Sunday, December 19, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Winter Solstice+Lunar Eclipse on Tuesday December 21, 2010
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-lunar-eclipse-20101219,0,7272254.story
"on the longest night of the year, a full moon will disappear at 1:40 a.m. behind the Earth's shadow. There won't be another total lunar eclipse on the night of the winter solstice for 84 years.
Weather permitting — and the forecast isn't favorable in the Chicago area, calling for clouds building Monday and snow overnight — the eclipse will be visible everywhere in the continental United States, and at its darkest, the moon will be halfway up from the horizon in the south-southwest sky."
"on the longest night of the year, a full moon will disappear at 1:40 a.m. behind the Earth's shadow. There won't be another total lunar eclipse on the night of the winter solstice for 84 years.
Weather permitting — and the forecast isn't favorable in the Chicago area, calling for clouds building Monday and snow overnight — the eclipse will be visible everywhere in the continental United States, and at its darkest, the moon will be halfway up from the horizon in the south-southwest sky."
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Friday, December 3, 2010
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Inspiring Vintage and Recycled Fashion: Slide Show
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/11/26/fashion/20101126-WHATIWORE.html?ref=fashion
Timeless, classics in one of the best slide shows I have ever seen.
Timeless, classics in one of the best slide shows I have ever seen.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Friday, November 5, 2010
Your Feet Make You Unique
http://www.yourfeetmakeyouunique.com/
As pop used to tell me, "I am well-grounded on a windy day."
:^)
As pop used to tell me, "I am well-grounded on a windy day."
:^)
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
On an Indian Reservation, a Garden of Buddhas?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/us/01monks.html?src=me&ref=homepage
"The Dalai Lama has agreed to come and consecrate the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas after the project it is finished, perhaps in 2012."
"“It’s ironic, but many Indian people can’t afford to buy land on their own reservation,” she said. A typical acre for building a home here might cost $30,000 — an enormous amount in rural and tribal Montana.
But Ms. Cajune said there was also an uncanny kinship between the tribal and Buddhist cultures, based on understandings of sacred landscapes, and even notions of honor and respect."
"A potential cultural clash has become cultural reconciliation. “It’s two cultures honoring each other in peace,” Ms. Cajune said. “That’s a powerful story people need to hear.”
"The Dalai Lama has agreed to come and consecrate the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas after the project it is finished, perhaps in 2012."
"“It’s ironic, but many Indian people can’t afford to buy land on their own reservation,” she said. A typical acre for building a home here might cost $30,000 — an enormous amount in rural and tribal Montana.
But Ms. Cajune said there was also an uncanny kinship between the tribal and Buddhist cultures, based on understandings of sacred landscapes, and even notions of honor and respect."
"A potential cultural clash has become cultural reconciliation. “It’s two cultures honoring each other in peace,” Ms. Cajune said. “That’s a powerful story people need to hear.”
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sony Walkman: R.I.P.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20020573-37.html
I bought a Walkman in the Autumn of 1980.
Carried it on countless flights.
Used thousands of batteries.
Tried half a dozen or more headsets.
I bought a Walkman in the Autumn of 1980.
Carried it on countless flights.
Used thousands of batteries.
Tried half a dozen or more headsets.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Alternative Weeklies in the U.S.
http://www.commondreams.org/weeklies.htm
I clicked on the Vermont one and it is suspending soon. Yikes.
I clicked on the Vermont one and it is suspending soon. Yikes.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Your right to personal privacy is shrinking even as Corporate America's is growing.
http://www.slate.com/id/2270956/
Quote du jour from this article:
"Might we contemplate what's happened to our own individual privacy in this country in recent years? That the government should have more and more access to our personal information, while we have less and less access to corporate information defies all logic. It's one thing to ask us to give up personal liberty for greater safety or security. It's another matter entirely to slowly take away privacy and dignity from living, breathing humans, while giving more and more of it to faceless interest groups and corporations."
Quote du jour from this article:
"Might we contemplate what's happened to our own individual privacy in this country in recent years? That the government should have more and more access to our personal information, while we have less and less access to corporate information defies all logic. It's one thing to ask us to give up personal liberty for greater safety or security. It's another matter entirely to slowly take away privacy and dignity from living, breathing humans, while giving more and more of it to faceless interest groups and corporations."
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Home is where your stuff is....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/garden/30domestic.html?ref=style
September 29, 2010
Home Is Where Your Stuff IsBy THOMAS BELLER
A FEW weeks ago I returned home to New Orleans after more than three months. There are two techniques I know of that allow you to see your house with fresh eyes. One is to have a party, when at the last minute you suddenly become aware of every imperfection, discoloration or aesthetically displeasing thing about your house. The other is to leave home for an extended period.
For most of the year, home for me and my family is a rambling house on State Street, one half of a shotgun double, room after room dripping with chandeliers hanging from ornate medallions on the ceilings, and two bedrooms upstairs, along with a third space, just off the bedroom, carpeted and hushed. In New Orleans this is called an attic; in New York, it would be an apartment.
When I walked into our house in late August, there was a strange hiccup in time — the place felt almost unrecognizable, though it was unchanged from when I was last there. Objects that I had held so dear I now saw as just objects. The photographs on the wall, some of them of me and my wife and daughter, seemed like artifacts of another era.
David Berman, the poet, might understand this confusing shift. “Souvenirs only remind you of buying them,” he wrote. It’s an ambiguous line — souvenirs are worthless, or souvenirs are like madeleines, each a portal into the past.
For three years now, my family and I have spent the bulk of the year in one place and then, in summer, high-tailed it to our native stomping grounds of New York City and environs. People who behave this way are either rich, on the run or in academia. I recently joined the last group, and moved to New Orleans to teach at Tulane.
New Orleans, with its unhappy distinction of being a place that can get completely submerged, is a strange place to leave your personal effects for the summer. In Tom Piazza’s novel about Hurricane Katrina, “City of Refuge,” a character returns to his flooded home in Mid-City and picks up what looks like a limp, wet sausage. It turns out to be the remains of a pair of white gloves his mother had worn to her wedding.
At some point last summer — perhaps with that image in my mind — I reflected that in our house in New Orleans is a photograph of my wife resplendent in her wedding gown, holding a bouquet whose stems were wrapped in my grandmother’s white wedding gloves.
Each summer we rent a different house; this past summer we were in Sag Harbor. We have become very good at making a rented house feel like our own. My wife is expert at rearranging furniture to suit our needs. (She points, I drag things around.) My daughter, now 3 1/2, turns every environment into a playroom. When she was smaller she required a lot of equipment, but now she has just her purple princess carry-on, which she enjoys packing with various random things.
Then we settle in and the summer begins to unfold. We have been able to maintain a kind of dual citizenship, in New York and New Orleans, and every summer there seems to be one special family we make friends with. It feels a bit promiscuous, but it’s also nice.
But there must be, or should be, one unquestioned home, and ours is in New Orleans. Not because we own a house there (we rent) but because our stuff is there. For example, there exists a photograph of me and an elderly lady who gives every impression of being my grandmother, but she is not. She is Eudora Welty, who in her 80s came to Columbia University, where I was studying, to give a reading.
I was assigned to be her bodyguard, and at the moment of the photograph I had just fetched her a plastic cup of bourbon, which might account for the slightly surprised look on my face. I had read and enjoyed Welty but I was not a devotee; she hailed from the South, a part of the country I knew nothing about. In fact she had spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans, and the photograph is there now, a curious and unlikely round trip.
While living in New Orleans, I can go weeks and months without thinking about this picture. But this summer, when I was away, I started thinking about it, wondering where in the house it was. I needed the distance for it to surface in my memory.
The fact is, I am often transfixed when in the presence of the artifacts of my own existence. Being transfixed is a cousin to being paralyzed.
By summer’s end, as August moved inexorably toward September, I flew back to New Orleans. I told my daughter I had “to blow away all the hurricanes,” but a more accurate description would be that I had “to blow away all the cobwebs,” before coming back to fetch her and my wife.
As I came through the door on State Street, into the hot stillness of the house, right away I saw a million details of my life as it had been three and a half months earlier. Pocket change on a mantel, two cans of dog treats for the neighbor’s dog, a three-taper candlestick with wax melted over some Mardi Gras beads.
Much of this stuff — that casual, almost derogatory term for those objects in your life you have invested with meaning — is important to me. I have a lot of stuff. I am an accumulator (my wife is not).
Nevertheless, I greeted these objects with ambivalence. Part of me felt exhausted by their presence. They exerted a kind of lunar pull, tugging me out of the present and into the past. It was like seeing an old friend after a long interval and being overcome with the sickening feeling that one of you has changed beyond recognition, that the old magic is gone.
