A Humane Goldfish Bowl

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By Jeffrey the Barak

You can spend five-thousand dollars setting up and stocking a huge tropical reef aquarium, and the bastards won’t even look at you. But put a one dollar goldfish in a five dollar bowl, and that little fish will await your return twenty times a day, eager to play follow the finger and he or she will gaze at you and love you like a puppy dog.
Ethics.
If you ever play the game, or perform the exercise of, Word Association, then the the most common response to “Goldfish”, is “Bowl”.
The typical picture of a goldfish, in photographs, cartoons and on film, is a picture of a goldfish in a bowl. But if you let people know that you have a goldfish in a bowl, they will consider you cruel, and they will tell you that a goldfish needs to live in a long tank with an elaborate filter system, and then move to a pond when it matures.
There is probably one pond around per million goldfish. Most live, and die, in aquariums or in bowls.
So the question arises, how can a goldfish be humanely kept in a bowl? Is it automatically cruel, reprehensible and impossible, or is the noble rescue of a commercially bred goldfish from the pet store, and the keeping of such an animal in a bowl justifiable.
It’s all about the water.
Actually, it is humane to keep a goldfish in a bowl, as long as the water is good, and as long as the fish can be relocated to a pond or large habitat when it becomes mature, as in too big the live in the bowl. It is not automatically cruel to keep one in a bowl.
But a goldfish aquarium has features that are missing from a simple empty glass bowl full of water. There are many elements that remove or convert toxic chemicals from the water, and also elements that support living bacteria that help keep the water healthy for your fish.
These elements include gravel, biological media, cotton filters, carbon filters, air stones, bubble wands and more. Each has a duty as part of a system to remove harmful wastes from the water and to keep it clean, oxygenated and nourishing to the skin and gills of the fish. Even if you have a nice large aquarium with elaborate filters, gravel and air systems, it is quite easy to mismanage the systems and end up with cloudy, uncomfortable water that will make the fish sick or even cause them to die.
So then, if an aquarium system costing hundreds of dollars can be that bad, how could a bowl be better? The answer is simple, the bottom line is the state of the water. The fish only depends on the quality of the water and it does not matter if this perfect water is introduced as-is or if it relies on a system to make it so. In fact it is less cruel for a goldfish to be in a bowl of perfect water than it is to be in a less-than-perfect larger aquarium.
The way to have water in a fish bowl that is as good as or even better than the water in an aquarium system is to have a second vessel. Water can be obtained by buying bottled water, which is often called mountain spring water, or it can come from a tap water filter, as long as it is not the reverse-osmosis kind. It cannot be distilled water, de-ionized water, or water containing municipal chlorine or other chemicals designed to protect human consumers from food poisoning.
But this is easy. If you have drinking water at home for the human occupants, it can usually sit in a bucket for a day and become safe for a goldfish to live in. But to be extra sure, you can add a drop or two of aquarium water conditioner and a granule or two of aquarium salt before it sits, so that by the time your fish is living in it the next day, it will be nourishing and comfortable.
So one simple way to have a goldfish living in perfect water is to have two bowls. Each day the fish can be moved to the other bowl, while the first bowl can be emptied, wiped clean and refilled with water that will be ready for the fish to live in the next day. As long as your home never gets freezing cold inside and you do not feed the fish more than it can eat in a minute, or more than two to six times a week, the fish should remain in healthy condition and be quite content with it’s environment.
Better yet, to have a similar system that does not involve removing the animal with a net, and potentially causing stress from the move, you could empty most of the water, leaving the goldfish in the remaining water, and then introduce the clean water from the second vessel. Using this method, you can even have a small, lightweight rectangular tank, such as an affordable plastic “Lee’s Kritter Keeper” and a cheap plastic bucket as the second vessel. If you have a water filter on your kitchen faucet (not reverse-osmosis) then you can refill the bucket from that and use it the next day. For this system you don’t even need a net. Just one bowl/lightweight tank, and a second bucket.
As long as the goldfish has not reached a size where the bowl is too small for it to swim freely in one direction for a couple of seconds, and you are able to offer it some visual stimulation from outside the bowl a few times a day, then you will have a happy healthy fish in clean water at all times. Just be ready to bid farewell to your beloved friend when it’s time for it to move to a big pond for the rest of it’s, hopefully long, life. If there is no sign of such a pond within a hundred miles of your house, then most aquarium stores will be willing to take in a donated healthy-looking large goldfish in exchange for another one-dollar feeder to rescue from a certain date with death. Hopefully they’ll sell it to someone with a big pond or aquarium.
So we have to remember a few things to justify a goldfish bowl. Goldfish are not natural. They were bred by man to become attractive golden fish and were originally hardy river carp, scavengers that could survive in ponds, streams and rivers, eating anything and everything, and since they don’t have a stomach, but rather just a long intestine, they would excrete the waste quickly and make the water dirty. An expensive and complicated aquarium system intended to condition the water may fail to do so for many reasons, and it is very easy, or even highly likely, to have a goldfish in such an aquarium, suffering distress from a less than optimal water quality. A bowl can contain clean, healthy, comfortable water if you have the two bowl system, or a bowl and bucket system. The water in this bowl can be, at all times, better than the water in most people’s aquaria. And lastly, even if your goldfish dies after a few months, as they may do through no fault of the owner, it can be a few months of a good life that it would not have had as food for an aquarium carnivore.
Aside from the well-being of the fish, the advantages of a goldfish bowl over an aquarium are many. They don’t cost much, they don’t weigh as much as your sister riding a bike, they don’t require electricity or reinforced furniture, and you can move them from room to room in order to spend more time interacting with your pet.
While it is always nice to see healthy goldfish in a clean, healthy large aquarium, it is also not so good to see them suffering in a cloudy, dirty tank and exhibiting spots, sores and nervous behavior.  Your happy healthy bowl fish will be better off than most goldfish alive today.
What does the fish need in it’s bowl?
Goldfish are bred from carp, which are scavengers. This is why goldfish can be seen constantly sucking pieces of gravel into their mouths and spitting it out. You may assume they are playing or trying to keep busy or wishing they had something to eat, or extracting some nutrients from the bacteria on the gravel, but they just can’t help this natural behavior. In an aquarium system the gravel can be a medium for the growth and support of healthy bacteria, but it is also a hiding place for fish waste that breaks down and introduces harmful elements into the water. So if you can stand the inevitable sight of a few strands of fish poop in your bowl, don’t bother with the gravel, because let’s remember, it’s all about the water quality, not the objects.
And speaking of objects, goldfish are more intelligent than most people assume and they love to follow your finger and look at you and play with you, but they have no need for decorations or toys. In fact such objects can cause injury because part of the natural behavior of a fish is to be occasionally startled and move several inches at a remarkably high speed. Better if there is no castle or treasure chest to collide with.
The minimalism of a clear empty bowl and a healthy fish in clean water is ideal. If you want to landscape the habitat, then set up a large aquarium system.
So if you would like a little golden friend to interact with while you sit at your desk all day, don’t be put off by people telling you a goldfish bowl is a cruel habitat. Remember it’s all about the water, and if the water is always good and there is enough of it to permit a little swimming, your fish will be content.

