MEGA WIND

The European Union has set their sights on renewable energy to the tune of 20% of all generation to be in place by 2020. Therefore, there is a rush to build offshore wind farms on the North Sea off Belgium, Holland, Denmark & Germany. They're talking like 17,000 turbines, which keep getting bigger and bigger. Like I mean huge. How about blades that are 3oo feet and more in diameter? Monopiles, (the support shaft) are as large as 7 m.(21' to you metric illiterates) in diameter and 200 feet tall. The turmine on top of all this is the size of a house. So how do you build these behemoths that can be 100 miles offshore in 150 feet of water? Why you call up IHC Merwede in Holland and order a huge seaworthy working platform. The latest version, called Neptune, can carry and install a complete turbine in a round trip from port in about 15 days, with accomodations for 60 workers.

Take a look at the photo . The large platform is neptune working with a smaller earlier model. They float out there under their own power, set down the legs and jack up the whole thing to be clear of waves. They have already set the tower and turbine nacelle. Note the rotor blade laying on deck which goes up last. The platform has a heavy duty crane that can easily lift the 316 ton nacelle, even double that.

Not to worry, bird lovers, the rotors turn so slow no one is going to get hurt. When completed, the field shown, will generate electricity for 600,000 people. Well, if you don't have any dams, what are you gonna do?

THIS BLOG UNDER CONSTRUCTION

 

(Thought I’d revisit some old notes of some early trips we took to Europe. This one before the Euro and ATM machines for easy money. These are some bits from my future e-book "TRAVAILS WITH LAMONT"))

Neophytes in Paris Mar 29, 1988

Arrived at Paris Orly Sud from SFO late in day so walked over to Orly Hilton and got a room for the nite. Drank up all the stuff in the minibar plus a bottle of good French champagne for you know who. In the morning caught the Air France bus to Invalides, where we started dragging our bags around for blocks (big blocks) as we were looking for Tourist Office at 127 Champs Elysees. I figured with that address it would be in the first block. Wrong!

   We ended up struggling up the entire Champs (Joy bitching all the while) as the numbers are the number of buildings, not shops. Once there, it was just a matter of time before they found us a two star hotel in Montemarrte district. Armed with directions we found the outstanding Paris Metro (Underground) and zipped off in the wrong direction. After a couple of transfers we got back on track and to our hotel, a small eighteenth century three story place called L'Ermitage, run by a nice couple who nearly spoke English. This near Sacre Cour cathedral on Rue Lamarck.
   The Paris Metro is a very clean, efficient system, venders and musicians set up in the interconnecting tunnels and amplify all over the place, classical to rock to reggae. Lots of rain in Paris. We got soaked the next day running around to American Express and Galleries Lafayette so Joy can buy a sweater as she is freezing ass. The store has a marvelous stained glass dome, maybe 100 feet in diameter and the space is five stories high. Also found a travel agent and bought Cooks Train Schedules which was indispensable throughout the trip. (Brentanos Bookstore showed us books on cooking). After many false tries we found Bank of Lyons to cash Joy’s Visa card, this being before ATMs. This place also has a great three story central space with curlicue cast iron pinned connections trussed framing and another glass dome .
   Stopped at Little Italy Restaurant near hotel for some good lasagne and wine. As the infamous Moulin Rouge was nearby we tried to find it but failed. French are very much into good jazz which you hear everywhere. We are nearly starving here as we can't read the menus and everything seems to be meat. Did find a good Vietnamese Vege restaurant (Buddha) and pigged out there on Blvd Montpanarse. Joy finally had to buy a big bag with rollers (Like Shers that I said would be ridiculous on cobblestones) but seems to work for her as she is dragging around twice the weight that I am. The French are totally into throwing all their trash on the ground as every morning the clean-up crews start out with their little green trucks, little green mechanical sweepers with the workers of course dressed in green jumpsuits carrying of course nice green brooms to clean up all the crap everyone tossed the previous day. The Trash cans are like our ugly black ones except they are a nice chocolate brown with bright orange lids (or bright blue or green) each with a neat address label on the side.
   Walked thru the Tuilleries Gardens to the Louvre and watched the workers putting the finishing touches on the glass pyramid in the center of the old courtyard. It's a masterful addition to the whole place. I. M. Pei has done it again. Naturally some of the world's great pieces are here including the Mona Lisa , which didn't get me excited at all as I have seen her so many times in print. Of course, she is surrounded by a 1" thick bulletproof glass partition. There are always several painters in the galleries copying the old masters, most of them very good.
   Next day to Notre Dame cathedral. Pretty impressive rose window as the thing is huge. They purportedly have a small fragment of the cross that Christ was hung on as well as the nails. Riiiight! Found a great crepery, had one with apple brandy and apples,(Crepe Normand). great! Walked thru a small alley street that was all Greek restaurants, breaking dishes on the floor and the whole thing. Went to Le Gare to reserve our seats on the TGV train.
   Our hotel, L’Ermitage, cost about 300 Francs ($60) per day including a fine breakfast tray each morning at our door on the third floor. The hotel is owned by a french woman, Maggie, and her German husband who speaks no English. The building is a couple of hundred years old and purportedly built by one of Napoleon’s doctors. Bonny must have had a dozen doctors as we heard this several times. First off we found the nearest Italian restaurant as we ate mostly pizza and pasta in Europe. This is due to the complexities and cost of French cuisine. Montmarte is crowned by a strange bulbous domed church, Sacre Cour, a late 19^th century effort. Constructed of white stone, it is visible from all over Paris. Since we were near the infamous Moulon Rouge of Lautrec fame we walked all around looking for it but got lost. But we did discover the new public toilets being installed all over France. They are of prefab concrete and stainless steel and cost half a Franc. Clean, no grafitti, cool jazz music, one person at a time. When finished, the whole interior flushes automatically.
   Across the street from the church is a gathering place for youths from all over the world, playing musical instruments, singing and carrying on. We got totally soaked in the rain running around to find the American Express office but with my cape and beret, Joy her umbrella managed OK.
   Up next morning early, to metro and caught the train to Marseille. All the fast trains are eighteen cars long with a bullet engine on each end. 165 mph and a very smooth ride. interiors all glass partitions. Had an expensive lunch from the bar car (Beer, salad, cheese sandwich). Arrived in Marseille but tourist office closed for two hours so we had a beer and hung out till the opened and sent us to a hotel overlooking the Old Port. Hotel Residence put us on the fourth floor with a balcony overlooking the whole scene. This was a 15th century port with great old forts at the entrance but now strictly for yachts and fishing boats. On the way a young black man asked if he could help and showed us the way, asked to carry Joys bag but she wouldn’t let go of it as she was suspicious, but he seemed genuinely helpful, invited us for dinner at his place but we didn’t go, liked what we were doing. Finally nice and warm here. We spend hours on our balcony watching the crazy French drivers on the streets below. They'll block all lanes and then drive on other side forcing oncoming traffic almost on the sidewalk. All the trucks and buses here are absolutely beautiful. Everyone has small cars here and the French all have yellow headlights, nobody seemed to know why.
   Walked around the 12th cent. forts at the entrance to the Old Port, then up about a thousand stairs to the highest hill with a church called Notre Dame du Gard, a real climb with Joy of course bitching all the way. The church seemed to be dedicated to lots of shipwrecks and plane crashes of WW 2. With all these parishioner dying at sea, makes me wonder if their God has been on the job.
   The walk down was a breeze, passing an old American tank as a small reminder that war was hell. Walked through streets with marvelous vege and fruit market.
   The fish market begins early each morning on the quay below our hotel. How about a floppy live sculpin or octopus? We found a great pizza place across the port from us. Each day we buy a couple of bottles of wine for $3 and bread and cheese, then we spend hours watching these people drive, park and carry on from our balcony overlooking the entire scene.
   Went down to the quay and caught a small boat to Chateau d’If, the miserable fort/dungeon that the count of Monte Christo spent so many years incarcerated in Duma’s story. However, due to the heavy seas, we couldn’t land at the dock so just continued on to the nearby larger island that has been developed with some very well designed condominiums over shops and restaurant (Mixed use!). Right adjacent to the new buildings was a well preserved very small Greek temple, dating from the original Greek colonists around 500 BC. The seas were so bad I was challenged to even stand up and move around. Joy sat paralyze all the time clinging to a stanchion so hard she left a permanent impression on the steel .She was too scared to throw up.
   Next day we took a Metro, streetcar, then bus to see Corbusier’s Cite’, built about 1953. Sitting on high ‘pilotis’, about 15 floors of residential apartments, with a commercial level sandwiched in about half way up. We had a pleasant lunch on a narrow out door deck overlooking the town. All exposed concrete structure showing off the form boards. Naturally, a few bright colors here and there a la Corbu.
   Off to the beach via bus. Took a swim at the ‘Plage’ , always fun as you really float due to the high salt content in the Mediterranean. Even better, there were lots of young things lying about topless. I guess Nice isn’t the only Mecca for voyeurs. I tried to get Joy to take her top off and show these kids some real tit but she was too bashful. I changed out of my wet Speedo bikini on the beach a la French style. Caught the bus back to La Residence and more Pizza and wine. Ah! Marseille! Viva la France!