At one point I came across a snapshot of the old Shakespeare & Company bookstore on Broadway and 81st Street. You see a table full of books and hanging above it a poster for my first book, “Seduction Theory.” In the background is a man on a ladder, stocking one of the store’s sturdy floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Shakespeare & Company had been, for me, the original bookstore, the place where I would wallow for long stretches of browsing, seesawing between elation and a stunned sense of being overwhelmed and reproached, for the books I wanted to read but hadn’t, for the books I thought I should have read but hadn’t, and for the books I feel I should have written but had been too lazy and now someone else has gone ahead and done it.
The photograph in question is sitting on the very shelves that are themselves in the photograph — when the store went out of business I told myself that change was inevitable and life goes on, and then in abrupt self-contradiction ran inside and begged them to let me take some of the shelves home at any cost. At the time, I could never have imagined that they, and I (and we, I don’t think I could have imagined a we) would end up in New Orleans. Yet here we all were. I’d brought that atmosphere of a bookstore home.
But now, as I saw them after the summer, they were just bookshelves.
After a disorienting week, I returned to New York, gathered my family and brought them down. My wife was as stunned as I was; the kid hardly missed a beat, having a lengthy reunion party with every one of the 20 or so stuffed animals that hadn’t fit in her purple carry-on bag.
Now a month has passed, and the place again feels like home. The rooster made of shells, the old pictures, even the bookshelves, no longer seem conspicuous to me, though the books do at times reproach me for my neglect. The place feels ours again; the stuff is a comfort, but not a priority. It’s tempting to draw the conclusion that while artifacts are important, the living cannot be replaced. Except the living keep generating these illuminating sparks — souvenirs that remind you of life.
September 29, 2010
Home Is Where Your Stuff IsBy THOMAS BELLER
A FEW weeks ago I returned home to New Orleans after more than three months. There are two techniques I know of that allow you to see your house with fresh eyes. One is to have a party, when at the last minute you suddenly become aware of every imperfection, discoloration or aesthetically displeasing thing about your house. The other is to leave home for an extended period.
For most of the year, home for me and my family is a rambling house on State Street, one half of a shotgun double, room after room dripping with chandeliers hanging from ornate medallions on the ceilings, and two bedrooms upstairs, along with a third space, just off the bedroom, carpeted and hushed. In New Orleans this is called an attic; in New York, it would be an apartment.
When I walked into our house in late August, there was a strange hiccup in time — the place felt almost unrecognizable, though it was unchanged from when I was last there. Objects that I had held so dear I now saw as just objects. The photographs on the wall, some of them of me and my wife and daughter, seemed like artifacts of another era.
David Berman, the poet, might understand this confusing shift. “Souvenirs only remind you of buying them,” he wrote. It’s an ambiguous line — souvenirs are worthless, or souvenirs are like madeleines, each a portal into the past.
For three years now, my family and I have spent the bulk of the year in one place and then, in summer, high-tailed it to our native stomping grounds of New York City and environs. People who behave this way are either rich, on the run or in academia. I recently joined the last group, and moved to New Orleans to teach at Tulane.
New Orleans, with its unhappy distinction of being a place that can get completely submerged, is a strange place to leave your personal effects for the summer. In Tom Piazza’s novel about Hurricane Katrina, “City of Refuge,” a character returns to his flooded home in Mid-City and picks up what looks like a limp, wet sausage. It turns out to be the remains of a pair of white gloves his mother had worn to her wedding.
At some point last summer — perhaps with that image in my mind — I reflected that in our house in New Orleans is a photograph of my wife resplendent in her wedding gown, holding a bouquet whose stems were wrapped in my grandmother’s white wedding gloves.
Each summer we rent a different house; this past summer we were in Sag Harbor. We have become very good at making a rented house feel like our own. My wife is expert at rearranging furniture to suit our needs. (She points, I drag things around.) My daughter, now 3 1/2, turns every environment into a playroom. When she was smaller she required a lot of equipment, but now she has just her purple princess carry-on, which she enjoys packing with various random things.
Then we settle in and the summer begins to unfold. We have been able to maintain a kind of dual citizenship, in New York and New Orleans, and every summer there seems to be one special family we make friends with. It feels a bit promiscuous, but it’s also nice.
But there must be, or should be, one unquestioned home, and ours is in New Orleans. Not because we own a house there (we rent) but because our stuff is there. For example, there exists a photograph of me and an elderly lady who gives every impression of being my grandmother, but she is not. She is Eudora Welty, who in her 80s came to Columbia University, where I was studying, to give a reading.
I was assigned to be her bodyguard, and at the moment of the photograph I had just fetched her a plastic cup of bourbon, which might account for the slightly surprised look on my face. I had read and enjoyed Welty but I was not a devotee; she hailed from the South, a part of the country I knew nothing about. In fact she had spent a fair amount of time in New Orleans, and the photograph is there now, a curious and unlikely round trip.
While living in New Orleans, I can go weeks and months without thinking about this picture. But this summer, when I was away, I started thinking about it, wondering where in the house it was. I needed the distance for it to surface in my memory.
The fact is, I am often transfixed when in the presence of the artifacts of my own existence. Being transfixed is a cousin to being paralyzed.
By summer’s end, as August moved inexorably toward September, I flew back to New Orleans. I told my daughter I had “to blow away all the hurricanes,” but a more accurate description would be that I had “to blow away all the cobwebs,” before coming back to fetch her and my wife.
As I came through the door on State Street, into the hot stillness of the house, right away I saw a million details of my life as it had been three and a half months earlier. Pocket change on a mantel, two cans of dog treats for the neighbor’s dog, a three-taper candlestick with wax melted over some Mardi Gras beads.
Much of this stuff — that casual, almost derogatory term for those objects in your life you have invested with meaning — is important to me. I have a lot of stuff. I am an accumulator (my wife is not).
Nevertheless, I greeted these objects with ambivalence. Part of me felt exhausted by their presence. They exerted a kind of lunar pull, tugging me out of the present and into the past. It was like seeing an old friend after a long interval and being overcome with the sickening feeling that one of you has changed beyond recognition, that the old magic is gone.
At one point I came across a snapshot of the old Shakespeare & Company bookstore on Broadway and 81st Street. You see a table full of books and hanging above it a poster for my first book, “Seduction Theory.” In the background is a man on a ladder, stocking one of the store’s sturdy floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Shakespeare & Company had been, for me, the original bookstore, the place where I would wallow for long stretches of browsing, seesawing between elation and a stunned sense of being overwhelmed and reproached, for the books I wanted to read but hadn’t, for the books I thought I should have read but hadn’t, and for the books I feel I should have written but had been too lazy and now someone else has gone ahead and done it.
The photograph in question is sitting on the very shelves that are themselves in the photograph — when the store went out of business I told myself that change was inevitable and life goes on, and then in abrupt self-contradiction ran inside and begged them to let me take some of the shelves home at any cost. At the time, I could never have imagined that they, and I (and we, I don’t think I could have imagined a we) would end up in New Orleans. Yet here we all were. I’d brought that atmosphere of a bookstore home.
But now, as I saw them after the summer, they were just bookshelves.
After a disorienting week, I returned to New York, gathered my family and brought them down. My wife was as stunned as I was; the kid hardly missed a beat, having a lengthy reunion party with every one of the 20 or so stuffed animals that hadn’t fit in her purple carry-on bag.
Now a month has passed, and the place again feels like home. The rooster made of shells, the old pictures, even the bookshelves, no longer seem conspicuous to me, though the books do at times reproach me for my neglect. The place feels ours again; the stuff is a comfort, but not a priority. It’s tempting to draw the conclusion that while artifacts are important, the living cannot be replaced. Except the living keep generating these illuminating sparks — souvenirs that remind you of life.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Saturday, September 18, 2010
New Favorite on my Favorite Author/Writer's List...Ruth Reichl
http://www.ruthreichl.com/biography.html
http://www.ruthreichl.com/books.html
Tender at the Bone was one of those rare "I don't want this book to end" type of books.
and I have recently learned there are two other books I must find and read......
Enjoy! This author is a rare gem.
http://www.ruthreichl.com/books.html
Tender at the Bone was one of those rare "I don't want this book to end" type of books.
and I have recently learned there are two other books I must find and read......
Enjoy! This author is a rare gem.
The Rural Life: Verlyn's Latest on Autumn....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/opinion/18sat4.html?ref=opinion
September 17, 2010
Dark Comes
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
I don’t go looking for the places of deep comfort on this farm. They call out to me. Why does the mounded hay in the horses’ run-in shed look so inviting? Why does the chicken house — warm and tight and brightly lit — feel like a place where I could just settle in? I climb the ladder to the hayloft and the barn cat watches me warily from his redoubt in the hay bales. I feel like getting my sleeping bag and joining him.
