renovation, repair and painting rule (LRRP) requires that all contractors and handyman services who work in homes, child care facilities and schools with lead-base paint become certified in providing a lead-safe work environment. intended to protect homeowners, building owners and residents against the dangers of lead in paint, dust, and soil, the new law comes into play when work will impact six square feet or more of interior painting, or more than twenty square feet of exterior painting. any area worked on in a pre-1978 building must be sealed off, dust minimized and cleanup done by wet mopping and hepa vacuuming. the epa warns residents, “you may even want to move out of your home while all or parts of the work are being done.”
the law has raised an equal number of concerns about costs, timing, and consequences. contractors have been slow to embrace the rule, pointing to a lack of consumer awareness and the potential for soaring compliance costs as major flaws. some predict that the costs of implementing the LRRP will discourage home renovation in favor of new construction.
vendors are required to be epa-certified, assign a certified renovator to be present at each project, and provide required documentation about lead and the LRRP prior to the start of each project. failure to comply with the ruling could result in fines up to $37,500 a day. that said, the epa’s only method of enforcement is to investigate tips and complaints made to its hotline, 800-424-lead. homeowners aren’t covered in the ruling, but given the hazards of lead-paint poisoning may want to re-consider doing work themselves… or using vendors willing to ignore the law.
a bipartisan group of senators has introduced an amendment to the fiscal year 2010 emergency supplemental appropriations bill to provide small contractors with more time to receive the training mandated by the LRRP, citing an insufficient number of epa trainers to provide timely implementation, and the potentially crippling financial effects of the rule for small businesses.
certified vendors can by found online at the epa website, at http://is.gd/cs4ud.
i don’t think people know about this, or have digested the repercussions. this will affect anyone remodeling or getting ready to list their home for sale, and is one more item for the ‘everything is getting more expensive’ list.
i am amazed that this law was enacted… and i’m glad i’m not a painter.
i’ve been collecting these for a while… don’t they make a great cd’s worth of song titles for cd #2?
age is no longer a barrier for me in bed- escape rod’s alleviation
- do not regret on the past
- i searching for new friends
- forget about dictionaries
- diameter
- performance is now free to try
- receive a real time enhancing
- massive is an understatement
- stay without limits
someone hacked into my account- social networking site no one else knows about
- stunning new report tastes like chicken
- rattlesnake 7 mastodons
- my heartbeat are killing me
- i selling rolexes
- no subject
p.s.: the title references my cd, not like other men.
i don’t even remember how i met duncan murphy… was it bmug (the berkeley macintosh users group)? the suse linux office that used to be near the grand lake theater in oakland?
we called duncan ‘the dunk’. he was brilliant, tortured, and lovable. he was first and foremost a geek… a very talented programmer who took me under his wing and let me learn by sitting at his side while he worked on websites for joe weider’s fitness online, the california medical association, and others.
the tortured part revealed itself over time. he was a perfectionist, and would quote a job at 100 hours… only to find himself further from the finish line at 400 hours than when he started; he would work all-nighters trying to catch up and deliver. he was overweight and had sleep apnea and other health issues. he had stacks of unopened bills on his desk and kitchen table, having apparently signed up for the ‘we’ve shut off your services… NOW will you pay your bill?!?’ plans with pg&e and the phone company. he didn’t answer the front door because it might be the irs… who he owed an amazingly large amount of money for not paying taxes for 10 years while living in new york (the irs eventually caught up with him, and cut a deal where he would pay an initial payment, followed by monthly payments until his obligation was paid off. his first check bounced, and dunk went back to not answering the door).
throughout, he was generous to a fault, and engendered tremendous loyalty in those of us lucky enough to know and work with him. he was a unique and brilliant guy who should have been working in a high-end think tank somewhere, with administrative assistants taking care of the mundane day-to-day stuff that caused him so much trouble.
he moved back to kentucky to live with his mom, and be closer to his brother, henry; i think his sister, susan, stayed in oakland.