To be continued....

METRIPHOBIA

A LOST CAUSE

Just finished “World in the Balance” by Robert Crease, as I have been so frustrated that we in the U.S. Can't use the metric system & wanted to really get down and find out why.

It seems such a system is nothing new as it was considered in 1791. The French were the instigators of such a system. Even then, they determined there were three ways to set a measurement;

1 The length of a one second pendulum

2 ¼ of the earth's equator.

3 A portion of the meridian running thru Paris. e.i., the basic unit length would be based on a ten millionth part of the meridian.

Meter is from the Greek “metron” or measure.

One universal and unchanging standard would be the meter (or tenths of) to be cubed in order to hold water (distilled at the temperature of melting ice.) (Perrier?). But it had to be a measure found in nature, so when a standard was lost of damaged they could be replaced.

Of course, the French went overboard at first - made clock time decimated in 10 hour days, 100 minute hours, 100 second minutes, which actually worked for ten years. They also got off to a clean start with the year 1793 replaced with the year one. Just like the Mohammedans.

Copies of a meter were placed all over Paris and two are left. I'll find the one on Place Vendome and report back to you in the spring.

In 1999 the 327 million Mars Orbiter disintregrated as it approached Mars because its engineers mixed up meters and feet!

In 1790, a Mr. Dombry was sent to America with a meter and a cube (a litre?). Just as he neared Philadelphia, a storm sent his ship to the Antilles, a French colony. He was arrested and imprisoned. During a riot he was pushed off a rampart into the water, resulting in a bad fever. However, the govenor finally recognized him, put him on another ship to America. But a British privateer took him hostage and imprisoned him in the British colony of Montserat, where he died. But the cargo was auctioned and someone sent the meter and kilogram to the U.S., but never sent it to the U.S. Congress.

As each colony determined it's own weights and measures, the Articles of confederation (1777) gave congress the right of “fixing standards of weights and measures”. Since no action was taken on this, we just borrowed the British standards. Madison at least got the coinage system into a decimal system by 1786, too bad he thought we needed pennies, or maybe you could buy something for a penny in those days.

Strangely after all this thinking and agonizing, the metric system is very similar to the units of measure used in Mesopotamia about five thousand years ago. (That would be Iraq). Where 1 meter = 1 Mesopatanian step, 1 litre=1 Meso. Bowl, etc. By 1880 half the world's population used the new system. But not us! An early attempt in US was in the 1920's by a group of pesky women, The General Federation of Women's Clubs. It failed, unfortunately.

Part of our reluctance to change (other than our arrogance and smugness) was the cost of changing all our steel, lumber, screws, etc. was just too much for some. Another roadblock was put up by some religionists who had a very strong lobby. “We have to defend our Native Anglo-Saxon metrology which derives from the God-designed metrology of Isreal and found in the great pyramid of Giza”

Meanwhile, the IS (System Internationale) is still refining the definition of a meter. In addition to the speed of light, we could use Plank's Constant, An elementary charge, Boltzmann's Constant or Avagdro's Number. Take your pick.

Mean meanwhile, we remain the only industrialized nation without the Metric system, along with Liberia and Burma.

MY PREVIOUS LIVES

Although I have claimed to be an atheist, I have toyed with the concept of re-incarnation, or the living of multiple lives (Let’s leave god out of this). Otherwise, how do you explain that one kid of six can write his first opera or concerto in contrast to the kid who comes into the world a veritable cretin vegetable.(Maybe he was a vegetable in his previous life ?).  I have always espoused the concept that “Life is not fair” to my kids , but, I’m beginning to believe it really might be fair.
   First of all, we can assume that our life here is merely a play and  we identify with the main character (me) and the idea that each of us wrote our own life score In order to work off the ‘bad’ and good karma. I’ve always believed that ‘Heaven” and ‘Hell’ are nowhere else, but on this earthly plane. In addition, we are really fair in dealing out our rewards (good and bad), no cheating here!.
Aside from all that, I thought I would make a guess of what some of my previous lives were. Let’s follow the concept that each soul (Yes, some entity has got to carry through all these lives) is born (Baby soul) and has to go through all the lives of everything on earth, (Don’t blame me, I didn’t invent this system). It’s hard to know where to begin, but say we start out with being a micro-organism, then a plant, then an insect to fish, bird, animal and finally, man, the grand show!
Now all this could take quite some time, as according to the old Rishi's of India we have to go through 84 Lacs (or 8,400,000 years) until we get to a point we’re ready to get out of here alive. (But not before tossing off our human bodies, which are only good for about 100 years or so).
  I haven’t verified this yet, but if there are 3 million plant species, 2,700,000 insect species, 1,400,000 bird species, 400,000 water creatures and a scad of land animals, like man, I have to get going to get thru all this.
    I thought I would begin this quest as a rotifer, the micro bug that has the only rotating axle in nature.  However, they only live for a few seconds, but we’ve a long way to go. I don’t like worms or snakes so I skip those but I can see myself as a clam or abalone, for say 25 years? If I have to do a reptile , a turtle would be okay as he carries his house around on his back. (First kind of architectural interest).  I can definitely see my ant incarnation, hard working workaholics. Fruit fly? Only takes a few days for a lifetime, but always hanging around someone’s wine glass. Maybe we start as a plant, being a visual organic life (but then, the entire earth is an organic life form that is born, matures with all kinds of virus (Us!) Living on it for a brief period, then it dies) But I digress. What about lichen? Don’t they eat granite? I better leave off this line of thought and get back to my long, miserable, life stream. Anyway, where was I? I would be in the water about now , a couple of million years and  millions of species later,
    I’m probably a good microscopic plankton now, before working my way up to fighting  a giant squid,  for  a battle of life and death as a giant sperm whale (200 years lifespan, unless I lose?). It’s getting messy, as here I am in an animal (air breathing) creature, yet can’t even walk on solid ground.  
   I’m going to take a break from all this and get back to you later.
 
BOOK REVIEW
  And we all thought Franklin and Jefferson were able to convince the French to help us beat the crap out of The Brits in the revolutionary War of 1774 to 1784. Read Joel Richard Pauls’ “UNLIKELY ALLIES” and you’ll find there were three men (well, maybe) who jigged and joggled around the French aristocracy to get money and cannons to us when France didn’t exactly want it known they were helping us as they had just signed a treaty with Britain after losing the Seven years war. Silas Deane, a Connecticut merchant and member of congress was sent to persuade the King to help us with war materials and officers. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, an inventor and playwright (he wrote “The Barber of Seville”) and the unlikly Chevalier d’Eon, a diplomat, soldier and sometime spy who may or may not been a woman.
History is soo entertaining!

VIDEO ALERT
“Dangerous Beauty”, 1998, (with Rufus Sewell, who played an Italian inspector in  ‘Z”). Jacqueline Bisset teaches her daughter how to be a successful courtesan after she figured out a convent wasn’t for her. A plethera of nipples, lots of tits and a couple of fine asses!

JUNE

                                                                                                                               JULY 1, 2012


BOOK REVIEW
Robert Lewis Stevenson was famous because he lived in a small cabin on Mt. Helena in Calistoga. But I bet you didn’t know he was part of a famous engineering-contracting family in Scotland. The Lighthouse Stevenson’s designed & built the earliest lighthouse around the incredible Scottish coat, which harbors the most inhospitable waters in any coast, bar none. They began in the early 1700's to build these 100 foot stone towers on little spits of stone that were barely above water at high tide way out on the high seas. These early ones were lit by candles! But they did work with Fresnel later on when he was experimenting with glass lenses. How would you like to be a light keeper on one of these, when storms would send solid water (not just spume) over the top of these, sometimes breaking the heavy glass. Written very ably by Bella Bathurst.

BOOK REVIEW
The Hunger Games. Forget it.

FINALLY AN INVESTOR
Since we sold our cabin on Donner Summit, I had some ready cash to invest so I chose to help out a young carpenter in Mariakani, Kenya, near Mombasa. Stanley asked for a loan of $1,000 in order to buy lumber, nails & tools. I’m not going to hold my breath for a repayment of my $25 but glad to help a fellow builder. It’s through a non-profit called Kiva and they contract with substantial local groups throughout the world to monitor the money, somehow.