bowlsYou can spend five-thousand dollars setting up and stocking a huge tropical reef aquarium, and the bastards won’t even look at you. But put a one dollar goldfish in a five dollar bowl, and that little fish will await your return twenty times a day, eager to play follow the finger and he or she will gaze at you and love you like a puppy dog.

Ethics.

If you ever play the game, or perform the exercise of, Word Association, then the the most common response to “Goldfish”, is “Bowl”.

The typical picture of a goldfish, in photographs, cartoons and on film, is a picture of a goldfish in a bowl. But if you let people know that you have a goldfish in a bowl, they will consider you cruel, and they will tell you that a goldfish needs to live in a long tank with an elaborate filter system, and then move to a pond when it matures.

The majority of goldfishes live out their lives without ever becoming mature pond dwellers. Most live, and die, in aquariums or in bowls.

So the question arises, how can a goldfish be humanely kept in a bowl? Is it automatically cruel, reprehensible and impossible, or is the noble rescue of a commercially bred goldfish from the pet store, and the keeping of such an animal in a bowl justifiable.

It’s all about the water.

Actually, it is humane to keep a goldfish in a bowl, as long as the water is good, and as long as the fish can be relocated to a pond or large habitat when it becomes mature, as in too big the live in the bowl. It is not automatically cruel to keep one in a bowl.

But a goldfish aquarium has features that are missing from a simple empty glass bowl full of water. There are many elements that remove or convert toxic chemicals from the water, and also elements that support living bacteria that help keep the water healthy for your fish.

These elements include gravel, biological media, cotton filters, carbon filters, air stones, bubble wands and more. Each has a duty as part of a system to remove harmful wastes from the water and to keep it clean, oxygenated and nourishing to the skin and gills of the fish. Even if you have a nice large aquarium with elaborate filters, gravel and air systems, it is quite easy to mismanage the systems and end up with cloudy, uncomfortable water that will make the fish sick or even cause them to die.

So then, if an aquarium system costing hundreds of dollars can be that bad, how could a bowl be better? The answer is simple, the bottom line is the state of the water. The fish only depends on the quality of the water and it does not matter if this perfect water is introduced as-is or if it relies on a system to make it so. In fact it is less cruel for a goldfish to be in a bowl of perfect water than it is to be in a less-than-perfect larger aquarium.

The way to have water in a fish bowl that is as good as or even better than the water in an aquarium system is to have a second vessel. Water can be obtained by buying bottled water, which is often called mountain spring water, or it can come from a tap water filter, as long as it is not the reverse-osmosis kind. It cannot be distilled water, de-ionized water, or water containing municipal chlorine or other chemicals designed to protect human consumers from food poisoning.

But this is easy. If you have drinking water at home for the human occupants, it can usually sit in a bucket for a day and become safe for a goldfish to live in. But to be extra sure, you can add a drop or two of aquarium water conditioner and a granule or two of aquarium salt before it sits, so that by the time your fish is living in it the next day, it will be nourishing and comfortable.

So one simple way to have a goldfish living in perfect water is to have two bowls. Each day the fish can be moved to the other bowl, while the first bowl can be emptied, wiped clean and refilled with water that will be ready for the fish to live in the next day. As long as your home never gets freezing cold inside and you do not feed the fish more than it can eat in a minute, or more than two to six times a week, the fish should remain in healthy condition and be quite content with it’s environment.