Night comes, but the fog comes first, dragging the last light with it across the hilltops. The leaves have started to fall — just ones and twos, but already scorched into autumn colors. It is still too warm for the woodstove, the kind of evening that feels like summer in mourning, though without any real sadness. On a night like this, “grieving” sounds like the noise the wind would make if it got into the attic.
Real autumn is a long way off yet, no matter what the pumpkins say. The sight of them at the farm stands seems to jerk me forward, and I am not ready. I want to consume the particulars of the day ahead of me, one by one.
I was away from the farm for two days this week, and it sprang ahead without me. The bees, uproarious around the hive-mouth when I left, are nowhere to be seen in the dusk, though I know they’ll be out again in the morning.
That hive is another place of comfort. I don’t know whether their labor feels like labor or whether necessity is joy to them. I never see the bees coming and going without wondering what so much kinship means. I loved the education Merlin gave the young King Arthur in T. H. White’s “The Once and Future King,” turning him into creature after creature. I teach myself the same way every day I’m at the farm.
September 17, 2010
Dark Comes
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
I don’t go looking for the places of deep comfort on this farm. They call out to me. Why does the mounded hay in the horses’ run-in shed look so inviting? Why does the chicken house — warm and tight and brightly lit — feel like a place where I could just settle in? I climb the ladder to the hayloft and the barn cat watches me warily from his redoubt in the hay bales. I feel like getting my sleeping bag and joining him.
Night comes, but the fog comes first, dragging the last light with it across the hilltops. The leaves have started to fall — just ones and twos, but already scorched into autumn colors. It is still too warm for the woodstove, the kind of evening that feels like summer in mourning, though without any real sadness. On a night like this, “grieving” sounds like the noise the wind would make if it got into the attic.
Real autumn is a long way off yet, no matter what the pumpkins say. The sight of them at the farm stands seems to jerk me forward, and I am not ready. I want to consume the particulars of the day ahead of me, one by one.
I was away from the farm for two days this week, and it sprang ahead without me. The bees, uproarious around the hive-mouth when I left, are nowhere to be seen in the dusk, though I know they’ll be out again in the morning.
That hive is another place of comfort. I don’t know whether their labor feels like labor or whether necessity is joy to them. I never see the bees coming and going without wondering what so much kinship means. I loved the education Merlin gave the young King Arthur in T. H. White’s “The Once and Future King,” turning him into creature after creature. I teach myself the same way every day I’m at the farm.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Thursday, July 29, 2010
If You Had the Time, What Would You Do?
" Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting poeple. Forget yourself."
- Henry Miller
"Once you commit to bringing more of a sense of play into your daily round with authentic personal pursuits, life will begin to take on a harmonious lilt."
- Diane Johnson
- Henry Miller
"Once you commit to bringing more of a sense of play into your daily round with authentic personal pursuits, life will begin to take on a harmonious lilt."
- Diane Johnson
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Libraries as Travel and Destinations.........
"While today I see libraries as places of organization, scholarly research and intellectual discovery, they still haven't lost their romance in my book, connoting style and a little mystique."
http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/etsy-finds-its-classified-9424/#comments
Oh yea, makes the Back to School feeling all that more exquisite......
http://www.etsy.com/storque/spotlight/etsy-finds-its-classified-9424/#comments
Oh yea, makes the Back to School feeling all that more exquisite......
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Travel without staying in a hotel......Social B&Bs.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
What does Chanel No. 5 Smell Like?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/the-chanel-no-5-story-961226.html
No. 5 Fragrance Notes:
Top Notes: Ylang-Ylang, Neroli, Aldehydes.
Middle Notes: Jasmine, Mayrose.
Base Notes: Sandalwood, Vetiver.
http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Chanel/Chanel-N-5-608.html
No. 5 Fragrance Notes:
Top Notes: Ylang-Ylang, Neroli, Aldehydes.
Middle Notes: Jasmine, Mayrose.
Base Notes: Sandalwood, Vetiver.
http://www.fragrantica.com/perfume/Chanel/Chanel-N-5-608.html
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Andy Grove's latest and dissenters......
The Andy Grove Essay:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/the-andy-grove-essay.html
***************************************************
Andy Grove: Knowledge Work Isn't Enough
Chris Murphy on Jul 6, 2010 10:53 AM
Intel co-founder Andy Grove doesn't have all the answers in his Bloomberg column on "How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late." But he makes one opinion clear: The U.S. can't innovate if it doesn't also build stuff.
Among many intriguing ideas in the full column, which you should read, Grove attacks the notion that the U.S. can focus on knowledge work, doing the design and engineering and feeling comfortable leaving the manufacturing to lower-cost countries.
He offers two main reasons. One, that approach just doesn't create enough jobs. Writes Grove:
Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter. The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that's the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.
And two, the U.S. won't create enough great startups if it's not also manufacturing. He cites the advanced battery market, which is poised to boom with the growth of electric cars:
A new industry needs an effective ecosystem in which technology knowhow accumulates, experience builds on experience, and close relationships develop between supplier and customer. The U.S. lost its lead in batteries 30 years ago when it stopped making consumer-electronics devices. Whoever made batteries then gained the exposure and relationships needed to learn to supply batteries for the more demanding laptop PC market, and after that, for the even more demanding automobile market. U.S. companies didn't participate in the first phase and consequently weren't in the running for all that followed. I doubt they will ever catch up.
Grove offers some prescriptions that will rankle any free trader, including taxing foreign-built goods and banking that money to help companies that scale up U.S. production. But more broadly he argues for "job-centric political leadership" and "job-centric economic theory."
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2010/07/andy_grove_know.html
************************
WSJ rebuttal: http://blogs.wsj.com/financial-adviser/2010/07/06/andy-grove-from-intel-is-wrong/
Includes:
And yet, I wish Grove could point out one country in the 100,000-year history of mankind that flourished because of protectionism. In this country he even points out: “Most Americans probably aren’t aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. ” He’s referring to 1932. What a short memory America has! Much of the reason for that unemployment was the trade wars started by the ultra-protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariff signed into law by Hoover in 1930. Look at when Japan and Germany opened up their doors to free trade in the decades post-WWII and you can see, by contrast, how quickly an economy can flourish when free trade is the norm.
*****************
Another dissenter: http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/21226/andy-you%E2%80%99re-late-and-you%E2%80%99re-wrong-about-jobs%E2%80%A6/
My problem with this is a simple one: Just as Grove mistakes the ability of large centrally run corporations to create jobs and do well by the worker, he also mistakes the ability of a large centrally-run government to do well by the worker and create jobs using tax policies. Isn’t it ironic that small and decentralized is so much more efficient than big and monolithic? Isn’t that the real lesson of Silicon Valley, rather than the Intels of the Valley? Isn’t it also the real lesson of the American way where individual voters and capitalists decentralize government and business?
These policies he advocates will, as Grove points out, largely serve the interests of the Big Companies (those who are “scaling out”) who weren’t the job growth drivers even before all this manufacturing outsourcing had taken such root. Today, not only are they not job growth drivers, they’re net job exporters. Moreover, what role did Grove play in doing his own outsourcing at Intel? They were busy building multi-billion dollar chip fabs while he was CEO until 2005. Did they all get built here in America? Aren’t you late to this party and didn’t you have a hand in some of the problems you’re raising?
Now as I said, there are some things to like about the article. I do agree with Grove, particularly in the economic situation we find ourselves in, that as he puts it, “Job creation must be the No. 1 objective of state economic policy.” Unemployment in this country has reached ridiculous proportions, and the primary thing we seem to be doing about it is giving people government jobs and projects to work on. The predictions on what happens to the jobless rate when the temporary census workers go back to being unemployed are scary. BTW, how long exactly will it take businesses to build the giant new plants here at home needed to get back out from under those taxes? Can we really afford to wait that long? And how efficiently will whatever agency administers this plan be at not handing it over to cronies as a rich new source of high pork-content budget dollars?
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/the-andy-grove-essay.html
***************************************************
Andy Grove: Knowledge Work Isn't Enough
Chris Murphy on Jul 6, 2010 10:53 AM
Intel co-founder Andy Grove doesn't have all the answers in his Bloomberg column on "How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late." But he makes one opinion clear: The U.S. can't innovate if it doesn't also build stuff.
Among many intriguing ideas in the full column, which you should read, Grove attacks the notion that the U.S. can focus on knowledge work, doing the design and engineering and feeling comfortable leaving the manufacturing to lower-cost countries.
He offers two main reasons. One, that approach just doesn't create enough jobs. Writes Grove:
Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment. Equally important is what comes after that mythical moment of creation in the garage, as technology goes from prototype to mass production. This is the phase where companies scale up. They work out design details, figure out how to make things affordably, build factories, and hire people by the thousands. Scaling is hard work but necessary to make innovation matter. The scaling process is no longer happening in the U.S. And as long as that's the case, plowing capital into young companies that build their factories elsewhere will continue to yield a bad return in terms of American jobs.