VIDEO ALERT
I just came across some BBC videos called “Shakespeare Retold” and they are a hoot. Once you get through the English accent and can understand what they’re saying, it is better than Elizabethian. They took some real liberties re-telling, However, as “Much Ado about Nothing” takes place in a British TV station where anchors are the main characters. Not to be outdone, “Macbeth” is set in a three star Michelin restaurant kitchen. “Taming of The Shrew” is on the way. That could be set in my kitchen, come to think about it.

POLITICAL TRIVIA
Has anybody mentioned the really weird thing that almost all polititians wear a tiny American Flag on their lapel these days? When did that start and what does it signify? Is the implication that you are not a patriot if you haven’t got your pin on? SOMETHING IS SICK ABOUT THIS. Didn’t the Germans all have a little Lightning zig zag on their collars to signify their duty to der Fatherland? Are we all sheep & cattle?

BOOK REVUE
Reasons to Kill (Why Americans Choose War) by Richard Rubinstein. You probably haven’t thought much about it, but do you know it’s a Federal Law that each major sports event is preceded by the mass singing of our National Anthem? We must face the flag, take off all hats, right hands over the heart, robustly sing out with the black fat lady, while military jets fly overhead (Well, maybe not at basketball games). People of other nations have a strong affection for their nations, but few experience the quasi-religios nationalism that makes supporting wars a patriotic duty. Looking at our list of wars - Mexico, Spain (Remember the Maine!”), Germany ‘17, Germany ‘41, Vietnam, North Korea, Grenada, (Grenada?), Iraq, Afganistan, etc., And why we took up the gauntlet is enlightening, as the author is a “Conflict Resolution” person who has sat on boards where nations try to find other ways than war to solve their differences. U.S presidents elected as peace candidates have led the nation into bloody overseas conflicts. Repeatedly, wars deemed necessary and prudent have been shown in retrospect to be avoidable. Yet, all the while, we profess to be a peace loving country.

A NEW SAVINGS & LOAN OPENED UP IN SANTA ROSA

Jesus saves!

THIS JUST IN!

A British insurance company has designed a stair lift for dogs that are too fat to climb the stairs.


TO THINK ABOUT
Is the current Japanese bible (King James) still translated into a pre-victorian language?

How do you say thou in Nipponese?


MARCUS AURELIUS

Here was the emperor of the Roman Empire at it’s height, b. 161 - d. 180 AD.

How many kings, presidents, premiers do you know of who gave thoughts to the following ideas. Are we making any progress 2,000 years later? From his writings; Meditations.

“ Regard the universe as one living being, have one substance and one soul, and observe how all things act with one movement; and how all things co-operate as the causes of all that exists; observe, too, the continuous spinning of the thread and the single texture of the web.

Time is like a river made up of events that happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has appeared it is carried away, and another comes in its place; and this will be carried away too.

Consider yourself to be dead, and to have completed your life up to the present time, then live out according to nature the remainder which is allowed you.

Love only that which happens to you and is woven with the thread of your destiny. For what is more suited to your needs?

That which has died does not drop out of the universe. If it stays here, it also changes here, and is dissolved into its proper parts, which are elements of the universe and of your self. And these too change, and murmur not.

Clear from your mind the many useless things which disturb you, for they lie entirely in your opinion, and you will then gain for yourself ample space by comprehending the whole universe in your mind, and by contemplating the eternity of time, and observing the rapid change of each thing, how short is the time from birth to its dissolution, and the illimitable time before its birth as well as the equally boundless time after its dissolution.

Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist which you now see, nor any of those who are now living. For all things are formed by nature to change and to be turned and to perish in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.

And when Socrates (480 BC) endeavored to bring these facts to light and deliver men from the rule of demons, the demons compassed his death as an athiest and profane person, on the charge that “he was introducing new divinities”.

Hence we are called atheists.(180 AD) And we confess we are atheists so far as gods of this sort are concerned, but not with regard to the most true God, the Father of righteousness and temperance and other virtues”.
(He was not a Christian but didn’t hassle them much).

MONEY AGAIN

MAY 1, 2012




THE ELUSIVE AMERICAN DOLLAR COIN

I don’t know whether to be outraged or chagrined. After all my ranting about the lack of a dollar coin, I just found out that , oh yeah, we have been minting a small dollar coin since 2005, called “The Presidential Coin”.. However, since the general public (me) don’t know about it, they are being stockpiled in vaults the size of soccer fields to the tune of a billion coins. (That kind of equals a Billion dollars?). What disturbs me most is that we as a nation have become so complacent and so over-democritized that we are falling behind other nations, our money system merely one aspect of it. We already had a dollar coin with an Indian maiden on it ( with a peace-pipe on the back) probably celebrating our occupation and annihilation of the native population when we grabbed their lands. (Come on, they lost the damn war!).

A couple of idiot legislators had this great idea that we Americans would really embrace the concept of a coin “honoring” all our presidents. Instead of re-energizing our mint, we should just fire the whole damn Department, send someone over to Belgium & Holland to take a crash course in how to set up a monetary system. We have to get rid of our old , excess baggage and enter into the 21st century, with an updated contemporary concept of the everyday use of money. It is such a terrible feeling to see articles of our ‘design’ process for money. We start with a committee of morons that give pathetic directions to a group of artists, they all submit designs, in the appropriate lame manner, then the ‘chosen’ one is laboriously sculpted by some old geezer in the back room who has been doing micro reliefs all his miserable life, until the result is an unrealistic profile of some president or an Indian maiden. By the way, what ever happened to Sacajewa when Lewis & Clark were through with her?

We think we are being so Tre Nouveau!

Didn’t we have a Kennedy dollar coin (or a fifty cent piece?) a while back? I remember when I was doing a lot of work in Las Vegas, these were used on slot machines, probably the only possible use due to it’s weight and size. Anyway, our lawgivers & makers are totally directionless concerning our money. Why is it someone says, “Hey, look at Europe “(The United States of Europe). They sat down and hired a design group to do a complete overhaul of the system. Some groups already had determined the denominations: 500,100, 50, 20, 10 of paper, no. not paper, but polypropylene polymer, then small, light coins of 2, 1, .50, .20, .10, .05, .02 & .01. OK, they are not perfect. How they ever decided on a two cent & one cent piece is a grand mystery to me. Everyone knows they’re losers. Who needs them? First of all, we have to wrest the decisions from the Drug Agencies and get back to the $1000 & $500 dollar bill. Has anyone noticed that as the money gets more worthless, the smaller denominations our bills become?

Meanwhile, in the E.U., the chosen designer designs the piece by computer, using the latest technology to design and manufacture the product. All bills are related in theme but diverse in details. Colors are bright and vibrant, anti-counterfitting methods plus various sizes so the blind can figure it out. But most of all, you do not ask the group of potential users what they think about it all (Over-democritazation). That’s why you hire designers!

After all this, you do an educational program with a changeover date. This gives laundromats, vending machines, parking meters, buses, etc. time to ramp up to receive these large but small coins (& therefore fewer to handle). But, please, let’s forge ahead of the Europeans and delete the penny, Everyone knows it is not a viable coin.

Once we are using the new money system, I will present you with an essay regarding the design of the U.S. flag (The worst one on earth!).





WONDERFUL BLATHERINGS FROM OMAR KHAYYAM



Into this universe, and Why not knowing,

Nor Whence, like willy-nilly flowing:

And out of it, as Wind along the Waste,

I now not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.



What, without asking, hither hurried Whence?

And, without asking, Whither hurried hence!

Ah, contrite Heav’n endowed us with the vine

To drug memory of that insolence!



(How do you say “Willy-nilly in Arabic?)



DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME

We were staying in a Locando near Lucca, Italy, and as always, were looking for a good Italian Ristorante ( no matter where we are in Europe) and our concierge recommended Georgeos’. We found it next to an old chateau, (where we stayed in a later trip) in an on old winery building, divided into several large rooms, each one of which had a large medallion painted on the wall, denoting a prize for a certain vintage of the defunct winery, none later than 1885. The staff was young and attentive, especially when we ordered a good bottle of red wine (probably about $25 or 30,000 Lire). Before too long, our sommelier came out pushing a rolley cart containing all her paraphernalia. First, of course, she shows us the bottle to be assured it was what we ordered. She expertly pulled the cork, laid it down on the foil cap she had removed so we could feel, look and smell the cork. So far so good! She now lights the candle, and decants the wine into an elegant glass decanter vessel, but looking thru the bottle to the candle to view and interrupt any lees that might occur in our bottle. Okay, we’re getting close here!. Next, she pours a bit of the ruby light into a proper wine glass for the type of wine, but not for me to taste, oh no! She has to be assured that everything has gone proper before ever turning this bottle over to me, the mere consumer of it. Swirling, sniffing and finally tasting, she assures us with a nod that we are indeed, on track. She blows out the candle, pours a dab into my glass, waits patiently while I inspect, swirl, sniff, taste and nod my approval with an ingratiating smile, which sets into motion the grand finale, pouring the proper amount into our glasses. She sets the bottle down on our table and trundles away on another quest for the imperfect bottle.