Better yet, to have a similar system that does not involve removing the animal with a net, and potentially causing stress from the move, you could empty most of the water, leaving the goldfish in the remaining water, and then introduce the clean water from the second vessel. Using this method, you can even have a small, lightweight rectangular tank, such as an affordable plastic “Lee’s Kritter Keeper” and a cheap plastic bucket as the second vessel. If you have a water filter on your kitchen faucet (not reverse-osmosis) then you can refill the bucket from that and use it the next day. For this system you don’t even need a net. Just one bowl/lightweight tank, and a second bucket.

As long as the goldfish has not reached a size where the bowl is too small for it to swim freely in one direction for a couple of seconds, and you are able to offer it some visual stimulation from outside the bowl a few times a day, then you will have a happy healthy fish in clean water at all times. Just be ready to bid farewell to your beloved friend when it’s time for it to move to a big pond for the rest of it’s, hopefully long, life. If there is no sign of such a pond within a hundred miles of your house, then most aquarium stores will be willing to take in a donated healthy-looking large goldfish in exchange for another one-dollar feeder to rescue from a certain date with death. Hopefully they’ll sell it to someone with a big pond or aquarium.

So we have to remember a few things to justify a goldfish bowl. Goldfish are not natural. They were bred by man to become attractive golden fish and were originally hardy river carp, scavengers that could survive in ponds, streams and rivers, eating anything and everything, and since they don’t have a stomach, but rather just a long intestine, they would excrete the waste quickly and make the water dirty. An expensive and complicated aquarium system intended to condition the water may fail to do so for many reasons, and it is very easy, or even highly likely, to have a goldfish in such an aquarium, suffering distress from a less than optimal water quality. A bowl can contain clean, healthy, comfortable water if you have the two bowl system, or a bowl and bucket system. The water in this bowl can be, at all times, better than the water in most people’s aquaria. And lastly, even if your goldfish dies after a few months, as they may do through no fault of the owner, it can be a few months of a good life that it would not have had as food for an aquarium carnivore.

Aside from the well-being of the fish, the advantages of a goldfish bowl over an aquarium are many. They don’t cost much, they don’t weigh as much as your sister riding a bike, they don’t require electricity or reinforced furniture, and you can move them from room to room in order to spend more time interacting with your pet.

While it is always nice to see healthy goldfish in a clean, healthy large aquarium, it is also not so good to see them suffering in a cloudy, dirty tank and exhibiting spots, sores and nervous behavior.  Your happy healthy bowl fish will be better off than most goldfish alive today.

What does the fish need in it’s bowl?

Goldfish are bred from carp, which are scavengers. This is why goldfish can be seen constantly sucking pieces of gravel into their mouths and spitting it out. You may assume they are playing or trying to keep busy or wishing they had something to eat, or extracting some nutrients from the bacteria on the gravel, but they just can’t help this natural behavior. In an aquarium system the gravel can be a medium for the growth and support of healthy bacteria, but it is also a hiding place for fish waste that breaks down and introduces harmful elements into the water. So if you can stand the inevitable sight of a few strands of fish poop in your bowl, don’t bother with the gravel, because let’s remember, it’s all about the water quality, not the objects.

And speaking of objects, goldfish are more intelligent than most people assume and they love to follow your finger and look at you and play with you, but they have no need for decorations or toys. In fact such objects can cause injury because part of the natural behavior of a fish is to be occasionally startled and move several inches at a remarkably high speed. Better if there is no castle or treasure chest to collide with.

The minimalism of a clear empty bowl and a healthy fish in clean water is ideal. If you want to landscape the habitat, then set up a large aquarium system.

So if you would like a little golden friend to interact with while you sit at your desk all day, don’t be put off by people telling you a goldfish bowl is a cruel habitat. Remember it’s all about the water, and if the water is always good and there is enough of it to permit a little swimming, your fish will be content.

End of the Uh-Oh’s

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I wonder if we will call this coming year twenty-ten or the more cumbersome two thousand and ten. I think we should have called 2001 twenty-o-one, just like they did in nineteen-o-one and eighteen-o-one. Personally I will from this day make that change, and no longer refer to twenty-o-four, as two-thousand and four.
And what do we call the decade? Is it to be the double-oh’s, the twenty-hundreds, or the uh-oh’s. Well not the twenty-hundreds as that would mean the century, just as the nineteen hundreds refers to a whole century.
It will be The Media that set the course, as they did in 2000 when they started saying two-thousand and one, when they should really have said twenty-o-one. And why did this happen? Probably because no-one ever said twenty hundred. There is no such number as twenty hundred, so we all said two-thousand, which is good. The mistake was a year later when we missed the opportunity to spend the future saying twenty-o-one, twenty-o-two etc.

By Jeffrey the Barak,

(written towards the end of 2009.)

2010I wonder if we will call this coming year twenty-ten or the more cumbersome two thousand and ten. I think we should have called 2001 twenty-o-one, just like they did in nineteen-o-one and eighteen-o-one. Personally I will from this day make that change, and no longer refer to twenty-o-four, as two-thousand and four.

