Image Credit: Weird Universe
San Francisco Examiner
10-27-1968
The International Society for the Abolition of Data-Processing Machines […] was founded by Harvey Matusow in the late 1960s. Its aim was “to conduct guerrilla warfare against the computer by such means as sending a penny too much or too little when paying a utility bill.”
Matusow also authored The Beast of Business, which was supposed to serve as a manual for the guerrilla warfare against the computer. I wonder if any of the techniques he detailed would still work today?
However, Matusow is best known for giving evidence in court against individuals during the McCarthy era. Later, he claimed that the FBI had paid him to give false testimony and he detailed these allegations in his book False Witness.
[P]roceedings against [Kidd] had been long and notorious. The actions for which he was tried had been still more notorious, one involving murder and five [involving] piracy. His career had been brief, brilliant in the beginning [but], catastrophic at the end. The general excitement at the time of his execution and, all during his imprisonment in London, had been at [a] fever pitch. Gossip went to work and, the wildest of tales of Kidd’s wickedness and wealth were believed. […] Upon his death, numerous accounts, both factual and fictitious, appeared.
William Hallam Bonner
University of Buffalo
American Literature, Vol. 15, No. 4, Jan. 1944 Journal Storage
Of all the things written and expressed, the ballad Captain Kid’s Farewel to the Seas (or the Famous Pirate’s Lament) was the only thing to survive. It was quite popular in the Colonies where the Captain had a home and may be considered America’s first folk legend. There is a British version and an American version, which changed the Captain’s first name to Robert for some strange reason and, several contemporary covers. The last website, below, has his name as John. He had to be hanged, twice, as the rope broke the first time. ~Vic
Gore Vidal: […on Truman’s voice…] “To the lucky person who has never heard it, I can only say…imagine what a brussel sprout would sound like, if a brussel sprout could talk.”
Truman Capote: […on Smith & Hickock…] “When you’re talking to them, they seem like perfectly nice boys. To be frank, I’m much more concerned for my safety around Norman Mailer.”
This is the second movie on Truman Capote regarding his foray into the Clutter Family murders. Released August 31, 2006, at the Venice Film Festival and widely on October 13, 2006, this film stood in the shadow of Philip Seymour Hoffman‘s Capote and his Academy Award for Best Actor. Unlike its predecessor, this film, with its $13 million budget, lost money. That being said, despite Hoffman’s turn, Toby Jones is no slouch and his interpretation has its own unique depth. Jones was awarded the London Critics’ Circle Film Award for British Actor of the Year. I found this film to be fascinating and quite entertaining, with parts difficult to watch. Bubbly Sandra Bullock brings forth the subdued, Southern To Kill A Mockingbird novelist Harper Lee. Much of the storytelling is done in mock interviews with the actors, in character, talking about their interactions with Truman. I seem to have a thing for underdog/obscure movies. ~Vic
“Why shouldn’t there be a fizzy, comedic take on the naughty adventures of the Park Avenue gadabout as he fashioned In Cold Blood […]? Why not a movie that concentrates on the contrast between the writer’s frivolous party-boy side and the brutal murders in Kansas, the exotic and colorful tropical specimen who becomes a fish-out-of water when he jumps from his luxurious high-rise swan pond into the Midwestern plains?
[A]fter In Cold Blood, [Capote] never published another major work. Out of career desperation as much as anything else, he sold out his friendships with these […] people, publishing gossipy stories about them in an Esquire excerpt from Answered Prayers in 1976 and was banished from their lives.
[T]he movie centers on the symbiotic relationship between Truman and Perry, pondering the extent of the seduction and, who seduced whom.
Toby Jones inhabits Truman as if he were to the character born, a livelier and more perversely ebullient man than Phillip Seymour Hoffman‘s version in Capote (2005).”
Sylvester Stallone put on 40 pounds to play Nowheresville, N.J., sheriff Freddy Heflin in Cop Land […]. His town is run by Ray Donlan (Keitel) and the other New York cops who have settled there with their families. He wears blinders when it comes to their lawbreaking and mob dealings. Moe Tilden (De Niro), the internal-affairs officer out to get the goods on Cop Land, correctly pegs Freddy as “a man looking for something to do.” Keitel’s [Donlan] exudes dangerous energy. He cares for his own as long as they don’t cross him […]. Robert Patrick brings sly menace to Rucker […]. Ray Liotta […], as Gary Figgis, [is] a tainted cop who sides with Freddy.
Mangold […] has a rare talent for finding the human drama in ordinary lives.