CASIO
Finally bought a new watch, in anticipation of traveling to Europe in the Spring (forget it!). I haven’t used my calculator keyboard on my old Casio for a while so I opted for just the basic Casio, but importantly, has two time modes. Also a stopwatch, alarm. Also important, is the fact it is waterproof to 50 meters (150 feet?). That’s important for me when I fall into the ten foot deep locks on the canal boat we rent. Amazingly, the watch only cost $23, with a Ten Year Battery. Last year my old watch band broke & it cost me $25 to replace it (the band) as they don’t sell them anymore at Long’s. I’m absolutely amazed that stores still sell any watches at all, with everyone using iphones (except me). I’ll never understand why all the expensive watches ($5,000 !!) Still are analog. Must be a nostalgia thing.

I’M A CONTRACTOR & I’M O.K.
I recently got my contractor license out of limbo (Limbo is a place you go between Heaven & Purgatory). I had to get my original license in 1965 when no builders would bid on my “Clamshell” house in South Laguna. My company, “Master Builders” was a faster way for me to loose money than just doing architecture. Anyway, I had it on inactive status for the last few years but now, since there isn’t much design work, I am building a house for my friend, Sher in Santa Rosa. Talk about “This Old House”. This 400 SF house was built in 1880 for a large family. But now we are adding 1400 SF so that one or two people can be comfortable. With my expert organizational skills we are on budget & on schedule, after we finally plodded thru the frustrating seven month long battle with the local Hysterical Cultural Board, who are the smallest collection of No Nothings in Santa Rosa. In cases like this, it is much cheaper to tear down the entire structure & rebuild it with new materials. But NO!, these materials, (which are not much older than me, by the way), are sacred to these history huggers. So we are taking it apart piece by piece and putting in new stuff (like foundations). Although old styles are not exactly my bag, it is fun to build places like this. After all, my whole life has been changing a piece of crap into a silk purse. See my front renovation of the Jack London Saloon in Glen Ellen, or my Atelier One Art Studios here in Graton, or.... (I don’t have enough time to list them all). Sher is taking a stop motion video of the process which will be fun to watch.

BOOK REPORT
I just finished “A Brief History of the Human Race’ for the 2nd time & I must share an item with my illustrious readers. This book is fairly small but is intensely interesting. One of the cultures that kind of let civilization slide by them were the Australian Aborigines. They were still living as hunter-gatherers just like the early folks of Europe about 15,000 years ago. Anyway, one might wonder how they kept track of not marrying a relative (Like some of the British Royals!) Wouldn’t you?
Well, here’s how one tribe did it. The Aranda Tribe had two numbers ‘one & ‘two’. From that they would use a form of binary arithmetic to count further, like ‘two & one’ (three) ‘two & two’ was four. After that it was ‘many’. To prevent inbreeding, groups were divided into different ‘Totems’, named for a plant or something. Each tribe had two totems(or moietys, as they called them), Say they called them 0 and 1. one had to marry out of your moiety, assigning the children to the moiety of the father . Seemed simple enough. But, no, they went on to divide each moiety into two sections. These sections had names. But each moiety was divided further into sections 00 and 01, moiety 1 into 10 and 11. Reformulated, the marriage rule now required that a person in a given section of one moiety marry into a corresponding section of the other:

In other words, 00 into 10, 01 into 11, and vice versa. A child was placed in the same moiety as the father, but in the other section of it. For example, if the father was in section 00, the child was in section 01. It actually went on to subdivide into a third digit, but my brain just went on overload. There is one final nicety about all these rules. Other tribes had different systems, and believe it or not, they had a way to figure it all out. Goddamn primitive savages!
Just imagine, when we find bones & shards of ancient people, we have no idea that tthey could have such a complex life style.

VIDEO ALERT
This is a fun documentary adventure into a deliciously cutthroat Meilleur Ouvier de France, the legendary French pastry competition, to capture the fascinating account of what it takes to be the best patissier. It also shows you how different we are from the French, as their president Sarkosy is involved in the awards. Can you imagine Obama doing that?

DESIGN
Dieter Rams, an Industrial Designer for Braun & others, made a list of the
10 commandments of Design.
Good design is; innovative
makes a product useful
Is aesthetic
makes a product understandable
unabtrusive
honest
thorough, down to last detail
environmentally friendly
as little design as possible

I would like to add: Simplicity is the mark of the Master Craftsman.
Also: Form is a result of function (Except in current Starchitect projects).

BAALBEK

BAALBEK
Every once in a while I look at my file of Baalbek, an ancient Roman ruin located in Lebanon, inland from Beirut. The Romans were able to build big but this temple is HUGE. The largest of the temples there, Temple of Jupiter, was a mind-boggling structure. Only six columns have survived but their scale is preposterous. It was built about the time of the Christian era and contains the largest building stones in the world. Look at the picture of the six remaining columns, note there is a portion of a stone missing in the frieze, but on the next picture, see the size of just that piece that had fallen out. Today no one has any idea how they moved and erected these stones. In addition, the giant stones that the base is composed are even larger. Some weigh 1400 tons (2,800,000 pounds.)

SUMMITEERING
I’ve climbed them all. Everest, K2, Mont Blanc, The Eiger, The Pamirs, Patagonia, Lassen. It all began when I soloed Mt. Lassen (11,000 ft) in California. Although I found myself rock scrambling the last 100 feet, I realized I should have a companion, at least to report my death and recover my battered body if came to that. Well, in truth, the rest of my climbing was accomplished in my mind, safely seated in a comfy chair in my living room, with a glass of wine (Or at least an espresso) by my side. I’ve done the North Face of the Eiger (The Wall of Death) probably three times, always fascinated by the unusual venue; a comfy Swiss hotel near the base with a view of the entire face, thru large telescopes on the terrace, giving the guests a close up view of the bodies hanging and twisting in the wind for several years, due to the utter impossibility for anyone being able to get near enough to cut the poor bastard down. When one does opt for the quick and direct method down, falling thousands of feet, bouncing around on icy outcrops, until all that’s left at the bottom is a limb-less body to bury in the nearby graveyard, which has a special area for the climbers (kind of a little square plot).
I’ve struggled and froze my way to the top of Everest with the first to stand atop even without oxygen bottles. Remember, at 30,000 feet, it’s as high as the 747 you fly to Paris on. The book “Into Thin Air” is a double entendre about lack of oxygen and stepping off into a 10,000 foot void, usually a fatal move. I’ve summited all the above and followed all the climbers as well as all the rescue parties that sometimes needed rescuing themselves.
I never liked getting up at midnight, trying to make breakfast, do bathroom duty at -40 degrees and trying to get to the summit before 1:00 PM, exulting for several seconds, before getting back down to your tent before dark or you will be dead if you spend the night out.
Yet, the Eiger is my favorite. They keep track of how many die on the wall each year in the attempt to find a “new route” up the bloody slab.

MONEY DESIGN
I just received remuneration for a right to replicate my famous mahogony adjustable chair that was featured in my show at the Laguna Beach Art Museum a few years ago. Carsten, who lives in Germany, is a talented woodworker who made the replicas of chairs & table that I had designed in the ‘60's for the show. I asked him to send me ten Euros so I wouldn’t lose my copyright, He sent me a ten Euro coin that Germany minted recently. This one is based on the Bauhaus and is typical of the high calibre of European designers. I don’t know why, but Carsten says it worth about 50 Euros now. We can’t even mint a dollar coin that doesn’t weigh a ton. But this weighs just .6 oz. (18 gr) which is only like carrying three quarters. And it’s elegant!

WHY VIETNAM?

BOOK REPORT
As we’re trying to extricate ourselves from Iraq & Afqanistan, it’s a good time to review our debacle of Vietnam. WHY VIETNAM? By Archimedes Patti, our guy who headed up the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) there, is a good way to hear the Why.
It all began in 1858 when France invaded Vietnam, which was their colony until the end of World War II. Ho Ch Minh put together a kind of government called Viet Minh, based in the North of the country, while the South was kind of governed by Bao Dai , who was a Royal Puppet of the French.
Ho & Archimedes had a good relationship as WWII wound down, Ho even based his constitution on ours. He claimed to be a Socialist but we were convinced he was a war mongering Communist. In reality, Russia & China did not trust Ho’s politics and probably wouldn’t have supported him. They were granted complete independence in 1954, with the defeat of the French by Ho’s guys. The country was divided into North & South. We started supporting the South in their civil war against the North.
We kept escalating with the assurance of our military we could clean it all up shortly. Well,finally, about 1969, Nixon said the US would avoid situations like Vietnam by limiting economic & military aid. The American masses marched & complained and in 1970 our senate passed a law barring military operations in Cambodia & aid to South Vietnam without congressional approval.
In retrospect, it is sad to conclude that if we had let Vietnam become independant from France & us, they would have ended up with a government which they now have, and avoided the carnage of 50,000 of our young soldiers and uncounted Vietnamese casualties. One of our tenants from Atelier One moved to ‘Nam a few years ago and is very happy with his situation.
What were we thinking? Well, we better get busy & keep building more atomic super submarines & billion dollar supersonic fighter jets so we can ferret out the bad guys (Religious fanatics) from their caves.
But don’t get me started.