And what do we call the decade? Is it to be the double-oh’s, the twenty-hundreds, or the uh-oh’s. Well not the twenty-hundreds as that would mean the century, just as the nineteen hundreds refers to a whole century.

It will be The Media that set the course, as they did in 2000 when they started saying two-thousand and one, when they should really have said twenty-o-one. And why did this happen? Probably because no-one ever said twenty hundred. There is no such number as twenty hundred, so we all said two-thousand, which is good. The mistake was a year later when we missed the opportunity to spend the future saying twenty-o-one, twenty-o-two etc.

By next month, we will know.

Where are the nice cars?

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Where are the nice cars?
A walk through the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show
There are certain cars that just look and feel right. Their design suggests quality and precision. The metal looks solid and the doors close with a solid thunk, and no tinny ring. But other cars look as fragile as tin-foil, with seams that are too wide or too tight. They may have hard plastic where you would expect upholstery, or molded polyurethane where you like to see a softer surface. And then some designs are embellished so much beyond their function that they scream ugliness.
It may be personal preference, and differences in the tastes of middle-America versus those of, for example, the Japanese or the French, but in general, some cars are rolling art, and others are rolling messes. And then there is Steam-Punk, a cartoonish design idea that has now found it’s way onto the showroom floors.
What follows is my personal opinion, and my personal impression, but I at least, agree with myself!
For good clean design that seems functional, well-executed, and just has a quality, precise, expensive feel, look no further than Audi and Volkswagen. Alright, perhaps outside of the USA, their larger SUV’s are a bit bigger than anyone would ever need a car to be, but in general, their designs are elegant and just right. The world loves the Golf, and for good reason. It’s sporty, practical, holds a lot of stuff and takes up little space. The GTI version is as enjoyable on the racetrack as many a six-figure sports car, and speaking of which, the Audi R8 looks so much cooler than today’s Italian supercars.
Also from Germany, the interior of the BMW Mini-E, an electric car, is a beautiful design, with it’s colored swirls and oversized central display. For some reason the fit and finish on the Mini seems to be a step above that of the larger 3, 5 and 7 series, which despite their clever angles are bland, and have orange peel paint, rather like cheaper Chevys.
The new Lexus LFA supercar, has a terrible paint finish that combines a high gloss above the beltline with a visually sticky-looking texture in the same color, and a front-end design that is comparable in style with a Corolla, only with a big gap at the tip of the hood/bonnet. If you search for photos for the front you’ll see it shot from up high, or lit from the side to create shadows, but in real life, it’s a front from Wal-Mart, and yet this supercar costs $375,000. Something does not add up here.
Representing Steam-Punk, the new Morgan Aero SuperSports  was almost a hot car, but is a hot mess. A mishmash of curves and embellishments that should not be shared on one chassis. Steam-Punk can be described as historical future fantasy such as in the visions of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells. This ever so ugly Morgan has it down, right down to it’s misguided interpetive brown leather seats.
To understand what is wrong with General Motors, you have to imagine that you are not in Los Angeles, but instead on a street in Rome, Frankfurt or London. You look up and see the grille of a GM SUV coming at you. A big ugly unnecessary jukebox of a grill, stuck onto the front of a primitive oversized hunk of beige metal. To my eye, these vehicles look ridiculous and I would rather have witnessed their extinction than been a part of their bailout with my income tax. Car manufacturing is a competition, and these guys lost that competition. They should not still be here.
Ford got by without a bailout, but what are those big things stuck on the front ends of Mercurys and Fords and Lincolns? Who on Earth likes these grilles?
Design in modern cars treads a narrow ridge path with steep fall-offs on either side into ravines of bad taste. In these ravines, you will see Rolls Royces, Dodges, Fords, and countless other Marques. The traffic on the top will be quite light, even in rush hour.

By Jeffrey the Barak

319A walk through the 2009 Los Angeles Auto Show

There are certain cars that just look and feel right. Their design suggests quality and precision. The metal looks solid and the doors close with a solid thunk, and no tinny ring. But other cars look as fragile as tin-foil, with seams that are too wide or too tight. They may have hard plastic where you would expect upholstery, or molded polyurethane where you like to see a softer surface. And then some designs are embellished so much beyond their function that they scream ugliness.

It may be personal preference, and differences in the tastes of middle-America versus those of, for example, the Japanese or the French, but in general, some cars are rolling art, and others are rolling messes. And then there is Steam-Punk, a cartoonish design idea that has now found it’s way onto the showroom floors.

What follows is my personal opinion, and my personal impression, but I at least, agree with myself!

audir82For good clean design that seems functional, well-executed, and just has a quality, precise, expensive feel, look no further than Audi and Volkswagen. Alright, perhaps outside of the USA, their larger SUV’s are a bit bigger than anyone would ever need a car to be, but in general, their designs are elegant and just right. The world loves the Golf, and for good reason. It’s sporty, practical, holds a lot of stuff and takes up little space. The GTI version is as enjoyable on the racetrack as many a six-figure sports car, and speaking of which, the Audi R8 looks so much cooler than today’s Italian supercars.

minieintAlso from Germany, the interior of the BMW Mini-E, an electric car, is a beautiful design, with it’s colored swirls and oversized central display. For some reason the fit and finish on the Mini seems to be a step above that of the larger 3, 5 and 7 series, which despite their clever angles are bland, and have orange peel paint, rather like cheaper Chevys.