And two, the U.S. won't create enough great startups if it's not also manufacturing. He cites the advanced battery market, which is poised to boom with the growth of electric cars:
A new industry needs an effective ecosystem in which technology knowhow accumulates, experience builds on experience, and close relationships develop between supplier and customer. The U.S. lost its lead in batteries 30 years ago when it stopped making consumer-electronics devices. Whoever made batteries then gained the exposure and relationships needed to learn to supply batteries for the more demanding laptop PC market, and after that, for the even more demanding automobile market. U.S. companies didn't participate in the first phase and consequently weren't in the running for all that followed. I doubt they will ever catch up.
Grove offers some prescriptions that will rankle any free trader, including taxing foreign-built goods and banking that money to help companies that scale up U.S. production. But more broadly he argues for "job-centric political leadership" and "job-centric economic theory."
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2010/07/andy_grove_know.html
************************
WSJ rebuttal: http://blogs.wsj.com/financial-adviser/2010/07/06/andy-grove-from-intel-is-wrong/
Includes:
And yet, I wish Grove could point out one country in the 100,000-year history of mankind that flourished because of protectionism. In this country he even points out: “Most Americans probably aren’t aware that there was a time in this country when tanks and cavalry were massed on Pennsylvania Avenue to chase away the unemployed. ” He’s referring to 1932. What a short memory America has! Much of the reason for that unemployment was the trade wars started by the ultra-protectionist Smoot-Hawley tariff signed into law by Hoover in 1930. Look at when Japan and Germany opened up their doors to free trade in the decades post-WWII and you can see, by contrast, how quickly an economy can flourish when free trade is the norm.
*****************
Another dissenter: http://www.enterpriseirregulars.com/21226/andy-you%E2%80%99re-late-and-you%E2%80%99re-wrong-about-jobs%E2%80%A6/
My problem with this is a simple one: Just as Grove mistakes the ability of large centrally run corporations to create jobs and do well by the worker, he also mistakes the ability of a large centrally-run government to do well by the worker and create jobs using tax policies. Isn’t it ironic that small and decentralized is so much more efficient than big and monolithic? Isn’t that the real lesson of Silicon Valley, rather than the Intels of the Valley? Isn’t it also the real lesson of the American way where individual voters and capitalists decentralize government and business?
These policies he advocates will, as Grove points out, largely serve the interests of the Big Companies (those who are “scaling out”) who weren’t the job growth drivers even before all this manufacturing outsourcing had taken such root. Today, not only are they not job growth drivers, they’re net job exporters. Moreover, what role did Grove play in doing his own outsourcing at Intel? They were busy building multi-billion dollar chip fabs while he was CEO until 2005. Did they all get built here in America? Aren’t you late to this party and didn’t you have a hand in some of the problems you’re raising?
Now as I said, there are some things to like about the article. I do agree with Grove, particularly in the economic situation we find ourselves in, that as he puts it, “Job creation must be the No. 1 objective of state economic policy.” Unemployment in this country has reached ridiculous proportions, and the primary thing we seem to be doing about it is giving people government jobs and projects to work on. The predictions on what happens to the jobless rate when the temporary census workers go back to being unemployed are scary. BTW, how long exactly will it take businesses to build the giant new plants here at home needed to get back out from under those taxes? Can we really afford to wait that long? And how efficiently will whatever agency administers this plan be at not handing it over to cronies as a rich new source of high pork-content budget dollars?
Monday, June 28, 2010
Jim Chappell's "Gone".....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGlR9p7lBZM
One of my favorites among the many, many songs Jim Chappell has written over the years.
One of my favorites among the many, many songs Jim Chappell has written over the years.
Murphy's Romance: Favorite Music and Scenes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xNfuD-vRvs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Os6VtHA9qo
Love, love, love these.....
The first URL is the opening scene to the film and Carole King's song is one of my theme songs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Os6VtHA9qo
Love, love, love these.....
The first URL is the opening scene to the film and Carole King's song is one of my theme songs.
Pat Matheny: Secret Story Album. Two Favorite Songs...
Last Train Home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmJdCpEPIWs&feature=related
LOVE the trains....amazingly beautiful scenes......
Facing West: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8imgW-7f0M
"Facing West" reminds me of countless trips in and around the desert southwest.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmJdCpEPIWs&feature=related
LOVE the trains....amazingly beautiful scenes......
Facing West: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8imgW-7f0M
"Facing West" reminds me of countless trips in and around the desert southwest.....
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A Room or Tiny Home of One's Own
Slide show:
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/23/garden/20100624-chic-slideshow.html?ref=garden
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/garden/24cottage.html
Floor to ceiling bookshelves would be my first revision......and lots of light colored wood rather than so much white tissue paper and draping fabric.
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/06/23/garden/20100624-chic-slideshow.html?ref=garden
Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/garden/24cottage.html
Floor to ceiling bookshelves would be my first revision......and lots of light colored wood rather than so much white tissue paper and draping fabric.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Verlyn's Latest is a GEM......
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/opinion/18tue4.html
One Final Evening
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Nearby, I can hear the sound of the 10, a waterfall of asphalt and rubber. A helicopter putters past overhead, and there is the sudden, tubular flare of a motorcycle — a big one — climbing the on-ramp just a few blocks away. Mockingbirds swoop from fence to wire down the long line of backyards in this part of town, and the small, gray bird nesting in an angle of my porch-roof has bedded down with her eggs for the night. The twilight sky has reached the moment when, if I could, I would break a shard from it to light my way in the darkness.
Meanwhile, up in the village, every restaurant is full, every corner crowded. Claremont, Calif., is a college town, of course, and the parents have arrived for graduation. They have put their simulacra through college, and now they are all dining out in a haze of anticipatory nostalgia. I know the feeling. I graduated from this place — Pomona College — a long time ago, and I remember the eerie sensation of seeing so many adults who looked so surprisingly like their younger selves. I remember the nostalgia, too.
I have never had children, so, for me, there is something a little extra in coming to semester’s end with the students I’ve taught. Week by week, I watch their thoughts get clearer and clearer until, suddenly, my students are able to say things we can no longer quite account for. One by one, they come into focus, to me and to each other, in their writing. Just why this should be such a beautiful thing I have never figured out, unless perhaps it’s this. Even at their age, they carry such a weight of life. They are such experts in the particulars of their circumstances. They have the strange and impermanent gift of not knowing how much they know.
One by one, I’ve talked to my students about what comes next. There are plans, places. Beijing, France, Woods Hole, London. Schools of every kind, and every kind of service, as well. One by one, my students express their longing and their sense of loss as they get ready to leave this place. I tell them to keep in touch, to write and to send me what they’re writing. I am the constant one. I am now a voice in their heads, a voice that will sound surprisingly familiar to them the next time we talk. Yet only a few of them will keep up the uneven acquaintance of professor and student, which is just as it should be.
What I get in return is the knowledge of who they are at this very moment. I get to see, through the writing they’ve done for me, how life appears to them just now. And looking at my students, I can only wonder who I was all those years ago, on this same night, this one final evening. But I am long forgotten, even to myself. Tomorrow I leave this place like everyone else, and what I will think of is that nest in the porch-roof and how the last light shone through the leaves of the orange tree before I sat down to write.
One Final Evening
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Nearby, I can hear the sound of the 10, a waterfall of asphalt and rubber. A helicopter putters past overhead, and there is the sudden, tubular flare of a motorcycle — a big one — climbing the on-ramp just a few blocks away. Mockingbirds swoop from fence to wire down the long line of backyards in this part of town, and the small, gray bird nesting in an angle of my porch-roof has bedded down with her eggs for the night. The twilight sky has reached the moment when, if I could, I would break a shard from it to light my way in the darkness.
Meanwhile, up in the village, every restaurant is full, every corner crowded. Claremont, Calif., is a college town, of course, and the parents have arrived for graduation. They have put their simulacra through college, and now they are all dining out in a haze of anticipatory nostalgia. I know the feeling. I graduated from this place — Pomona College — a long time ago, and I remember the eerie sensation of seeing so many adults who looked so surprisingly like their younger selves. I remember the nostalgia, too.
I have never had children, so, for me, there is something a little extra in coming to semester’s end with the students I’ve taught. Week by week, I watch their thoughts get clearer and clearer until, suddenly, my students are able to say things we can no longer quite account for. One by one, they come into focus, to me and to each other, in their writing. Just why this should be such a beautiful thing I have never figured out, unless perhaps it’s this. Even at their age, they carry such a weight of life. They are such experts in the particulars of their circumstances. They have the strange and impermanent gift of not knowing how much they know.