Writer-director James Mangold […] wrangles an impressive cast […] and spins a compelling tale of cancerous corruption among a secretive group of New York’s finest who have settled in the fictional New Jersey burg of Garrison. [Stallone] indeed looks chunky and plays the sleepy, docile Sheriff […] with sluggishness to spare in a largely commendable performance as a half-deaf small-town dreamer. [He] is not given much in the way of memorable dialogue but, he makes the character work […]. [Having] yet to replace his LP of The River with a CD, [he] carries a torch for the local Jersey girl (Sciorra) he saved from drowning…the reason for his loss of hearing in one ear…[he] once longed to be a big-city cop but, had to settle for policing them.
Freddy gradually realizes that he doesn’t like how the town has turned out.
I saw this at the theater when it came out and caught it, again, a few nights ago. I was born and raised in law enforcement and, worked in it, too (non-sworn). I’ve known good cops and I’ve known some really bad ones. I love a well written cop movie and this was an unusual one in that Stallone wasn’t playing a bad ass like Rambo, Cobra, Tango, John Spartan (though I do love that movie) or Ray Quick. This character was different…subdued. His scenes with Annabella Sciorra have Springsteen playing in the background which adds depth and texture to the mood. This is clearly a period piece as all the vehicles, hair cuts and clothing styles are, effectively, early 80s. The River came out in 1980 and music from the Director’s Cut, like Blue Oyster Cult‘s Burnin’ For You came out in 1981. This also manages to cover the Crime category via IMDb and the Film Noir category, simultaneously, via Historical Dictionary of Film Noir (2010). ~Vic
Mississippi: “[…] My name is Alan Bourdillion Traherne.” Cole: “Lord Almighty…”
Sheriff Harrah: “Who is he?” Cole: “Tell him your name, Mississippi.” Mississippi: [sigh] “Alan Bourdillion Traherne.” Sheriff Harrah: “Well, no wonder he carries a knife.”
Mississippi: “Always make you mad, don’t I?” Cole: “Mostly.”
Cole Thornton (Wayne) is a gunslinger for hire and land owner Bart Jason (Asner) has offered him a job. J. P. Harrah (Mitchum) is a Sheriff and an old friend of Cole’s. When Harrah informs Cole of Jason’s intention to use him to push the MacDonald family off of their land for water rights, Cole refuses the job. After shooting the youngest MacDonald son, unintentionally, during a volley of gunfire, Cole is wounded by the MacDonald daughter (Carey), in return, after he brings the deceased boy back home. Cole suffers intermittent paralysis on his right side throughout the rest of the movie. With the help of a gambler (Caan) he crosses paths with and the Sheriff’s deputy (Hunnicutt), Cole straightens out the drunken Sheriff, tangles with another gunslinger (George), derails Jason’s takeover and just might stop his previous ways for his lady, Maudie (Holt).
Mississippi repeats parts of the Edgar Allen Poepoem (except the second stanza) during the film, aggravating Cole somewhat (Caan had trouble with the word “boldly”, slurring it to sound like either “bowlie” or “bodie”). He’s also terrible with a gun and couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn (but, I love that hat!). Cole gets him a shotgun and later regrets it as he has scatter shot in his leg at the end of the movie.
This is my favorite John Wayne movie even though it is an ensemble cast. A close second is The Quiet Man where Wayne played another “Thornton” character. ~Vic
Dean Corso is a bit of a sleazy rare book dealer from New York with questionable ethics. Boris Balkan, a wealthy collector, hires Corso to determine if a book he owns (the book to the left/above) is authentic. The author, supposedly, wrote the book with help from the Devil and only three copies of the book are known to exist after the author was burned at the stake during the Inquisition, along with his works. Corso must find the other two to complete his investigation. Balkan believes that the owner of the book would have the power to summon said Devil. As the skeptical Corso travels and searches, he is followed by a mysterious woman. He eventually becomes obsessed with his task and desires the complete truth. The movie twists and turns to it’s bizarre ending. Depp is a strange cat but, he makes really interesting movies. Visually, Polanski intended for Corso to resemble Philip Marlowe. ~Vic
The film spans Jill’s slalom races to her national championship, her best friend’s polio contraction, her accident while attempting to win the Alta, UT, Snow Cup, her hospital stay, her slow rehabilitation, her heartbreak from the losses of two dear men and her triumph at becoming a teacher.
Released July 25, 1975, the film was panned by critics for being too much of a tear-jerker. That may be true but, she did have a really hard time. The sequel was released February 10, 1978 and was panned even worse. I saw them in reverse order. I was only nine years old when the first movie came out so, I didn’t get to see it until I was an adult. I saw Part II, first, when it was released to television. I enjoyed both films despite the bad reviews. Sometimes, bringing someone’s life story to the big screen is handled poorly. Jill passed away February 9, 2012.