lexuslfa375kThe new Lexus LFA supercar, has a terrible paint finish that combines a high gloss above the beltline with a visually sticky-looking texture in the same color, and a front-end design that is comparable in style with a Corolla, only with a big gap at the tip of the hood/bonnet. If you search for photos for the front you’ll see it shot from up high, or lit from the side to create shadows, but in real life, it’s a front from Wal-Mart, and yet this supercar costs $375,000. Something does not add up here.

morganfmorganrRepresenting Steam-Punk, the new Morgan Aero SuperSports  was almost a hot car, but is a hot mess. A mishmash of curves and embellishments that should not be shared on one chassis. Steam-Punk can be described as historical future fantasy such as in the visions of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells. This ever so ugly Morgan has it down, right down to it’s misguided interpetive brown leather seats.

enclavegrillTo understand what is wrong with General Motors, you have to imagine that you are not in Los Angeles, but instead on a street in Rome, Frankfurt or London. You look up and see the grille of a GM SUV coming at you. A big ugly unnecessary jukebox of a grille, stuck onto the front of a primitive oversized hunk of beige metal. To my eye, these vehicles look ridiculous and I would rather have witnessed their extinction than been a part of their bailout with my income tax. Car manufacturing is a competition, and these guys lost that competition. They should not still be here.

lincolnfrontFord got by without a bailout, but what are those big things stuck on the front ends of Mercurys and Fords and Lincolns? Who on Earth likes these grilles?

Design in modern cars treads a narrow ridge path with steep fall-offs on either side into ravines of bad taste. In these ravines, you will see Rolls Royces, Dodges, Fords, and countless other Marques. The traffic on the top will be quite light, even in rush hour.

In Search of Space

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In Search of Space: Individual Claims of Public Space and Property in the University Library
H.E. Whitney
November 15, 2009
So I begin this short essay from the standpoint of a lowly staff assistant at a university library. The perks of the job are few but when I am free, I do manage to scour the internet for minutiae such as the latest football standings, the most recent Paul Krugman article, the newest row concerning Glen Beck’s antics, insect studies, or innovations in waste disposal. Occasionally I will peruse alternative media such as the Boston Phoenix or Alternet or high brow cultural magazines and journals such as The Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, or the Journal of Postmodern Culture. Outside of these moments I lend study room keys to students, remove paper jams from the library printers, troubleshoot computer software problems, or help students research their papers. It is a thankless job, but since I am a graduate student, the librarians who hired me now have comfortable respites from these otherwise rote aspects of working in a college library. I’ve spent much of my life in the library so I probably know more about where things are than they do.
One of the most intriguing aspects of a college library environment is the quest for space. I don’t have to worry about finding a desk or table to perform my duties because one is already set aside for me to assist patrons. But the patron must find a table or chair to study or a workstation from which to scroll through Facebook pages or YouTube videos. (I think it is hilarious that there are signs on the workstations saying “These Computers Are Reserved fo Academic Research Only” when half of the monitors I see show the Facebook websites on any given day.) Yet what intrigues me about working in the library is the quest for space and the array of conventions used by students to establish personal territory.
Butted table-tops.<picture1.jpg> The circular or rectangular table-tops in my work area are about 3 ½ feet in diameter. Normally when I arrive to work, I will see two or three tables butted together but only one occupant. The occupant is sometimes waiting for two or three fellow students. Gender tends to play a role in this phenomenon, as women tend to study with other women while men tend to be solitary when they study. But since the tables are 3 ½feet in diameter, three “ordinary” sized people should be able to comfortably share a single table. (I know, I know: we are all fat Americans, right?) Yet two or three people using two tables is overkill. Which leads to. . .
Reserving chairs and tables simply by leaving personal effects on them. This occurrence is widespread. Visualize the following scenario. There is one table with three chairs. There is one student sitting in one of the three chairs.  Yet he or she has placed his or her laptop in one chair and a knapsack or book bag in the other. So three chairs at this table are presumably “occupied”, although there is only one human being using the table. For prospective library patrons looking for a study area, this particular table has been exclusively cordoned off by this one patron. <picture2.jpg>  In this picture, the woman’s purse also appears to be “studying”. While there is an empty chair across from the woman for another person to sit and share the table, she has made it clear that her bag will not defer its chair to a prospective human occupant. This isn’t bad in itself but when there are several other people at tables doing the same thing, demand for tables and chairs goes through the roof.
This scenario is laughable insofar as it expresses the vanity of claiming a public object for one’s self or for one’s property. The mind of the college student who perpetrates this act is sadly misinformed by our system of commodity and exchange, which seeks to place a value on everything, including abstractions such as “space”.  For the table hogger, he or she feels leaving belongings on the table constitutes the purchase of that table for his or her exclusive use. The problem is compounded when the occupant leaves the table for extended period of time, yet leaves his or her belongings at the table.
During peak periods when library traffic is high, a table that is being “used”, but with no human occupant, presents problems: for one, it inconveniences other patrons who need tables to attend to their studies. It is also a waste of resources from the library’s point of view: fewer individuals can use tables when a single individual has laid exclusive claim to them and fails to maximize the use of them from the community’s perspective. <picture3.jpg> In this picture the table (foreground) is “occupied” by a single individual: there is a single book bag on the table-top with a book and notepaper. In an attempt to preserve “ownership” of this table, the patron has left his or her stuff at the table. I see this very often, but I’ve also seen people leave valuables such as I-pods, cell phones, laptops, and purses unattended for hours!
Nothing is more instinctive to the capitalist mind but to declare a thing “mine”: even when that thing is shared by all. Tables and chairs in libraries are publicly shared objects. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that we perhaps need to get library patrons in general to understand knowledge as a communal endeavor instead of as an object to be individually possessed at all costs. Libraries exist to serve the needs of all knowledge seekers, so it should make sense that we can share library furniture as well as books, right?