MY SUNBEAM UNIVERSE
Recently while sitting watching the sun rise with a steaming cup of espresso in our small cabin near the top of Donner Pass, a shaft of sunlight came near me and exposed thousands of micro things swirling & floating around me in the air. What I had perceived a few moments before as empty space in my living room was in reality a micro(or is it Macro?) universe of thousands of objects. Where there seemed to be no draft anywhere, eddies and streams of air swooshed around silently moving all these micro worlds in space, separated from each other by a million light years. When I moved, a swarm of intruders took flight and joined in the fracas. As soon as one would float off out of the light, it would become instantly invisible.
Don’t breath!, I shouldn’t have trimmed my nose hair the other day, as I needed a filter for all this matter.

PASSACAGLIA
I’ve been musically retarded in classical music most of this lifetime, except for a few areas like Dietrich Buxtehude, as I’ve had a vinyl of his organ music for decades. My daughter recently gave me a CD of his music which is becoming one of my favorites (Une alchimie musicale). He lived in the 1600's when real composers involved complex mathematics in their works. I had read from Gurdjieff that great artists always did something imperfect in a work as only God could create a perfect work of art (Except for humans, look at Gingrich). The following liner notes will clarify it for you:
“We may observe this by employing the numerlogical technique which consists in reducing a number superior to nine to another number between one and nine by adding the figure of the hundreds to that of the tens and that of the units (e.g. 121 reduced to 4 by the technique 1+2+1). Each of the four sections of the passacaglia is formed of thirty bars, always divided by a transitional bar (between the first and the second sections, then between the second and the third and finally between the third and the fourth), which gives us 120 bars + three transitional bars, making a grand total of 123 bars. If we reduce 123 (1+2+3) we obtain 6, and this is where our imperfection could reside. For if the composer had added a bar at the end (e.g. by means of a tonic pedal), we would have obtained a total of 124 bars, which reduces (1+2+4) to 7. And that total of 124 bars in triple time would have produced 372 beats, the reduction of which is 12 (3+7+2). Since 12 is the product of 3 and 4 and its reduction (1+2) equals 3, the result would have been too perfect!”
Well, of course. Anyone could see that. I wonder if Charlie Parker or Coltrane used that system?

BOOK REPORT
Demosclerosis by Jonathan Rauch
If you want to understand why our government seems to be ineffective, and not paying attention to us, you might want to read this book. I had a hard time finding it, as the library doesn’t carry it & it’s been out of print for a while. My only regret is I wish it had been updated since 1993 Clinton times, as there are some juicy charts and statistics in it. The big surprise here is that we have met the culprit, and he is us! The author describes how in the last 30 or 40 years we have gotten too much democracy, in the form of Special Interest Groups, or Lobbyists. Since about 1960, this has spawned a huge Parasite Economy, consisting of lawyers and others who represent all the thousands of special interests. Everyone (You & me. Aarp, AIA, etc) is a member of some group who spend millions wresting favors (Money) from our government. Our poor pols cannot make any decisions on their own, if they want to be re-elected (and they do). If a group wants them to pass a law, another group is there to thwart it. This became very evident recently when I heard Gov. Brown say he had to check with the legislators and the lobbyists regarding the possibility of a certain move. Check with the LOBBYISTS?
With such a system, old programs are almost impossible to eradicate after they are useful. As soon as a new president comes into office with the brilliant idea to eliminate obsolete programs, a hoard of lobbyists are activated to keep it. With so much money being tied up in these programs, there is no money to begin any new, useful programs.
Although Rauch, like any intelligent critic, suggests ways that we might be able to get out of this gridlock, it is a pretty weak argument. I, for one, believe it is an impossible dream (I have a Dream! An impossible Dream!).
Just this week, a prime example of the problem surfaced in an article about "An Expensive Lesson." Regarding student loans initiated by Pres. Johnson in 1965, who as part of his wonderful "Great Society" (During Vietnam?) Initiated a program to promote education. Johnson pledged an amount that seems trivial now, $1.9 million to states who could leverage it up ten times to back student loans up to $1,000 for 25,000 students. They even said something about Technical Schools, which no one takes seriously.
Today, this has all metastasized into a huge, federally guaranteed loan industry.
Some students owe $300,000, and they still can’t get a job that they studied for. My ex-wife owes about $60,000 , as she has been a professional student for decades and now is too old to work. More than 10 million students took out loans last year. They may owe about 757 Billion and yet there is no method we have to cut back such a program. We can only augment it and suffer the consequences, or our children can suffer it. The pols have fiddled around with this default problem and claim that it won’t cost a us anything.
Yeah. And I’m going to get a good deal on the Brooklyn Bridge.

GOOD NEWS!
We’ve all heard that newspapers sell because they print bad news so I decided to put my scientific brain to the test. This morning I went through the paper and categorized each news item into Positive, Negative, or Neutral. The results were not staggering. Good News occurred seven times, Negative News was reported 37 times while Neutral was only two times. I didn’t consider the Sports pages as I am too biased and consider all sports News a Negative item.

MEDDLING WITH MY FOOD
America! The Land of More Than Plenty!
I am getting really tired of the plethera of choices we are having to make regarding our 2nd basic need , food (Wine is 1st). The beer section in my local Safeway is getting out of hand. When I was a kid, we had only about four beers to choose from (Pabst, Ace & a couple others) Of course, we only bought quarts of the stuff, as we were major consumers. Now look, every week I go there, I find an another brewery added to the twenty existing. Now that I don’t mind too much. After all, when I started making beer in 1975 it was against the law to make your own beer. I had to travel about 100 miles to a store to buy equipment and used a Canadian pamphlet for the recipes. (India Pale Ale). What upsets me is the potato chip section, about thirty feet long with every conceivable type of chip you can imagine. I only want plain but sometimes they don’t have that. I can’t buy Mother Goose anymore as the last time I only got Original, or as it turned out, reconstituted chips! Just when I discovered Safeway had a 70% chocolate bar for $2,50 made in Switzerland, they only had four kinds, each with a different herb or some other idiotic flavor. What’s wrong with plain, good 72% chocolate? That’s like using the Holy Grail to slurp up Bud Light.

I’M SORRY, THE PRESIDENT’S TOO BUSY........
To run the country. The president of the US wastes an enormous amount of time meeting with various groups, conferring honors , and all kinds of ceremonial functions. Every time there is a minor disaster he has to drop what he’s doing, appear on the scene, and say,"why yes, this looks like a disaster". Why can’t he send out the head of The Department of Disaster to check it out? No wonder presidents can’t get anything done as they promised in their campaign speeches. They all say it. "If elected, I will cut back government, cut old, non-productive programs"etc. Then when election time comes around, all bets are off. The Prez just forgets about his desk, gets on his planes and barnstorms around for about a year or more, when he will usually get re-elected (Remember, he has more money than God to spend at this point).
Recently, I read that in Britain, you could not campaign before two months before the election.
Do you think we could convince our politicians to change to that?

ACOUSTIC BRIGANDS

How did we get to this place where we are held hostage by packs of morons who believe they are really cool because they can drive around on a two wheel bi-cycle with a 300 hp engine that has no, I mean zero, muffler suppression, so they can intimidate and encroach on peaceful citizens with their ear splitting, gut wrenching, pain threshold noises that can be heard hundreds of feet around their perimeter as they move thru space. These are sometimes normal appearing people when they are not riding around thwapping their engines in all ways to make sure they are extruding the maximum decibels for what purpose, I cannot comprehend.
There is probably no way for us to squelch this behavior as can you imagine the strong political lobby they all have in our capitals?