not long after the move, duncan was in a horrible car accident and suffered major head trauma. his brother put up a blog (how duncan’s doing), which we all monitored from afar.
at some point, though, it seemed like dunk had pulled through… but then henry stopped updating the blog and responding to emails… dunkus interruptus. i recently created a facebook account for the sole purpose of sending duncan’s brother and sister emails inquiring about duncan… but got no response.
i owe the man a lot. he set me on my current course… give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime… he taught me how to think like a programmer, and how to feed myself as a webmaster.
is he alive? mostly alive? dead? don’t know… but i miss him, and wish i could check in with him.
found this in my inbox the other day:
Your Invited – The Coming Transformation of Higher Education, June 3.
Please join Fast Company writer Anya Kamenetz, author of DIY U:Edupunks, Edupreneurs and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education, for a discussion about how entrepreneurship and technology are changing education.
seems like they’ve made things worse.
being good at what you do apparently has little to do with your ability to self-promote. take this case in point.
i just finished the add-a-garage website. getting information i could use to maximize their marketing moment was like pulling teeth. they seemed to think that ‘founded in 1987′ was enough, and would reassure homeowners of their ability to handle the complexities of design, permits, dealing with concrete, foundations, neighbors, etc.
eventually, i found out that they had served over 400 clients… which immediately took them from ‘who are these guys?’ to ‘wow… they’ve done this before!’
still, i wanted more. i kept pumping for info, and finally thought to ask the owner what he had done before founding add-a-garage. answer? “my previous company built bart stations… lake merrit, embarcadero, 16th street, and 24th street. and we did the foundation for the bank of america building at 555 california st.”
you mean the 52-story building that is the second tallest building in san francisco? right.
call me wacky, but i think that any homeowner wondering if they should use add-a-garage for their project… be it a new garage, or foundation work… would now have concrete proof (so to speak!) of add-a-garage’s abilities.
an effective website should immediately convey and reenforce the brand, inform, reassure, and go as far as possible towards closing the deal… at least that’s how 5 happiness webmaster approaches things.
in the early 1860′s the seth thomas clock company began producing the regulator 2… the clock of choice for banks and railroad stations throughout the country for many decades.
it was produced with minor changes until 1950, which makes it the longest produced single model in clock manufacturing history (90 years!). there were just enough changes over the years to allow identification of the period in which a particular clock was produced.
this one is from the 1890′s. i met a clock collector who was moving to a retirement home and downsizing. he asked me which of his clocks i’d be interested in, and there was only one.
it’s on the wall in my entry hall, where you can just hear it ticking away from different rooms in the house… as it has continued ticking for over 110 years.
a brilliant and beautiful piece of engineering, elegant in it’s simplicity and still enduring.
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here’s a picture to break a tennis player’s heart. 8-(
it’s hard to remember that we’re still in the middle of a drought when there’s been so much rain of late.
the california department of water resources says:
As of April 30, 2010, statewide hydrologic conditions were as follows: precipitation, 110 percent of average to date; runoff, 75 percent of average to date; and reservoir storage, 95 percent of average for the date. Sacramento River unimpaired runoff observed through April 30, 2010 was about 9.9 million acre-feet (MAF), which is about 72 percent of average.
For comparison, on April 30, 2009, the observed Sacramento River unimpaired runoff through that date was about 8.6 MAF, or about 63 percent of average. In general, April was wet and cool due to a series of cold, late-winter storms that brought significant precipitation to the state.
read more and/or track drought conditions at http://www.water.ca.gov/drought/conditions/
living in the oakland hills has its advantages… no sidewalks, across the street from redwood regional park, and killer views. more views from the deck can be found at http://www.songwriter.com/views
i’ve recently come across some musicological finds… one on the web, and a couple buried deep in the pile that was my home recording studio (which might live again some day).