One by one, I’ve talked to my students about what comes next. There are plans, places. Beijing, France, Woods Hole, London. Schools of every kind, and every kind of service, as well. One by one, my students express their longing and their sense of loss as they get ready to leave this place. I tell them to keep in touch, to write and to send me what they’re writing. I am the constant one. I am now a voice in their heads, a voice that will sound surprisingly familiar to them the next time we talk. Yet only a few of them will keep up the uneven acquaintance of professor and student, which is just as it should be.
What I get in return is the knowledge of who they are at this very moment. I get to see, through the writing they’ve done for me, how life appears to them just now. And looking at my students, I can only wonder who I was all those years ago, on this same night, this one final evening. But I am long forgotten, even to myself. Tomorrow I leave this place like everyone else, and what I will think of is that nest in the porch-roof and how the last light shone through the leaves of the orange tree before I sat down to write.
Colorado River....Grand Canyon.....I so want to go.....
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/travel/16Colorado.html
Slide show: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/16/travel/20100516COLORADO.html
My fave pic: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/16/travel/20100516COLORADO-2.html
(talk about perspective.....)
Slide show: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/16/travel/20100516COLORADO.html
My fave pic: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/05/16/travel/20100516COLORADO-2.html
(talk about perspective.....)
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Verlyn Klinkenborg's latest......Understanding LA is not worth it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/opinion/09sun4.html
Editorial Notebook
Haunting Los Angeles
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: May 8, 2010
Los Angeles
Something escapes me about Los Angeles. Wherever I go, I always imagine I’m finally going to grasp its essence. I try to feel its harmonics in my bones. I watch the edges of the freeway to see if there is a clue in the debris the traffic sweeps to the sides. I wonder if there would be room for all these cars if they decided to find parking spots at once.
The iconic glimpses don’t help me in my quest — not the sudden view of the Hollywood sign I get from the Hollywood Freeway, not the view of downtown almost floating in the sunset from Pasadena. Every now and then, I turn a corner and think that something essential is about to be revealed. The feeling intensifies all the way up Venice Boulevard into Culver City, and then I’m on National taking one of those curious hidden freeway entrances and suddenly the feeling vanishes.
To say that this is a city of extraordinary facades is not the same as saying it’s a superficial place. But there are days when it feels as though these are all false fronts, put up so the real business of living can go on in the back, out of sight. It makes no difference how blank or familiar the facade.
I walked into a restaurant — strip-mall Chinese — that looked, from the outside, like it had been built yesterday. It was a grotto inside, dark and ancient, as ancient as anything in a strip mall can be. There was a fountain in the takeout area, and by one of its miniature waterfalls stood a small Santa Claus, looking as if he’d been waiting decades to be rescued.
If I had an extra lifetime to live, I’d live it here. I don’t mean one lifetime lived, in the usual way. I mean a lifetime living within a block or two of the insurance shop on Venice Boulevard with the wrap-around neon facade. Another watching cars turn off National onto the 10. Another sitting by Santa, seeing who comes and goes. Perhaps then I could grasp what always escapes me here. Then I’d know whether it was worth looking for in the first place.
****************************************************
I lived in the LA area....three times over 20 years.
I still don't get LA and now don't feel like the Lone Ranger.
Unlike V.K. though, I would never, ever live a lifetime in any part of LA.
Concrete wasteland that it is, it's not worth it.
Now, visiting Anza Borrego State Park, Kernville, Mount Shasta and some other places far, far away from the madding crowds...well, there are beautiful places in California.
Just not in LA.
There are so many other places to visit/stay that are on my Bucket List. Why anyone would bother with understanding LA?
It takes all kinds to make a world.
Editorial Notebook
Haunting Los Angeles
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: May 8, 2010
Los Angeles
Something escapes me about Los Angeles. Wherever I go, I always imagine I’m finally going to grasp its essence. I try to feel its harmonics in my bones. I watch the edges of the freeway to see if there is a clue in the debris the traffic sweeps to the sides. I wonder if there would be room for all these cars if they decided to find parking spots at once.
The iconic glimpses don’t help me in my quest — not the sudden view of the Hollywood sign I get from the Hollywood Freeway, not the view of downtown almost floating in the sunset from Pasadena. Every now and then, I turn a corner and think that something essential is about to be revealed. The feeling intensifies all the way up Venice Boulevard into Culver City, and then I’m on National taking one of those curious hidden freeway entrances and suddenly the feeling vanishes.
To say that this is a city of extraordinary facades is not the same as saying it’s a superficial place. But there are days when it feels as though these are all false fronts, put up so the real business of living can go on in the back, out of sight. It makes no difference how blank or familiar the facade.
I walked into a restaurant — strip-mall Chinese — that looked, from the outside, like it had been built yesterday. It was a grotto inside, dark and ancient, as ancient as anything in a strip mall can be. There was a fountain in the takeout area, and by one of its miniature waterfalls stood a small Santa Claus, looking as if he’d been waiting decades to be rescued.
If I had an extra lifetime to live, I’d live it here. I don’t mean one lifetime lived, in the usual way. I mean a lifetime living within a block or two of the insurance shop on Venice Boulevard with the wrap-around neon facade. Another watching cars turn off National onto the 10. Another sitting by Santa, seeing who comes and goes. Perhaps then I could grasp what always escapes me here. Then I’d know whether it was worth looking for in the first place.
****************************************************
I lived in the LA area....three times over 20 years.
I still don't get LA and now don't feel like the Lone Ranger.
Unlike V.K. though, I would never, ever live a lifetime in any part of LA.
Concrete wasteland that it is, it's not worth it.
Now, visiting Anza Borrego State Park, Kernville, Mount Shasta and some other places far, far away from the madding crowds...well, there are beautiful places in California.
Just not in LA.
There are so many other places to visit/stay that are on my Bucket List. Why anyone would bother with understanding LA?
It takes all kinds to make a world.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Favorite Artwork today.....Cabin in the Sequoias!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/40315749/giant-sequoia-tiny-cabin-fine-art-photo
from a terrific Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/photoamato
Ooh, what I wouldn't give for a few days and nights away from the madding crowd in a place of solitude like the cabin in the sequoias. I once lived in a cabin in the redwoods south of San Francisco for a year. I'm grateful for such peaceful memories of such a healing place and sometimes achingly miss the awesome quiet living so close to wildlife.
Anneli Rufus, one of my favorite authors, celebrates alone-ness in her genius work called "Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto". Brilliant group of extraordinary essays. Reading this book feels like coming home to me.
http://www.annelirufus.com/
from a terrific Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/photoamato
Ooh, what I wouldn't give for a few days and nights away from the madding crowd in a place of solitude like the cabin in the sequoias. I once lived in a cabin in the redwoods south of San Francisco for a year. I'm grateful for such peaceful memories of such a healing place and sometimes achingly miss the awesome quiet living so close to wildlife.
Anneli Rufus, one of my favorite authors, celebrates alone-ness in her genius work called "Party of One: A Loner's Manifesto". Brilliant group of extraordinary essays. Reading this book feels like coming home to me.
http://www.annelirufus.com/
Sunday May 9, 2010 Etsy Treasury by Boxerlovinglady
BIG SIGH:)
http://www.etsy.com/listing/40315749/giant-sequoia-tiny-cabin-fine-art-photo
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44621871/redwood-trees-forest-8x12-photo-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/45557059/california-cliffs
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46462836/romero-trail-original
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46330518/life-on-the-north-umpqua-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46434995/farmers-market
http://www.etsy.com/listing/32724546/index-island
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46256956/colorado-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46329310/maryland-contemporary-original-daily-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38042973/when-the-mists-rolled-back
http://www.etsy.com/listing/43847069/lindisfarne-priory-landscape-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/36819217/large-horseshoe-bend-ready-to-hang
http://www.etsy.com/listing/40315749/giant-sequoia-tiny-cabin-fine-art-photo
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44621871/redwood-trees-forest-8x12-photo-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/45557059/california-cliffs
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46462836/romero-trail-original
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46330518/life-on-the-north-umpqua-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46434995/farmers-market
http://www.etsy.com/listing/32724546/index-island
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46256956/colorado-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/46329310/maryland-contemporary-original-daily-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38042973/when-the-mists-rolled-back
http://www.etsy.com/listing/43847069/lindisfarne-priory-landscape-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/36819217/large-horseshoe-bend-ready-to-hang
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Can you CANOE? Etsy Treasury: Gorgeous River Landscapes....