GLOBAL COOLING
We’ve all been so taken up with the burning question of the hour about global warming a few degrees we’ve forgotten that the real threat to us is the fact that the earth is moving towards another Ice Age. Which begs the next question of the hour, When will Earth become uninhabitable for the human species? First of all we must be able to survive the next Ice Age in about 10,000 years, which will last for several thousand years and will leave only a small band of non-glaciated area around the equator. Well, I always wanted to live in the Bahamas.
Speaking of which, I keep getting flyers on my FAX about Luxury Vacations to those places in the Carribean that are truly unbelievable deals. Look, at this one! 8 days, 7 nites in a San Juan , Puerto Rico condo vacation for only $149.98!!! Now that’s only $18.75 a day!! How can they do that? Who can not afford to do that in these trying times? But wait. There’s a small note in parenthesis that says (companion airfare). Does that mean anything? Anyway, Call now as offer expires in a day. But don’t worry, you’ll get another offer next week as my FAX paper is free to them.
I suppose those damn cockroaches will outlive humans by a couple of Ice Ages.


BOOK REPORT
Here’s another intelligent person I know nothing about. Jeeze, where have I been? I came across Noam Chomskys’ “The Prosperous Few & the Restless Many” and have noted down a few of his peregrinations.
Three quarters of the American population literally believe in religious miracles. The numbers who believe in the devil, in resurrection, in God doing this & that - is astonishing. These numbers aren’t duplicated anywhere else in the industrial world. You’d have to go to mosques in Iran or do a poll among old ladies in Sicily to get numbers like this. Yet this is the American population.
But wait, there’s more! Just a few years ago there was a study about our thoughts on evolution. Only 9% believed in Darwinian evolution (not that much above a statistical error). About half the population believed in divinely-guided evolution, Catholic church doctrine. About 40% thought the world was created a few thousand years ago.
Again, you’d have to go back to pre-industrial peasant societies, before you get numbers like that.
I also got a few nuggets from reading Walter Cronkite’s bio, although I have never seen him on TV. These are pretty relevant during our current year long campaign trail.
Those who get their news from TV probably are not getting enough information to intelligently exercise their voting franchise in a democratic system. Can a potential voter take a campaign seriously after he has been escorted by television backstage to be shown how the managers transform their candidates into actors?
Sound- bite journalism simply isn’t good enough to serve the people in our national elections. Back in ‘92 the average bloc of uninterrupted speech by a presidential candidate was 8.2 seconds. No meaningful explanation of issues is possible in that short outburst. Since nothing of any significance is going to be said in seven seconds, this does work to the advantage of many politicians. They are not required to say anything of any significance, and issues can be avoided rather than confrontational.
Me? I get my news from The Daily Show & Colbert Report. Every once in a great while I pull up a news station to verify it’s stupidity before returning to Jon Stewart.
Don’t forget, I’m from the era where we got our news once a week in the movie theater where the Pathe News showed nothing but actual news footage (black & white) with a narrator telling us about it. “Here comes the Hindenberg.....”.

TALIBAN RULES
Rules of work for Hospitals & clinics that are based on Islamic Sharia principles. These are so ludicrous that it could make you laugh if you didn’t know that Taliban Fundamentalists believe it’s all very serious.
1. Female patients should go to female physicians. In case a male physician is needed, the female patient should be accompanied by her close relative.
2. During examination, the female patients and male physicians both should both should be dressed with Islamic hijab (veil).
3. Male physicians should not touch or see the other parts of female patients except for the affected part. (No hanky panky here!)
4. Waiting room for female patients should be safely covered. (Safely?)
5. During night duty, in rooms of female patients, the male doctor is not allowed to enter the room unless the patient calls him.
6. Sitting & speaking between male & female doctors are not allowed, if there is need for discussion, it should be done in hijab. (Quick, get me a hijab, this girl is dying!)
7. Female doctors should wear simple clothes, no use of cosmetics or make-up.
(Of course, the male doctor has to wear a black turban & full beard)
8. Female doctors & nurses are not allowed to enter rooms where male patients are.
9. Hospital staff should pray in mosques on time. (Five times a day? Here, hold this scalpel, I’ll be back in a few)
10. The Religious Police are allowed to go for control at any time and no one can prevent them.
11. Anyone who violates this order will be punished as per Islamic regulations.
(Like being stoned to death?)

DANCING WITH GHOSTS

9/11 DECADE OR “WE’LL SHOW ‘EM HOW TO BE IRRATIONAL!”

Freedom Tower! Ground Zero! Sacred ground. Hallowed ground. Patriot Act! Here we are on the tenth anniversary of the second attack on American soil in 50 years (Remember Pearl Harbor?). But it was a totally different kind of war, this time. A small group of religious fanatics (Muslim) were able to attack the biggest icon of America, incredibly only killing 3000 mem, women & children. Not only did they bring down the two tallest buildings in New York, a nearby 47 story building also totally collapsed, and maybe we don’t even know why. How did the other 40,000 workers escape the holocaust? The Masterminds, who sent these poor suicidal bastards to their deaths (and Paradise of unlimited sex for the rest of creation), could not have dreamed that their work would have such an impact on the American public.
Reacting without thinking, we immediately formed the third largest government agency (Patriot Act), went to war with a country that was not involved with the attack (Iraq) and involved our country in another civil war (Afganistan). Our military advisers, who were still ordering nuclear submarines & aircraft carriers, seemed to be unaware that we the cold war with communism was over 20 years ago, and it was no fun ordering very small groups of Seals around when they had some really big hardware that they kept ordering for their friends in the arms industry. But don’t get me started.
My rant here is about the attitude that the costs be damned, we must fight back by throwing our money around in a totally irresponsible and reckless manner that will be a heavy burden on the workers who will be commuting to the site for the next few decades (the increased fees on bridges & tunnels). Take the most important building, “Freedom Tower” or now called 1 WTC. This is supposed to be the tallest building in US, but only due to the 800 foot narwhale spear on top of it. High rise buildings are generally rated by the top occupied floor, not any spire. And they had to get it up to 1776', is that hokey or what? And why is this the most expensive building? First of all they placed it right next to a major highway, full of terrorists driving 737's around to crash into it with a bomb. So they made the first 65 feet a blast wall of steel & concrete, no rentable space here, with a glass skin of super super fragilistic tempered glass for what reason, to hold back a 737? One of the more important designers on the project was a security “expert” who decreed anti terrorist elements, no matter what the costs were. 3.3 billion dollars.
After wrangling for ten years, 19 public agencies, 2 developers, 33 architects, ended up with a melange of 5 skyscrapers, set in a crescent, which could give some protection to Freedom Tower from an aircraft attack, leaving the original site a memorial park, no matter what the cost. We’ll just buy up the surrounding properties to build the replacement buildings, for a total cost of 11 billion dollars. Of course, you must have a frivolous metro station by Calatrava, already over budget by $1 billion, his trademark, emulating a Brobdingnagian spiney mollusk.
I wasn’t ready for “Flag Day” on 9/11, why don’t we just make Labor Day (An obsolete Holiday) into “Ground Zero” Day? Worse than that, I saw our real heroes, professional footballers, all wearing little bumper sticker ribbons on their uniforms, after, of course, “Amazing Grace” was played for the thousandths tear jerking time. I can understand the terrible loss for the families of all the victims of this new type of warfare, but the rest of the country didn’t know these people, yet we act like “we are family”. Look at the idotic outpouring when the royal Diana got killed eluding papparotsi with a rich lover. I didn’t know her.
We might as well get used to these attacks by simple Muslim youths for the rest of our lives, as they are building new suicide bombers Dailey in their madrassa (schools) throughout the world.
Me? I don’t support the idea of any religion.

THIS IS GOVERNMENT?