‘the lost gaucho’ is a collection of steely dan songs from the ‘gaucho’ sessions. most of them didn’t make it onto the album, but there’s an early version of ‘third world man’ (with very sketchy early lyrics but final guitar parts), an instrumental version of ‘gaucho’, and an early version of ‘time out of mind’… an interesting window into the steely dan process. i also have a copy of the schlitz commercial they recorded back in the days of denny diaz.
i used to record and play with shawn colvin, way back when. we would play at la val’s subterranean, on the north side of the berkeley campus, and record at my home studio. at the time, the bulk of shawn’s catalog were jimmy bruno (an old friend of hers from carbondale) songs and covers. these were her first recordings, all jimmy songs. ‘wait a minute, baby’ also has my first pedal steel on tape… more of a lap steel part, but hey!
while those early shawn recordings were also my first sessions as an engineer and producer, i really learned my stuff working with jai uttal. we recorded about a dozen of his more pop/rock tunes… think ali akbar khan meets peter gabriel, with horns. i’ve had the cassette sitting on my desk for years, and finally dumped everything to mp3. i was part of jai’s pagan love orchestra for three or four years, and played bass on ‘monkey‘ (engineered by roger nichols, steely dan’s engineer!) and ‘beggars and saints‘, a world music cd of the year in 1995. we also played the montreux jazz festival.
let me know if you’d like to check out them out.
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it is truly amazing how many people pick up after their dogs and then carefully leave plastic bags filled with dog poop by the side of the trail… as if they’re going to come back and pick up after themselves on their way out.
uh huh. sure. right.
please take your crap with you. really.
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i’m playing tennis. i miss an incoming call. the caller leaves a voicemail. when i’m done playing tennis, i check my phone, and see that i have a recent call and a voicemail. i listen to the voicemail… which means i’m aware that that person called, yes? so why do i have to go to ‘recent’ to clear the you-have-a-recent-call notification?
you might argue that someone might have called me from an unrecognized number… but how often does that happen? and, even if it did, i can always choose to check the time and date of an unrecognized recent call against the time and date of my voicemails.
so is that a recent call AND a voicemail? of course… but listening to a voicemail should turn OFF the corresponding ‘recent call’ flag and adjust the count of un-looked at recent calls. voicemail flags and counts should not change until the voicemails are listened to.
drives me crazy.
UPDATE: found this discussion online… apparently i’m not the only one tweaked by this issue: http://www.cooper.com/journal/2009/07/dear_mr_jobs.html
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i used to joke that that was our family motto… until the day repressed memories of the family crest re-surfaced (i was experimenting with the therapy plug-in for photoshop):
immediately after sending my cd off to be mass-produced, i recorded two more songs (doh!). one of them has perfectly wonderful lap steel guitar throughout, played by michael fagrey.
i was listening to the song the other day (‘the guy in room 7′, about a permanent resident at a sleep clinic in switzerland), and decided that too much time had passed since michael and i had connected. i googled him to see what he was up to, and was stunned to find out that he had died of cancer. i had no idea so much time had passed.
michael was responsible for launching my career as a bass player, selling me my first bass rig and then talking me into replacing him at leo’s music while he went on tour with david lindley as david’s guitar tech.
michael returned from that tour with a pedal steel guitar he had acquired while on the road with lindley. i traded him an 8-meg simm for the steel (back when 8-meg simms cost $300 and 8 megs actually made a difference). another friend told me to take the guitar to some guy named tom bradshaw, who would fix it up and who i would “end up meeting anyway.” tom turned out to be the obi wan kenobe of pedal steel, and we have become very close friends.
michael was a phenomenal musician and sound man. he worked with al stewart (‘the year of the cat’), and tried to get me to go out on tour with al… as a duo! he also worked with dave koz for a number of years.
i owe a lot to michael, including my sincere apology for letting so much time pass without checking in… too much time, as it turns out.
although michael’s family and friends have had a little more time to get used to the fact that he’s gone, the shock of his loss is still reverberating for me. he is missed.
picked up max today in zion national park.
do i have a dog? or does he have a webmaster?
http://www.5happy.com/max
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welcome to 5 happiness’ blahg.
please feel free to register and comment… as long as your comments are appropriate and add, rather than detract.
have at it.
b