http://www.etsy.com/listing/43382048/east-on-fourteen-11-x-20
http://www.etsy.com/listing/26312916/mountain-river-gatlinburg-tn-2009
http://www.etsy.com/listing/18543746/glenwood-canyon-colorado-a-special-place
http://www.etsy.com/listing/13568342/24x36inch-winnesquam-river-original-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/18054473/the-river-original-watercolor-18-x-24
http://www.etsy.com/listing/19781723/sussex-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/25297499/clearwater-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/37711683/overlooking-the-hudson
http://www.etsy.com/listing/29407256/franklin-island-on-the-missouri-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/34456526/amber-afternoon-original-18x24-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38375345/rudy-miller-original-painting-zion
http://www.etsy.com/listing/300211/walt-curlee-mountains-river-and-aspens
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/43381599/highway-14-view-point-24-x-36
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44330139/mcdonald-creek-limited-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/34912461/mountain-splendor-30x24-inch-deluxe
http://www.etsy.com/listing/22311046/savannah-wildlife-refuge-marsh-views
http://www.etsy.com/listing/26312916/mountain-river-gatlinburg-tn-2009
http://www.etsy.com/listing/18543746/glenwood-canyon-colorado-a-special-place
http://www.etsy.com/listing/13568342/24x36inch-winnesquam-river-original-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/18054473/the-river-original-watercolor-18-x-24
http://www.etsy.com/listing/19781723/sussex-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/25297499/clearwater-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/37711683/overlooking-the-hudson
http://www.etsy.com/listing/29407256/franklin-island-on-the-missouri-river
http://www.etsy.com/listing/34456526/amber-afternoon-original-18x24-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38375345/rudy-miller-original-painting-zion
http://www.etsy.com/listing/300211/walt-curlee-mountains-river-and-aspens
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/43381599/highway-14-view-point-24-x-36
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44330139/mcdonald-creek-limited-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/34912461/mountain-splendor-30x24-inch-deluxe
http://www.etsy.com/listing/22311046/savannah-wildlife-refuge-marsh-views
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Look at that great big sky.....Etsy Treasury...Fine Art.
Big Sky Dreams:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/37407868/clouds-beverly
http://www.etsy.com/listing/17044949/open-road-original-painting
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44693896/miniature-aurora-borealis-oil-painting-3
http://www.etsy.com/listing/23462016/from-the-ferry-24x24
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38250011/aurora-borealis-original-oil-18-x-14
http://www.etsy.com/listing/31977189/monument-valley-sunset-giclee-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/41109832/standing-tall-original-acrylic-painting
http://www.etsy.com/listing/40299681/marthas-vineyard-sunset-oil-on-canvas
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38182028/sun-rays-on-the-ocean-original-oil-30-x
http://www.etsy.com/listing/33775126/limited-edition-print-symphony-in-the
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38472484/la-bellaterra-original-plein-air-oil
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/32107688/original-oil-painting-horse-mountains
http://www.etsy.com/listing/42016073/art-print-of-sky-lakes-sunset-ii
http://www.etsy.com/listing/29337447/portable-sky-open-your-walls-to-new
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44172624/western-oregon-landscape-original-oil
http://www.etsy.com/listing/37407868/clouds-beverly
http://www.etsy.com/listing/17044949/open-road-original-painting
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44693896/miniature-aurora-borealis-oil-painting-3
http://www.etsy.com/listing/23462016/from-the-ferry-24x24
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38250011/aurora-borealis-original-oil-18-x-14
http://www.etsy.com/listing/31977189/monument-valley-sunset-giclee-print
http://www.etsy.com/listing/41109832/standing-tall-original-acrylic-painting
http://www.etsy.com/listing/40299681/marthas-vineyard-sunset-oil-on-canvas
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38182028/sun-rays-on-the-ocean-original-oil-30-x
http://www.etsy.com/listing/33775126/limited-edition-print-symphony-in-the
http://www.etsy.com/listing/38472484/la-bellaterra-original-plein-air-oil
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/listing/32107688/original-oil-painting-horse-mountains
http://www.etsy.com/listing/42016073/art-print-of-sky-lakes-sunset-ii
http://www.etsy.com/listing/29337447/portable-sky-open-your-walls-to-new
http://www.etsy.com/listing/44172624/western-oregon-landscape-original-oil
Saturday, April 3, 2010
URL du Jour:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42947263
I forgot that I had this lovely painting on my favorites' list and it didn't get into my latest Etsy Treasury.
Lovely artwork.....
I forgot that I had this lovely painting on my favorites' list and it didn't get into my latest Etsy Treasury.
Lovely artwork.....
Friday, April 2, 2010
Boxerlovinglady's Latest Etsy Treasury: Fences Fine Art.....
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=123567
For future reference, I am listing the URLs for each of the beautiful artworks here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36164817
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39059366
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42933748
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38250002
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31085907
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43473170
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21547170
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32873089
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29064422
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25950672
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34590814
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39132857
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7794881
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15756130
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36353105
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25195607
For future reference, I am listing the URLs for each of the beautiful artworks here:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36164817
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39059366
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42933748
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38250002
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=31085907
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43473170
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21547170
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=32873089
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29064422
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25950672
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=34590814
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39132857
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=7794881
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=15756130
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36353105
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25195607
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Boxerlovinglady's Latest Etsy Treasury.......
My latest Etsy Treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=122511
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40449791
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42694057
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43396102
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43401921
Wow: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14046354
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35457762
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40246491
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39624023
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14040231
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33701692
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30547638
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43100191
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16351195
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27995377
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38109118
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39515536
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=122511
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40449791
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42694057
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43396102
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43401921
Wow: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14046354
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35457762
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40246491
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39624023
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14040231
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=33701692
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30547638
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43100191
Honorable Mentions:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16351195
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27995377
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38109118
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39515536
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Boxerlovinglady's Etsy Treasury and Individual Links to the Fine Art.
My latest Etsy Treasury: Mountains:
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=121675
Individual Landscapes in the Treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40415535
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42836907
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16618413
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43006780
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43055156
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43155221
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43263233
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39020464
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28989346
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35040005
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25118547
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36120018
Four Honorable Mentions not seen in the Treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36812382
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22346963
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43402186
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43382048
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=121675
Individual Landscapes in the Treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=40415535
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=42836907
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=16618413
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43006780
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43055156
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43155221
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43263233
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=39020464
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28989346
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=35040005
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=25118547
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36120018
Four Honorable Mentions not seen in the Treasury:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=36812382
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22346963
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43402186
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=43382048
Spring Travel..........
http://www.nytimes.com/indexes/2010/03/28/t-magazine/travel-issue/index.html?ref=global-home
None really peaked my interest, except for the one on Page, Arizona. And the article underwhelmed. Probably because I cannot get past the fact of so many Native American artifacts lie buried under all that water. Oh, and countless natural, geologic wonders are underwater as well.
None really peaked my interest, except for the one on Page, Arizona. And the article underwhelmed. Probably because I cannot get past the fact of so many Native American artifacts lie buried under all that water. Oh, and countless natural, geologic wonders are underwater as well.
Artists More Free to Paint than Ever Before?
"There have been moments of dazzling balance between the representational and the abstract — for example, Byzantine mosaics; pre-Columbian and American Indian textiles and ceramics; Japanese screens; Mughal painting; and post-Impressionism.
Painting may be in a similar place right now, fomented mostly, but not always, by young painters who have emerged in the last decade. They feel freer to paint what they want than at any time since the 1930s, or maybe even the 1890s, when post-Impressionism was at its height."
Entire Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/arts/design/28painting.html?ref=arts
SLIDE SHOW: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/03/25/arts/20100328-painting-slideshow_index.html
None in the above slide show is my cup of tea, but then everyone has their favorites. Mine happens to be sweeping landscapes......
Painting may be in a similar place right now, fomented mostly, but not always, by young painters who have emerged in the last decade. They feel freer to paint what they want than at any time since the 1930s, or maybe even the 1890s, when post-Impressionism was at its height."
Entire Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/arts/design/28painting.html?ref=arts
SLIDE SHOW: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2010/03/25/arts/20100328-painting-slideshow_index.html
None in the above slide show is my cup of tea, but then everyone has their favorites. Mine happens to be sweeping landscapes......
"Rework"......
The future and what to do about it.
It's Easy To Start Your Own CompanyThe new book Rework tells you how.
By Farhad ManjooPosted Thursday, March 25, 2010, at 4:59 PM ET
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson are two of my favorite guys in the tech industry. That's mainly because they have little in common with everyone else in the tech industry. Their 10-year-old company, 37signals, makes Web software for businesses. These products are universally hailed as simple, elegant, and useful—not to mention extremely popular and profitable. Yet 37signals' software often seems like a byproduct of a larger mission. On Signal vs. Noise, their entertaining company blog, and in lectures and classes all over the country, Fried and Hansson sell a particular capitalist philosophy: You, too, can start a successful business. Now they've distilled their wisdom into Rework, a small manifesto on the art of launching and running a company in the Web age. If you've ever thought of starting your own business, consider Rework your recipe book.
Fried and Hansson make an obvious point that's nevertheless worth emphasizing: The Internet has dramatically reduced start-up costs for new firms. This is particularly important for tech companies, but it applies in just about any industry. Say you want to start a wedding-photography business. In the old days, you might have rented an office or retail space to impress potential clients, bought newspaper ads to promote your company, signed up with a credit-card processor to accept payments, and spent a boatload on equipment and staff.