BOOK REVIEW - A RATIONAL STUDY OF WHY OUR GOVERNMENT IS NON-FUNTIONAL

THE FUTURE OF FREEDOM By Fareed Zakaria
Why are US citizens disenchanted with our political system? Why has engagement in Public & Civic affairs declined 40% since the mid ‘60's? Attitudes toward our government shifted from positive to negative during the three decades of extraordinary growth & social stability. Something has gone wrong with American Democracy. Strangly, Zakaria believes there has been one big change - The Democritization of Politics. Sounds crazy, eh? We have opened ourselves up to greater public contact & influence in an effort to become more democratic. Organized groups - Special Interests - now run Washington. It’s not that politicos are unwilling to hear our pleas. It is that they do scarcely anything but listen to the American People. Public opinion is too important for them - lobbyists, activists, consultants, pols use this info for the basis of their actions. As the pandering has gone up, the public attitude toward pols has gone down.
Meanwhile, some of our major institutions are distinctly Undemocratic - For instance our Court Systems - power by unelected judges (for life!). Political parties - Candidates & platforms are chosen by party hierarchies. But his was done internally before going to the public. Representatives & senators met in committees to trade, barter & compromise. The legislature is the best indirect democracy. We choose who will legislate for us. They do not write or pass bills. James Madison didn’t regard America as a democracy. Democracies are governed directly, thru popular assemblies, (like ancient Greece). He said the better term is a republic, where citizens delegate the task of governing to it’s representatives.
Edmond Burke (English) said “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement : and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion”. And Sen. Bradley said “If a politician adopted a policy without regard for it’s popularity, he is considered not brave, but stupid”. Most politicians that have left said our political system is out of control. But most voted for the changes that turned American politics into the hyper-responsive, poll - driven system, it has become. Under the banner of Democracy, “Good intentions have gone haywire”.
About 1970, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Watergate, Urban Violence were the challenges of our government. We had to “fix it”. In America, that meant democritizating. It was too closed & heirarchigal, we had to move power out of the hands of the leadership into the entire body of the members. They had to be more accountable & with greater scrutiny. Thirty years later, almost all agree it made matters worse. “Campaign finance laws, Independent Council statutes, nothing turned out the way it was supposed to” (Biden).
The House of Representatives ,1972, democritized the method of choosing committee chairs by party elections instead of seniority. The number of subcommittees expanded 50%, allowing unlimited numbers of new bills & amendments, from any member of the house. To do this, staffs grew by individual members, not committee chairs. From an institution dominated by 20 + powerful leaders, congress evolved into a collection of 535 independent political entrepreneurs, their own interests uppermost , e.i., to get re-elected.
With our open committee meetings & recorded votes, now each member has to vote publicly on every amendment. The purpose of these changes was to make congress more open & responsive. And it has - to Money, Lobbyists & Special Interests.
These activists ensure that the groups they represent are well taken care of in the federal budget & legal code. Well organized interest groups, no matter how small, - can ensure that government bends to their will. Reforms designed to produce majority rule have produced minority rule. “It isn’t that these groups don’t have a legitimate interest but they distort the process by wrangling over the smallest issues, leaving congress paralyzed & the public disgusted” (Sen. Bumpers).
As our government has become larger & more open, lobbyists have become Washington’s largest growth industry. In the mid ‘50's, there were 5,000 registered lobbyists, 10,000 in the ‘70's, 20,000 in the ‘90's. In 1979 there were 117 health groups in D.C., by ‘93 the number was seven times that. The rise of interest groups has made our government totally dysfunctional. D.C. is unable to trim, let alone eliminate - nearly any government program, no matter how obviously obsolete. Spending real money on new problems or opportunities in the U.S. has become close to impossible.
The industries, problems & opportunities of the future do not have lobbies ; Those of the past do. When government seems unable to apply reason or logic to it’s priorities & spending, people lose faith in it’s ability to solve new problems. We have evolved into a self-organizing structure 20% under control of politicians & voters and 80% under control of countless thousands of client groups. Any serious attempt at change produces instant well-organized opposition from the small minority who are hurt by it & these are the minority who really run Washington.
James Madison in his famous Federalist Paper 51, placed his faith in the size & complexity of America. Small factions wouldn’t be able to have their way because other factions (outnumbering them) would thwart them (He was wrong).
Take Cuba for instance - Obvious to most Americans, 30 years after the cold war, they realize Cuban Communism no longer possess even the remotest geopolitical threat to us. However, Anti-Castro Cuban Americans have controlled the issue because they live in two electorally significant states, (Florida & New Jersey). Thus a handful of Americans have been able to dictate American Foreign policy for decades.
Here’s something surprising - political parties do not really exist in America anymore. They have become so open and decentralized that nobody controls them. The party is , at most, a fund-raising vehicle for a telegenic candidate (Looks good on TV). The bullet that killed the American political party was the primary election. Choosing a candidate was the most important decision a party organization made.
Campaign finance reform has suffered the same problems. Now a candidate must spend and entire year before the election wooing “Masters of the Rolex” to find enough galas & breakfasts to get enough cash for a campaign.
The growth of referendums is another aspect of the disease. In 1960, there were 88 issues, by 2000, it had risen to 204. As a result, 85% of our California state budget is outside of the legislature or governor’s control. I guess that could be called “Government by the people”. But then, if that’s the case, why do we need a legislature?
One of the biggest problems Zakaria sees, is there is probably no way to get out of this mess. I’m afraid I agree with him on that score.

LOST MY MIND
I have never considered myself an intellectual (I can’t even spell it!) and never gave concepts much thought even when I was ripping out great designs for hillside homes in Laguna Beach, until my first house was being published, the editor wanted to know what my philosophy of architecture was. I was greatly surprised to recommence I didn’t have one, I just worked on a gut level, solving the current problems as they came up. Of course I had a modus operandi, collecting all the relevant data on a project, utilizing the cantilevers in order to gain area economically, exposing structure whenever I could, using materials in a natural state and to have a low maintenance finished job. So I did sit down and invented my philosophy of design which seemed to satisfy the guy.
Since I had already solved the philosophy problem then, I currently am reviewing the likes of Socrates, Plato, Epictitus (Where’d he come from?). I’m finding that those thinkers are easier to read than the ones from the Middle Ages. A good example is Thomas Hobbes (1651), who some writer recommended I read. So I picked up his “Leviathan” , (It even sounds like Heavy reading) and tried to get into a couple of chapters, but to no avail. It didn’t take long before I was wallowing on a shipwreck of literature and had to take to the lifeboats in a short time. I retreated back to a couple of murder mysteries to salve my overburdened brain.

I DIDN’T MEAN TO DO IT!
I was just wondering the other day how many of the major religions began because the leader wanted to start one, or was it merely accidental? So I began looking at some of them.
HINDUISM - I guess you have to start here as it began about 1700 BC.
Is it even a religion? Anybody know who started it? Bob Hindi?
JEWS - Moses is blamed for it , or was it really Aaron? About 1400 BC. Of course, all the myths, stories of the Old Testament have been proved to be written several hundred years after the purported incident by many different scribes, priests, etc.
In other words, we don’t know who started it or if he wanted to be the Culprit.
BUDDHISM - Prince Siddhartha Gautama could have been an actual person, but people who experience enlightenment while sitting under a tree tend to be kind of non-organizers. (I am speaking from my own experience, here).

HISTORY OF RELIGIONS (Excerpt from my “History of Inventions” by J. Lamont Langworthy)

- 5000? Jain Lord Rishabha India
- 5000? Brahmanism ? India
- 1750 Zorasterism Zoroaster (Ahura Mazda) Persia
- 1500 Hindu ? India
- 1200 Jews (Maybe one God) Moses (Yeah, right) Israel
- 900 Greeks Lots of Gods! Greece
- 500 Confucianism Kong Fuzi China
- 500 Buddhist Prince Siddhartha Gautama India
- 200? Mayan, Aztec, Inca ? Mexico & Chile
- 150 Taoism Lau-Tzu China

Now up to this point, there were lots of Gods to blame every thing on. From here on, there was only one God. But this one God was totally different from the one God you were worshiping.

+ 300 Roman Catholic Jesus blamed for it Israel
+ 600 Islam Mohammed Saudi Arabia
+ 1000 Orthodox Catholic Jesus Constantinople
+ 1517 Lutheran Martin Luther Germany
+ 1534 Church of England King Henry VIII England
+ 1560 Presbyterian John Calvin Scotland
+ 1500? Unitarian ? Europe
+ 1600 Congregationalist from Puritanism England
+ 1650 Quakers George Fox England
+ 1607 Baptist John Smyth Amsterdam
+ 1744 Methodist Charles Wesley England
+ 1789 Episcopalian Samuel Seabury American Colonies
+ 1780 Unitarian ? England
+ 1800 Bahai Faith Bahaullah ?
+ 1830 Mormon (Latter-Day Saints) Joe Smith Palmyra, US
+ 1865 Salvation Army William Booth London
+ 1879 Christian Scientist Mary Baker Eddy Los Angeles
+ 1870 Jehovah’s Witness Charles Taze Russell Pennsylvania
+ 1901 Pentecostal ? (United States) United States
+ 1930 Foursquare Gospel Aimee Simple McPherson Los Angeles
+ 1953 Scientology L. Ron Hubbard United States

You’‘ note that I left out all the current hucksters like Graham, Falwell, etc.,

And then there are the:
Agnostics Profess uncertainty or skepticism about existence of God or Higher Being.
(Fence sitters!)
Atheists Do not believe in the existence of God or any other higher power.
Wait a minute! Not even The Laws of the Universe?

Seems the Christian Crusaders are still fighting the Muslims (Iraq and Afganistan).
We’ll teach the bastards, not to believe in our God, Oil !

IT'S THE 13TH!