By H.E. Whitney

In Search of Space: Individual Claims of Public Space and Property in the University Library.
November 15, 2009

So I begin this short essay from the standpoint of a lowly staff assistant at a university library. The perks of the job are few but when I am free, I do manage to scour the internet for minutiae such as the latest football standings, the most recent Paul Krugman article, the newest row concerning Glen Beck’s antics, insect studies, or innovations in waste disposal. Occasionally I will peruse alternative media such as the Boston Phoenix or Alternet or high brow cultural magazines and journals such as The Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, or the Journal of Postmodern Culture. Outside of these moments I lend study room keys to students, remove paper jams from the library printers, troubleshoot computer software problems, or help students research their papers. It is a thankless job, but since I am a graduate student, the librarians who hired me now have comfortable respites from these otherwise rote aspects of working in a college library. I’ve spent much of my life in the library so I probably know more about where things are than they do.

picture1

One of the most intriguing aspects of a college library environment is the quest for space. I don’t have to worry about finding a desk or table to perform my duties because one is already set aside for me to assist patrons. But the patron must find a table or chair to study or a workstation from which to scroll through Facebook pages or YouTube videos. (I think it is hilarious that there are signs on the workstations saying “These Computers Are Reserved fo Academic Research Only” when half of the monitors I see show the Facebook websites on any given day.) Yet what intrigues me about working in the library is the quest for space and the array of conventions used by students to establish personal territory.

Butted table-tops. (See first picture.) The circular or rectangular table-tops in my work area are about 3 ½ feet in diameter. Normally when I arrive to work, I will see two or three tables butted together but only one occupant. The occupant is sometimes waiting for two or three fellow students. Gender tends to play a role in this phenomenon, as women tend to study with other women while men tend to be solitary when they study. But since the tables are 3 ½feet in diameter, three “ordinary” sized people should be able to comfortably share a single table. (I know, I know: we are all fat Americans, right?) Yet two or three people using two tables is overkill. Which leads to. . .

picture2Reserving chairs and tables simply by leaving personal effects on them. This occurrence is widespread. Visualize the following scenario. There is one table with three chairs. There is one student sitting in one of the three chairs.  Yet he or she has placed his or her laptop in one chair and a knapsack or book bag in the other. So three chairs at this table are presumably “occupied”, although there is only one human being using the table. For prospective library patrons looking for a study area, this particular table has been exclusively cordoned off by this one patron. (See second picture.)  In this picture, the woman’s purse also appears to be “studying”. While there is an empty chair across from the woman for another person to sit and share the table, she has made it clear that her bag will not defer its chair to a prospective human occupant. This isn’t bad in itself but when there are several other people at tables doing the same thing, demand for tables and chairs goes through the roof.

This scenario is laughable insofar as it expresses the vanity of claiming a public object for one’s self or for one’s property. The mind of the college student who perpetrates this act is sadly misinformed by our system of commodity and exchange, which seeks to place a value on everything, including abstractions such as “space”.  For the table hogger, he or she feels leaving belongings on the table constitutes the purchase of that table for his or her exclusive use. The problem is compounded when the occupant leaves the table for extended period of time, yet leaves his or her belongings at the table.

picture3During peak periods when library traffic is high, a table that is being “used”, but with no human occupant, presents problems: for one, it inconveniences other patrons who need tables to attend to their studies. It is also a waste of resources from the library’s point of view: fewer individuals can use tables when a single individual has laid exclusive claim to them and fails to maximize the use of them from the community’s perspective. (See third picture.) In this picture the table (foreground) is “occupied” by a single individual: there is a single book bag on the table-top with a book and notepaper. In an attempt to preserve “ownership” of this table, the patron has left his or her stuff at the table. I see this very often, but I’ve also seen people leave valuables such as iPods, cell phones, laptops, and purses unattended for hours!

Nothing is more instinctive to the capitalist mind but to declare a thing “mine”: even when that thing is shared by all. Tables and chairs in libraries are publicly shared objects. Perhaps the lesson to be learned here is that we perhaps need to get library patrons in general to understand knowledge as a communal endeavor instead of as an object to be individually possessed at all costs. Libraries exist to serve the needs of all knowledge seekers, so it should make sense that we can share library furniture as well as books, right?

H.E. Whitney, Jr. is a PhD student in history at Florida State University. H.E’s fields of study are the history of science, intellectual history, and technology and culture. H.E. is originally from Suffolk, Virginia but has called California, Ohio, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Florida home at some point. H.E. has taught philosophy and graphic design/multimedia studies at the college level and enjoy creating digital art when not pontificating on scientific, cultural, or historical matters.