The Internet has reduced all these costs. Now you can impress clients with your Web site, you can attract them through free Craigslist ads and on review sites like Yelp, and you can accept payments through PayPal. Customers can pick out their favorite photos online, and you can subcontract with a company in China to make custom, professional albums that will be delivered by mail. In the past, you might have needed $10,000 to get your photo company up and running; now you can do it with a few hundred bucks.
Not only has the Web cut the financial costs of starting a business, it's also cut the lifestyle costs. Today "you don't need an MBA, a certificate, a fancy suit, a briefcase, or an above-average tolerance for risk" to make a successful go at a business, Fried and Hansson write. You don't even have to quit your day job or dedicate 60 hours a week to a new venture. If you can't afford all that, you can start a company on the side, from your house, in the time you'd otherwise spend watching TV.
Indeed, working only part-time on your new company might not be a bad idea. Among the many bits of received wisdom that Fried and Hansson smash in Rework is our culture's reverence for workaholism. "Workaholics miss the point," they write. "They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions." Instead of wasting time working harder, Rework suggests looking for smarter ways to get your business moving. For a software company like 37signals, this meant refusing to add too many advanced features to products—a decision that turned out to be enormously successful. Not only did this make it easier and faster to build software, but it generated exactly the kind of software that could attract paying customers. In fact, the main selling point for many of 37signals' products is that they do less than products from rival companies. Customers choose 37signals because they don't want bells and whistles.
Some of Fried and Hansson's ideas might seem too straightforward. When they tell you that failing in business isn't all it's cracked up to be, you might wonder why they needed to point that out—after all, who thinks failing is something to be proud of? Welcome to Silicon Valley. In many ways, Rework is meant as a rebuke to the ethos of the Web start-up scene. "Some people consider us an Internet company, but that makes us cringe," Fried and Hansson write. "Internet companies are known for hiring compulsively, spending wildly, and failing spectacularly. That's not us."
Fried and Hansson argue that traditional Internet entrepreneurs pay too little attention to what ought to be one of the main functions of business: making money. Too many Silicon Valley start-ups suck up millions from venture capitalists before giving their product away for free in an effort to attract a huge market share. Every once in a while one of these businesses wins the lottery—YouTube or Facebook will go public or get bought out by Google, and the founders will become billionaires. But more often these billion-dollar dreams don't pan out; for every YouTube, there are hundreds of VC-funded start-ups whose founders never make a buck.
Although it sounds like common sense, Rework's idea that businesses should seek out profits is thus kind of revolutionary in the world of Web software. 37signals doesn't care about market share. Getting a lot of customers is less important to them than getting a lot of loyal, paying customers. And taking money from investors is often more trouble than it's worth, Fried and Hansson say. When entrepreneurs take other people's money they begin to look to "cash out"—to look for a quick way to flip the company into a big-time payout—rather than try to build a sustainable business. And that, of course, leads to failure.
Sure, companies like 37signals that start small, eschew outside funds, and try to grow organically might never find a billion-dollar payout. But they're much more likely to reach another kind of success: making enough money for you to be comfortable without forcing you to give up control.
There's one other difficulty with looking for a lot of outside investment for your start-up—you might not get it, and then you might conclude that your idea isn't going to work. What I like best about Rework is its insistence that many of us build up mental roadblocks that limit us from starting something amazing. We think we need a lot of extra money or time or some kind of brilliant new idea before we can ever hope to start something great. But these days, for many people and many kinds of businesses, those constraints are easy to overcome. As Fried and Hansson write, "The most important thing is to begin."
http://www.slate.com/id/2248881/
It's Easy To Start Your Own CompanyThe new book Rework tells you how.
By Farhad ManjooPosted Thursday, March 25, 2010, at 4:59 PM ET
Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson are two of my favorite guys in the tech industry. That's mainly because they have little in common with everyone else in the tech industry. Their 10-year-old company, 37signals, makes Web software for businesses. These products are universally hailed as simple, elegant, and useful—not to mention extremely popular and profitable. Yet 37signals' software often seems like a byproduct of a larger mission. On Signal vs. Noise, their entertaining company blog, and in lectures and classes all over the country, Fried and Hansson sell a particular capitalist philosophy: You, too, can start a successful business. Now they've distilled their wisdom into Rework, a small manifesto on the art of launching and running a company in the Web age. If you've ever thought of starting your own business, consider Rework your recipe book.
Fried and Hansson make an obvious point that's nevertheless worth emphasizing: The Internet has dramatically reduced start-up costs for new firms. This is particularly important for tech companies, but it applies in just about any industry. Say you want to start a wedding-photography business. In the old days, you might have rented an office or retail space to impress potential clients, bought newspaper ads to promote your company, signed up with a credit-card processor to accept payments, and spent a boatload on equipment and staff.
The Internet has reduced all these costs. Now you can impress clients with your Web site, you can attract them through free Craigslist ads and on review sites like Yelp, and you can accept payments through PayPal. Customers can pick out their favorite photos online, and you can subcontract with a company in China to make custom, professional albums that will be delivered by mail. In the past, you might have needed $10,000 to get your photo company up and running; now you can do it with a few hundred bucks.
Not only has the Web cut the financial costs of starting a business, it's also cut the lifestyle costs. Today "you don't need an MBA, a certificate, a fancy suit, a briefcase, or an above-average tolerance for risk" to make a successful go at a business, Fried and Hansson write. You don't even have to quit your day job or dedicate 60 hours a week to a new venture. If you can't afford all that, you can start a company on the side, from your house, in the time you'd otherwise spend watching TV.
Indeed, working only part-time on your new company might not be a bad idea. Among the many bits of received wisdom that Fried and Hansson smash in Rework is our culture's reverence for workaholism. "Workaholics miss the point," they write. "They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions." Instead of wasting time working harder, Rework suggests looking for smarter ways to get your business moving. For a software company like 37signals, this meant refusing to add too many advanced features to products—a decision that turned out to be enormously successful. Not only did this make it easier and faster to build software, but it generated exactly the kind of software that could attract paying customers. In fact, the main selling point for many of 37signals' products is that they do less than products from rival companies. Customers choose 37signals because they don't want bells and whistles.
Some of Fried and Hansson's ideas might seem too straightforward. When they tell you that failing in business isn't all it's cracked up to be, you might wonder why they needed to point that out—after all, who thinks failing is something to be proud of? Welcome to Silicon Valley. In many ways, Rework is meant as a rebuke to the ethos of the Web start-up scene. "Some people consider us an Internet company, but that makes us cringe," Fried and Hansson write. "Internet companies are known for hiring compulsively, spending wildly, and failing spectacularly. That's not us."
Fried and Hansson argue that traditional Internet entrepreneurs pay too little attention to what ought to be one of the main functions of business: making money. Too many Silicon Valley start-ups suck up millions from venture capitalists before giving their product away for free in an effort to attract a huge market share. Every once in a while one of these businesses wins the lottery—YouTube or Facebook will go public or get bought out by Google, and the founders will become billionaires. But more often these billion-dollar dreams don't pan out; for every YouTube, there are hundreds of VC-funded start-ups whose founders never make a buck.
Although it sounds like common sense, Rework's idea that businesses should seek out profits is thus kind of revolutionary in the world of Web software. 37signals doesn't care about market share. Getting a lot of customers is less important to them than getting a lot of loyal, paying customers. And taking money from investors is often more trouble than it's worth, Fried and Hansson say. When entrepreneurs take other people's money they begin to look to "cash out"—to look for a quick way to flip the company into a big-time payout—rather than try to build a sustainable business. And that, of course, leads to failure.
Sure, companies like 37signals that start small, eschew outside funds, and try to grow organically might never find a billion-dollar payout. But they're much more likely to reach another kind of success: making enough money for you to be comfortable without forcing you to give up control.
There's one other difficulty with looking for a lot of outside investment for your start-up—you might not get it, and then you might conclude that your idea isn't going to work. What I like best about Rework is its insistence that many of us build up mental roadblocks that limit us from starting something amazing. We think we need a lot of extra money or time or some kind of brilliant new idea before we can ever hope to start something great. But these days, for many people and many kinds of businesses, those constraints are easy to overcome. As Fried and Hansson write, "The most important thing is to begin."
http://www.slate.com/id/2248881/
Friday, March 26, 2010
Earth Hour.......
Earth Hour – the annual worldwide call for action against climate change – will spread darkness across all seven continents, drawing in 120 nations, 1,700 municipalities and hundreds of millions of people:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/26/energy-climate-change
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/26/energy-climate-change
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Why are Young People Killing Themselves??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82wU5NfRfr4
There has been an alarming number of teen suicides including kids stepping in front of speeding trains. There has always been teenage angst, but young folks seem to have lost hope.