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, […] often called the Gunpowder Treason Plot or the Jesuit Treason [in earlier centuries], was a failed assassination attempt against King James I by a group of provincial English Catholics led by Robert Catesby.
The plot was revealed to the authorities in an anonymous letter sent to William Parker, 4th Baron Monteagle, on [October] 26, 1605. During a search of the House of Lords in the evening on [November] 4, 1605, Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, enough to reduce the House of Lords to rubble, and [was] arrested. Most of the conspirators fled from London as they learned of the plot’s discovery, trying to enlist support along the way. Several made a stand against the pursuing Sheriff of Worcester and his men at Holbeche House […]. [In] the ensuing battle, Catesby was one of those shot and killed. At their trial on [January] 27 1606, four hundred, fifteen years ago, today, eight of the survivors, including Fawkes, were convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered.
The thwarting of the Gunpowder Plot was commemorated for many years afterwards by special sermons and other public events such as the ringing of church bells, which evolved into the British variant of Bonfire Night of today.
First bars of the Gigue
from Suite #1
Source: IMSLP
Image Credit: Wikipedia & Wikimedia
The six partitas for solo violin by Johann Paul von Westhoff are the earliest known published music for solo violin. Although Westhoff’s compositions were rediscovered by scholars […] in the mid-19th century, this work was not found until the late 20th century.
The collection […] was discovered […] by musicologist Peter P. Várnai. He announced his discovery in a 1971 article […] published in Die Musikforschung, volume 24. The extant copy is dated 1696 (three hundred & twenty-five years, ago) but, it may be a reprint (partial or full) of a much earlier publication by Westhoff…the Erstes Dutzend Allemanden, Couranten, Sarabanden und Giguen Violino Solo sonder Passo Continuo. [That] collection was published in Dresden in 1682 and is considered lost. The first modern edition of the partitas appeared in 1974.
Nothing is known about how or when the partitas were composed. One other work for solo violin by Westhoff survives, a 1683 suite published in an issue of Dresden’s Mercure galant. [It] is entirely possible that the composer had more solo violin works. The […] surviving partitas are historically important works […] and were most probably the inspiration for Johann Sebastian Bach‘s sonatas and partitas for solo violin.
The partitas all consist of four dances, arranged in the standard late Baroque order… an Allemande, the Courante, the Sarabande and the Gigue. The music is technically demanding. [It is] fully polyphonic with frequent instances of tricky double stopping.
Johann Paul von Westhoff was a German Baroque composer and violinist. One of the most important exponents of the Dresden violin school, he was among the highest ranked violinists of his day […].
I remember when she wowed the whole world on the fourth season of American Idol in 2005. It’s hard to believe that it has been over 15 years since she stormed the music world. I never watched the show but, she was all over the media. When I heard Before He Cheats on the radio, I knew she was gonna be an incredible star and, as far as I’m concerned, she could sing the phone book to me. I don’t own any of her albums/CDs as, after the 90s, everything went digital.
♦ The music video portrays the song as a prequel to her Before He Cheats song, even going so far as to hire the same actor to play the man in question.
♦ [This song] became Underwood’s fastest single to hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart after only 13 weeks of its official release […]. It stayed there for one week.
♦ 2009 Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance.
We have all seen the increasing number of newspaper articles where the scientists and climatologists, who were the main protagonists of “man-made” global warming, withdrawing their research and claiming that governments misquoted them. The outcome being that there is now a great deal of doubt over whether the world is warming up, man-made, or not. Most of the arguments have been used to back up the Oscar winning film by Al Gore called An Inconvenient Truth. This film is now part of UK school curriculums for children over the age of eleven. In 2007, a concerned parent began a court case against the British Government claiming that this film, and its supporting material taught in schools, was full of false claims. The court case eventually ended up in the High Court and was adjudged to be tantamount to propaganda as the claims made could not be substantiated by government scientists. The judges ruled on a number of points and declared that, if the film was shown in schools without “balancing” material being taught alongside it, the teacher could also be breaking the law, as teaching propaganda is not legal (section 406 of the Education Act 1996).
So, what is the real truth about Global Warming?
The climate has always changed in accordance with the amount of energy we receive from the Sun. For example, in Roman times, Britain’s climate was an average of about three degrees warmer than currently and the Romans were able to grow grape vines along Hadrian’s Wall. Since then, the average temperature has risen and fallen several times, sometimes warmer than now, sometimes cooler than now. Between 1000 and 1350, the average global temperatures were about one degree warmer than currently and, is known as the Medieval Warm Period. However, in about 1400, the average temperature began to drop to about one and a half degrees below current levels and, a Mini Ice Age began. This was the reason why the Thames froze over in London and the fashion for winter fayres began. The last winter fayre took place in 1815 (PDF has typos) as the temperature began to rise and the Thames no longer froze. Average global temperatures have been rising ever since.