MAYDAY
Let’s start with May 1, which in my very young days (I know we’re reaching way back for this) was an exciting time for us as we made up May baskets, small with flowers or treats that we left on a friends or neighbors doorstep. after ringing the bell, we ran away but if the ringee caught you, they would get a kiss. I don’t think little ones do that anymore, sounds too much like giving someone something when now we must just get stuff.
But somewhere along the way Unions decided it was a good time to make trouble. Of course, management didn’t exactly like the forming of unions in order to sort out their grieviances (The French word for strike is greve, if you travel a lot in in Europe, you’ll experience a lot of that). In Chicago, in 1886, the march resulted in a riot with bombs, anarchists and hangings. But the workers of the world didn’t let that stop them, with the result that in the worker’s paradise, Communist countries, make a really big showing of not just workers, but military arms parades to show they have more missiles than you.
We might as well get into the confusion of CINCO DE MAYO. This is not a holiday in Mexico, only with the 12 million illegal Mexicans in the US. This represents a victory over the French in a siege on Puebla in 1862. Somehow the Mexicans , with a force of 4,000 beat 8,000 French troops. The real Independence day was on Sep. 16, 1810, when they started the rebellion against Spain and didn’t get it until ten years later. Kind of like our hassle with Britain in 1776.
But the best battle of all was when the Mexicans caught a group of 62 French Foreign Legionaires at Cameron in a small inn with a fortified wall. The Mexicans had about 4,000 troop and they kept trying to get the Legionaires to surrender but they wouldn’t do it even though they had no water. Capitan D’anjou was in charge, (he had a wooden hand carved like a glove), but after he and most of the others had been killed, about five men led a bayonet charge after running out of ammunition. Two were finally overwhelmed and subdued. Fortunately, his hand is in the legion Museum in Aubane, France,. (Viva Le Legion Etranger Francaise!!)

POWER GENERATION
This is probably not a good time to comment on nuclear power but let’s not get all excited about a radiation spill. Up to this time, although 35,000 Japanese have been killed by the triple catastrophe, I believe only a few may have died due to the nuclear plant problems. Of course, by the time the whole thing is over, there will certainly be more deaths attributed to the plant. But let’s take a look at the big picture.
Questions:
1. How do France (80% of nation’s electricity) , Japan (30%) & Germany (20% of electricity, just like US) take care of their waste? Does anyone reprocess it yet? Yes, the French, Japanese, Russians & U.K. do it, everyone but the US. do reprocess the waste which reduces it by about 75%.
2. New designs are looking to use the nuclear waste for fuel in a design called A Fast Reactor. This is not being done in the US.
3. Maybe we should look at the dangers of electric generation in the light of deaths per watt produced. The World Health Organization has put together figures on the human costs of all different methods of electric generation and it has some surprising results. The following figures are world wide numbers in terawatts/hrs, One terawatt=one million watts). But coal kills more people than anyone as these figures include deaths from lung problems, mine disasters, etc..
COAL 454 deaths per terawatt/hrs
OIL/GAS/BIO 64 per TWh
SOLAR .44 per TWh
HYDRO 1.4 per TWh
NUCLEAR .04 per Twh What !? Not possible !

The above figures don’t include deaths from the wars we fight in middle East for oil, nor the 100,000 civilians that die from “collateral damage”. The US alone has about 1,000 deaths a year from installing Solar stuff.
Even Chernoble, 50 deaths were due directly while they figure about 4,000 may die earlier due to the explosion but cause & effect of the disaster are difficult to quantify.
Air pollution in the US may kill 30,000 per year while in China they figure about 500,000 may die early. Well, there are too many of them over there, anyway.
It’s time for us to look at EFW or Energy From Waste. In the US & UK about 80% of our waste still goes to landfills, while we generate electricity with only 7% of our waste. In contrast, Germany only puts 1% in landfills and generates 67% of waste into energy.

THE CELESTIAL DYNAMO
The sun does not stand still, it circles the galaxy in 250 million earth years, during which time our galaxy has moved thru space which gives our sun a spiral trail . Since earth and the rest of the solar system (It’s planets) circle the sun, this means the resulting trail thru space are coils resembling the windings of a generator. Where do you think all the energy comes from to run the suns?

A LOOK AT EBOLA, WHICH MAKES AIDS LOOK BENIGN
My understanding of the Ebola Virus is it originated around 1976 in a huge cave in Africa that was made by elephants tusking around the edges, maybe for salt or something, then the walls kept collapsing where they were undermined. This resulted is a huge vaulted cavern where monkeys somehow got infected with something from the caves. Since Africans and some Asians eat the brains of some monkeys (Better make mine well done, please) it was passed into the human strain. Easily transmitted thru blood, it will devastate the body in a matter of days, during which the body has a melt down with large quantities of infected blood gushing out all over the place. Anyway, the virus was transmitted throughout Africa along the Kinshasha highway, mostly be truckers who frequented the prostitutes along the way. This virus is nasty, killing the infected within 2 to 18 days, with a death of 50% to 90%. This stuff destroys the blood vessel lining resulting in hemorragic fever. Fortunately it acts so quickly that it kills it’s hosts before it can spread all over. There is no known vaccine for it.

URINE TESTS
Although this is a widespread practice in the US, I still believe it to be an invasion of privacy. For sports, you might as well make it legal as it seems athletes need steroids & blood cleaners to be in top shape. Bicyclists use a type of blood cleaner that Is not talked about much, but seems to be illegal. They take some of your blood, freeze it for several weeks, then put it back in you veins. Is that really doping? Just imagine what they’ll be doing in the future. (Hard to imagine). Or now, they inject a drug, EPO, to do the same but you can discover it by urine tests. They do this with soldiers before going on a mission if you want to have an edge.
Now testing for pot, cocaine, heroin & ecstacy is a little different. It seems to me that it is a result of religious persecution, in other words, why does someone care if I am having a couple of hours of hilarious time? I assume there must be some pretty big lobbyists to keep it illegal, like alcohol and law enforcement who get plenty of loot from the busts. Our drug habit has ruined Mexico, and eroded our freedoms even before the “Patriot Act”. There are always going to be people who will be prone to overuse of drugs, and it probably wouldn’t get much worse even if it was all legalized. If I have a bad cough in Europe, I only have to stop at a pharmcia to get a cough syrup that contains Codeine, no big deal. I don’t understand why we spend billions a year on this when it doesn’t change anything. REMEMBER! DRUG USE IS NOT DRUG ABUSE!
Random urine testing is not allowed in Canada due to their Human Rights Act. (Don’t we have one of those?). No pre-employment screening. Only alcohol testing where safety of employees is involved. Who cares what you do at home ?
To answer the question you’ve all been asking: Poppy seeds really do show positive if you have enough of them. Maybe a hundred or more?


THE TIDES QUESTION
I’ve always been confused by why certain places have huge tides and other nearly none. Ever since I’ve traveled in Brittany and Scotland to see all the boats in a harbor sitting on the ground at each low tide I finally looked it up on Wikipedia. I had assumed that the closer to the poles, the larger the tidal height was, but that is totally wrong. As there is basically no tidal flux at the North pole, yet the Bay of Fundy has a 53 foot tide. How do you tie a boat up on a dock? Yet Some islands in the middle of the pacific have none at all. There are high tides on the West coast of Panama but nearly none on the East coast. It seems to have to do more with the configuration of the land mass or something. And here I always thought the bloody moon was the culprit.
I’ve mentioned the Tidal Generation facility in Brittany before. Installed in 1966, it generates 96 megawatts a day on an average.

METRIC
One of my Quixotic quests in my life (Design of our money, our flag design) is what in hell happened to the metric system in the US. When in 1586 Flemish mathematician Simon Stevin published a pamphlet of measurement based on the circumference of the earth he declared it so important that universal use of weights, measures & coinage would only be a matter of time. Well, he didn’t know how backward & ignorant us folks in the US were going to be, did he? Just in the last couple of centuries most countries have adopted the metric system except three countries. The United Ignoramis’s of America, Liberia (Africa) and Burma (Myanmar). Why can’t we join the modern world? Are we too arrogant? How do we build automobiles, heavy machinery, aircraft if we are not using metric? Who is it that keeps us from joining the rest of the world except two other really backward countries? Can’t we take baby steps and adopt the 24 hour clock to avoid zillions of hours of confusion? To hell with all you Luddites. You can just keep your fucking inches, cubits, feet, fathoms, rods, cables miles and leagues. A metric pox on you!
Viva le metric !! On the right I have designed a schedule to get your attention.

FRIDAY THE 13TH
I thought I’d mention this today and find out where such an idiotic pastime came from. There are several theories. First, the two biblical ones are there were 13 guys at the last supper (So what?), and the crucifixion happened to be connected to 13. Not the last half of cruci-fiction is all fiction.
However, a more recent one happened in the middle ages when The Knights Templar organization became really rich & the French king and the pope got together, arrested all of them throughout Europe, tortured, killed them ,but mostly got all their money and properties.
Yet, there wasn’t much ado about before the 1900's until a novel, Friday the 13th came out, then everyone freaked out and still do. Can you believe that some high rise buildings don’t have a 13th floor, as no one will rent it? Most high rise make that the mechanical floor. This is just plain crazy!