What can adults do to give hope, to prevent, to heal, to mentor/guide long before suicide is even considered?
There has been an alarming number of teen suicides including kids stepping in front of speeding trains. There has always been teenage angst, but young folks seem to have lost hope.
What can adults do to give hope, to prevent, to heal, to mentor/guide long before suicide is even considered?
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Charles Loloma: Exquisite Piece I Found Online Today...
http://marthastruever.com/charles-loloma
When I asked Charles during one of several times I spent time with him, "why do you put the inlay on the inside where only I know it is there?, Charles told me, "the beauty is on the inside and what is most important is that you know it."
What a loving sentiment for the First Day of Spring!
Lovely, wonderful background on Charles:
http://www.americanmastersofstone.com/Biographies/Charles%20Loloma.htm
When I asked Charles during one of several times I spent time with him, "why do you put the inlay on the inside where only I know it is there?, Charles told me, "the beauty is on the inside and what is most important is that you know it."
What a loving sentiment for the First Day of Spring!
Lovely, wonderful background on Charles:
http://www.americanmastersofstone.com/Biographies/Charles%20Loloma.htm
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
3D Landscapes.......Breathtaking!
Click on a photo and drag your mouse in any direction:
http://www.utah3d.net/SulpherCreek_swf.htm
http://www.utah3d.net/DoubleArch1_swf.html
http://www.utah3d.net/PaysonC_swf.html
http://www.utah3d.net/NightArches_swf.html
The first link came from here: http://www.utah3d.net/index.html
http://www.utah3d.net/SulpherCreek_swf.htm
http://www.utah3d.net/DoubleArch1_swf.html
http://www.utah3d.net/PaysonC_swf.html
http://www.utah3d.net/NightArches_swf.html
The first link came from here: http://www.utah3d.net/index.html
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 22, 2010
My Latest Etsy Treasury and 2 (!) Treasuries I am In!!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107381
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107757
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107367
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107757
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107367
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Boxerlovinglady's Latest Etsy Treasury.....
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=105007
Have a lovely weekend!
Have a lovely weekend!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Don't squeeze the geezers in the great outdoors....
Seniors and the permanently disabled stand to lose under a Forest Service proposal currently open for public comment.
http://westernslopenofee.org/index2.php?display=yes&pageid=2
Public land fees hurt seniors and the disabled.
Writers on the Range - January 04, 2010
by Kitty Benzar
http://www.hcn.org/articles/dont-squeeze-the-geezers?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
http://westernslopenofee.org/index2.php?display=yes&pageid=2
Public land fees hurt seniors and the disabled.
Writers on the Range - January 04, 2010
by Kitty Benzar
http://www.hcn.org/articles/dont-squeeze-the-geezers?utm_source=wcn1&utm_medium=email
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Verlyn Klinkenborg's Latest "Rural Life" Column.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/opinion/03sun4.html
January 3, 2010
Editorial | The Rural LifeSnowing Forward By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Last week felt like a last chance before winter. The snow melted, dying back until the vole trails became thin green paths through the remains of whiteness. The ice unbound itself from the rim of the horse tanks. One warm morning, a bat fluttered past my head, resting on the clapboards for a moment and then arcing around to the east side of the house. Despite the sense of relenting, the ground was still frozen solid.
And then it began to snow again — light, voluminous snow, swelling in the air and muffling every detail. Watching it, I felt a sense of intention in the weather, as if those mild days were just a way of clearing the canvas, scraping away the old paint, before laying down a fresh ground of white.
It is less a fall of snow than a fog, the flakes suspended in air, darkening and brightening the day at the same time. The birds line up on the boughs of a pignut hickory, and swoop on to the feeders by twos and threes, titmice and juncos, a crowd of chickadees and a demure pair of cardinals. Woodpeckers cling to the suet feeders, and squirrels rummage among the shells on the porch. Everyone eats in a kind of mutual disturbance, which the falling snow intensifies.
I know from the weather maps that the edge of the storm is only a few miles to the west. It will be shutting down soon in a last bank of dark gray clouds, so dark that the blue sky shining through their gaps will be the color of diluted turquoise. And then the sun will beam through the cold air and the sense of urgency will dissipate.
I’m reluctant to see the storm finish. At this time of year — winter only begun — I still feel the way I did when I was a child. I want the snow to keep falling, soft and deep into the night and the next day and the week after, until I wake up in a world completely unknown. In that world, there will be no melting back to the vole trails, no going back to spring. There will be only an unknown track into the snowbound woods.
January 3, 2010
Editorial | The Rural LifeSnowing Forward By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Last week felt like a last chance before winter. The snow melted, dying back until the vole trails became thin green paths through the remains of whiteness. The ice unbound itself from the rim of the horse tanks. One warm morning, a bat fluttered past my head, resting on the clapboards for a moment and then arcing around to the east side of the house. Despite the sense of relenting, the ground was still frozen solid.
And then it began to snow again — light, voluminous snow, swelling in the air and muffling every detail. Watching it, I felt a sense of intention in the weather, as if those mild days were just a way of clearing the canvas, scraping away the old paint, before laying down a fresh ground of white.
It is less a fall of snow than a fog, the flakes suspended in air, darkening and brightening the day at the same time. The birds line up on the boughs of a pignut hickory, and swoop on to the feeders by twos and threes, titmice and juncos, a crowd of chickadees and a demure pair of cardinals. Woodpeckers cling to the suet feeders, and squirrels rummage among the shells on the porch. Everyone eats in a kind of mutual disturbance, which the falling snow intensifies.
I know from the weather maps that the edge of the storm is only a few miles to the west. It will be shutting down soon in a last bank of dark gray clouds, so dark that the blue sky shining through their gaps will be the color of diluted turquoise. And then the sun will beam through the cold air and the sense of urgency will dissipate.
I’m reluctant to see the storm finish. At this time of year — winter only begun — I still feel the way I did when I was a child. I want the snow to keep falling, soft and deep into the night and the next day and the week after, until I wake up in a world completely unknown. In that world, there will be no melting back to the vole trails, no going back to spring. There will be only an unknown track into the snowbound woods.
How To Train an Aging Brain..........
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/education/edlife/03adult-t.html?hp
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Bookmooch...........
http://blog.bookmooch.com/2009/12/22/my-holiday-wish-help-out-the-eff/
http://blogbookmooch.com/2009/12/22/my-holiday-wish-help-out-the-eff/
http://blogbookmooch.com/2009/12/22/my-holiday-wish-help-out-the-eff/
Friday, January 1, 2010
A New Year Visual Vacation: Etsy Treasury.....
Everyone needs to take a break now and then. Why not take an armchair vacation? Day dream a little of your favorite places? New Year's Day always seems to bring all kinds of new beginnings and fresh starts to mind. Today feels as if anything is possible for 2010. Maybe I'll start that rural "recovery" ranch this year!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=103643
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=103643
What is Friendship to You?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
http://changingminds.org/explanations/trust/what_is_trust.htm
http://changingminds.org/explanations/trust/what_is_trust.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship
http://changingminds.org/explanations/trust/what_is_trust.htm
http://changingminds.org/explanations/trust/what_is_trust.htm
Eyes on Desert Skies...................
EYES ON DESERT SKIES
The surrounding mountains are heavenly for star-gazing. The Kitt Peak National Observatory (Tohono O’odham Reservation, 520-318-8726; http://www.noao.edu about 90 minutes southwest of the city and 6,900 feet above sea level, says it has more optical research telescopes than anywhere in the world. Aside from serving professional astronomers, it also has generous offerings for amateurs. One of these, the Nightly Observing Program ($48 a person), begins an hour before sunset and lasts four hours with an expert who will show you how to use star charts and identify constellations and will give you a peek through one of the mammoth instruments. (Dinner is a deli sandwich; remember to wear warm clothing.) Reserving a month in advance is recommended, but you may get lucky and find an opening the day of.
http://www.noao.edu
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/travel/03hours.html
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/-1/03/travel/03hours.html
The surrounding mountains are heavenly for star-gazing. The Kitt Peak National Observatory (Tohono O’odham Reservation, 520-318-8726; http://www.noao.edu about 90 minutes southwest of the city and 6,900 feet above sea level, says it has more optical research telescopes than anywhere in the world. Aside from serving professional astronomers, it also has generous offerings for amateurs. One of these, the Nightly Observing Program ($48 a person), begins an hour before sunset and lasts four hours with an expert who will show you how to use star charts and identify constellations and will give you a peek through one of the mammoth instruments. (Dinner is a deli sandwich; remember to wear warm clothing.) Reserving a month in advance is recommended, but you may get lucky and find an opening the day of.
http://www.noao.edu
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/travel/03hours.html
http://travel.nytimes.com/2010/-1/03/travel/03hours.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