This date of 1815 has been used as the basis of the argument that global warming is man-made as this date also coincides with a growing use of fossil fuels. If the global temperatures are rising because of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels then, it should continue to rise as we produced more and more carbon dioxide. However, in 1995 global temperatures stopped rising and have generally dropped ever since (official figures from the Meteorological Office). This period of cooling also coincides with a reduction of the Sun’s activities (called a Maunder Minimum) which is still continuing and hence, the slow drop in temperatures. This is why all of the scientists are back-tracking on their claims. [T]here is no evidence to support them.
So where did the claims for man-made global warming arise?
The first evidence of it being a deliberate attempt to mislead us was uncovered by researcher and presenter Ian R. Crane in a document written by the Club of Rome. This document is called The First Global Revolution and was written in 1991. This document outlined a plan where if humanity was made to believe that fossil fuels were responsible for global warming, a “carbon tax” could be levied which would be used to finance “The New World Order”. This is the same New World Order that every head of government, worldwide, has proclaimed for the last twenty years. In other words, carbon based man-made global warming is a deliberate hoax. This deliberate hoax is confirmed by the hundreds of emails released from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit.
I can hear you all whispering “conspiracy theory” behind the back of your hands and giggling about what I’ve said here. Except, the High Court ruling, together with the release of the emails, means that this is not a conspiracy “theory” but, a conspiracy “proof”.
Always “feel” for the truth of a claim before you believe it.
But, we are likely to see temperatures rising again in the near future as the Maunder Minimum comes to an end, estimated in 2011/2012 and the Sun increases its energy output. Other changes are also to come as the Earth’s axis continues to shift to vertical (see The Universal Soul). This shift of axis has recently been confirmed by the Inuit peoples of Canada by their long-term observations of celestial constellations. The Inuit noticed that the constellations are in a different position leading them to conclude that the Earth’s axis is moving towards the vertical.
This observation by the Inuit is also backed up by the observations of hundreds of amateur astronomers. The axis shift also accounts for the Magnetic Pole shift. The Magnetic Pole isn’t actually shifting. That is staying in the same place. It is the relationship between the Pole and land masses that is changing as the Earth’s axis changes. In other words, the Pole is staying put but, it is the Earth that is moving. This axis change will also bring about climate change but, it is more likely to bring about a stable climate than storms and floods.
However, this does not mean that we should abandon our obligations to the planet and to the environment. The strategies adopted by many people, who took their responsibility for responsible use of fossil fuels seriously, needs to continue. Don’t forget that every tree cut down is a tree lost and, all coal, gas and oil used depletes the Earth’s resources, as well as adding to pollution. [S]o, we all need to continue to be aware of the impact of our actions.
Make your footprints as small as possible…carbon or otherwise
If you haven’t finished your holiday shopping, the North Carolina Department of Transportation is offering up a piece of Americana but, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny.
When the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus closed their doors, NCDOT saw an opportunity to add to its fleet. That plan was derailed before the cars could hit the rails and, now, they’re being put up for public auction.
NCDOT spent just over $380,000 on [the] Ringling Brothers rail cars.
“These cars have a great and amazing history,” said Jason Orthner, director of the NCDOT rail division.
However, plans to refurbish the cars were quickly put on hold when NCDOT calculated the costs. “This was more on the long-term play of really looking into our rail program and how we take it into the future,” said Orthner.
Image Credit: New York Public Library
Wikimedia & Wikipedia
Funding from two federal grants totaling $157 million rendered the rehab of the Ringling Bros. cars obsolete and will soon allow the NCDOT to replace their entire fleet.
“If we hadn’t been successful at winning those grants, we would’ve taken a really hard look at putting these in service,” said Orthner. “We really want to do the best thing for the citizens of North Carolina with the limited funding that we have available.”
That’s why they’re listing the rail-cars on the state surplus site for a minimum price that’s $32,000 more than the NCDOT paid for all of the cars but, without any bids, it’s unclear if anyone will actually buy them.
“Tourist railroad operations, car collectors and other enthusiasts would certainly be interested in these cars,” said Orthner. “There are operations around the country that run train service for excursion purpose, or other purposes, that would be interested in equipment like this.”
This is my last countdown post. I’ve saved my favorite gingerbread house for last. I’ve been inside this place and you can feel its history. Unfortunately, I didn’t take any pictures when I was there. Before the world went insane, Ayr Mount would host Scottish Festivals. ~Vic
Adult Category
12-09-2020
Click for a larger view.Window Insert
Click for a larger view.Photo Credit: memory.loc.gov
February 1965
Wikipedia & Wikimedia
Cosmic-Observation 