The Good Quiz

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The Good Quiz: How good are you?

Answer the following questions with absolute honesty and tally your number of yes answers and no answers to see how good you are.

Question MarkDo you think that female humans are in any way inferior to male humans? Yes or No
Do you think that people who do not share your identical and exact religious views are inferior to you? Yes or No
Do you think that people of a certain ethnicity are in any way inferior to you and your own exact blend of ethnic backgrounds? Yes or No
Do you think that people who do not believe in God are in any way inferior to you or less good than you? Yes or No
Do you think that people who are attracted to their own gender are imperfect? Yes or No
Do you think that homosexual people are a potential dangerous threat to the safety and well-being of children? Yes or No
Do you think that female humans should be treated differently to male humans with regards to rights and freedoms?  Yes or No
Do you think that physically less able people are less important or of less value than the able? Yes or No
Do you think that “mentally unwell” people are less important than the “normal”? Yes or No
Do you think that people who have different moral standards with regards to sex and promiscuity are not as good as yourself? Yes or No
Do you think that gay people are not naturally so inclined? Yes or No
Do you think that governments and religions should prevent two people of the same gender from marrying each other? Yes or No
Do you think it is alright to put someone to death or imprison them for adultery or flirting? Yes or No
Do you think that the poor and/or homeless should be completely responsible for their current circumstances? Yes or No
Do you think that elderly people are less important or valuable than the young? Yes or No

    Answers:

    • If you answered with 15 NO answers, you are good.
    • If you answered with 14 or less NO answers, you are not good, and you should seriously consider being less horrible.

    Note, some contentious  issues, such as abortion, and euthanasia etc., have been deliberately omitted from the quiz, because everyone seems to think one camp is right and the other wrong, and few people ever change their mind. Among the truly objective, there may never be a general yes or no answer on such issues, but the truly objective are a rare minority.

    A need to consider perspective.

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    By Sig Shonholtz

    perspective4

    I have been trying to bridge a gap of understanding, which seems to define many relationships. For lack of a better phrase (I welcome any better phrase) I am calling it a philosophical anomaly.

    I will explain it best in an experience I had with an old girlfriend. I was driving the car and she was my passenger. I was driving in a sort of jerky fashion and she said to “can you drive a little nicer”, which I did.. A week later she was driving and I had to make the same request of her, “can you drive a little nicer, please (hers was a demand, mine a request)?” But instead of changing her driving she argued that I made the request because she had said it to me the week before. I argued (pointed out) that last week I was the driver and this week I am a passenger and my perspective was completely different.

    This got me wondering about how many possible perspectives a person could have during any 24 hour period. These perspectives are not points of view, because as many people as there are on earth is as many points of view there are.

    After a few months of day dreaming about it I settled on 6 possibilities (permutations). Since driving was the inspiration for the theme I kept it as my model. But we could just as easily use an example of dining in a restaurant.

    The First Perspective is driving a car by ourselves. It does not matter so much how we drive (unless we are being unsafe to others). We are alone with our thoughts and awarenesses. Like eating alone and sitting at a table.

    The Second Perspective is driving the car with a passenger in the front seat, we need to be more aware and thoughtful of that person sitting next to us. Our driving style and our conversation impacts them. Like eating with a friend and “driving” the conversation, or just doing the talking at that moment.

    The Third Perspective is from the passenger in the front seats point of view. The passenger is now sitting at the table. Each time the conversation shifts back and forth one person is either in the second or third perspective.

    The Fourth Perspective is that of a passenger in the back seat. They may be participating or not but they are observers. This would, for example be someone in an audience, an observer on an event. Or perhaps a person at a dinner table not really being addressed but watching. Theirs is actually  privileged because they may notice things in the dynamics that others do not see.

    The Fifth Perspective is the time we spend sleeping. Since these Six Perspectives take up 24 hours of each day time we spend sleeping must be included. We are not so aware during that time though.

    The Sixth Perspective is not really a perspective it is imaginative but it might be most important one although it is very hard to achieve. I am calling it the ultimate perspective. In order to try and have the ultimate Perspective we must try and exit our humanity. We must pretend or imagine that we have not interest in human affairs. So, when I want this insight I imagine I am a science officer on an interstellar space craft. I do not really care about human affairs. I am not myself, an American Jewish man that is 55 years old and from California that likes watches. When I take this Perspective I am free to decide right and wrong good or bad and up and down. Things are much more clear from this position. In fact morality is just a changing concept.

    In my case the Second and Third Perspectives are the ones between my former girlfriend and I, and myself and my former girlfriend. I am continuously to exhaustion either the passenger or the driver and cannot seem to explain that our differences are more to do with this simple idea than anything else.

    I have noticed this dynamic in another area which I will try and explain. It is something like this. As a child we argue when someone older then us tells us not to do something. We will argue with them that, because they do it, we can do it. It goes something like this, we have all been in this moment. You tell a child not to eat with their mouthful, but inevitably we do the same thing so they argue and say “you do the same thing”. In my case, with my young daughter we sometimes say yah instead of yes. She does not use the word yah and is always correcting us, (this example is almost the opposite of what I am trying to say).

    As adults we have the same problem but this time when we say, “you do the same thing” we mean something else. We are accusing the person of not being aware that when they are in the Second Perspective they cannot imagine themselves in the Third and vice versa. This is the problem I have, trying to convey this very simple idea of trying to see oneself as we might be seen.

    I do not know if I am clear on the one above. It has been very difficult for me it articulate it. I actually was trying to find a philosophical numeric system or a way to quantify this last one. It is so common between people that it is almost a normal way we react to things.

    (the-vu Editor’s note) there has been considerable study of perspective in the field of psychology, but when someone acquires a need to consider perspective due to real and personal circumstances, it brings the concept to practical life.

    Turmeric kills cancer in Ireland

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    800px-false-startBy Jeffrey the Barak

    There is a racing flag that is green with a yellow chevron or V. It means false start. But green and yellow are very important colors when it comes to food. They are the colors of life.

    The color of death is not black, it is brown. Brown as in brown colored food that is not really very good for you. A healthy plate needs to have green and yellow on it.

    Most of us have heard about the advantages of eating food that looks green. Kale, broccoli, soy beans, spinach, all good for our health.

    But besides yellow peppers and a few squashes, what is the yellow we need to be consuming? Strictly speaking, the magic yellow is not a raw natural food, it is a processed spice, and it is called turmeric. It is used in yellow curries.

    turmericNutritionally we can all do just fine without ever encountering turmeric, and even a cancer victim does not need to eat turmeric. However, scientists have found that a chemical extracted from turmeric, called curcumin, kills cancer cells and then digests itself, vanishing without any side effects.

    Specifically, a team at the Cork Cancer Research Center in Ireland, led by Dr. Sharon McKenna have been able to positively show that oesophageal cancer cells (a.k.a. gullet cancer cells) are clearly destroyed by curcumin.

    It is not clear if frequently eating plenty of yellow curry laced with turmeric can cure oesophageal cancer on it’s own, but any excuse to eat this delicious yellow food as a preventative measure is welcome.

    Global warming is 51% cow farts

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    credit: unknown

    credit: unknown

    It’s not  your local coal power station, or your soot-spewing school bus. It’s not even the production of your mountain of plastic waste. No, global warming has been pushed over the edge of the point of no return by cow farts.

    Follow this link to Simply Sustainable’s excellent report on this realization. Time to invent a synthetic soy filet mignon!

    A new way to travel in a plane.

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    Photo credit: Wired.com

    Photo credit: Wired.com

    An idea that should have materialized decades ago.

    Wired Magazine’s Jason Paur added an article to the Wired Autopia Blog that highlights a design technology that is long overdue.

    How many of us have sat upright in a coach seat for twelve hours and dreamed of lying down to take the pressure off our backs? It turns out that not only could we all have a bed, but we could also check fewer bags. All it takes is a new way of thinking regarding passenger cabin design.

    The original article, complete with photos can be found at this link

    As you know, we do not normally link to outside articles here at the-vu, but this is important. The plane builders and airlines need to open their minds and get way from the rows of seats idea.

    How Art Almost Killed An Entire People

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    At times, we wander the galleries and see pieces of art that look as if they could hurt someone, or kill someone, but in a way this has actually happened.

    moI refer to a place commonly known as Easter Island. This is it’s modern name, given to the place by Christian explorers from Holland in 1722 when they happened to come across this land on their Easter Sunday.

    For most of history, This place had no name, and no inhabitants, but at sometime between 400 and 600 C.E. a human civilisation, the Polynesians, found it, and it became known as Rapa Nui.

    We know from the surviving Polynesian people here and across Oceana that for at least two thousand years, their relatively advanced society was capable of trans-oceanic explorations by canoe that no modern sailor in their right mind would dare attempt. By contrast, the people of the nations that would later become the world’s explorers, the Britons, the French, The Spanish, The Portuguese, The Dutch were by comparison, quite behind in terms of long-distance seafaring.

    Even the Mediterranean traders of the day would have been amazed at the voyages back and forth that the ancient Polynesians embarked upon.

    So art came to Rapa Nui with its first people. It is generally accepted that they came from either the Marquesas Islands or Mangareva, which like everywhere else, are very far indeed from Rapa Nui.

    The oral history tells us they brought plants, food animals and tools and their mission was colonization. The climate on Rapa Nui was certainly not the tropical paradise they were used to so they had a lot of adaptation to do in order to survive and thrive.

    Rapa Nui was covered in trees, palms and other types, and drinking water was naturally gathered in volcanic craters, despite the island’s absence of rivers or streams. The island also had obsidian, great for making cutting tools and weapons, and it had lot of special rock which we call lapilli tuff.

    Some say the islanders employed slash and burn techniques to clear land for farming, and others say, they used up all the wood in order to make and transport the huge stone statues that Rapa Nui is now famous for.

    With the forest cover gone, the rain and weather eroded the topsoil and famine ensued. But let’s take a step back and focus on the art.

    The art of Rapa Nui is divided between two periods. The Moai period and the Birdman period. On other islands in Polynesia, there were statues, (Moai), atop shrines, (Ahu). which were representations of chiefs (living and dead) and the gods in which they believed.

    Dead chiefs were sacred, and after their life passed, their representative Moa remained. Rapa Nui has around 900 such moai, either standing, toppled or partially completed, still in the quarry or partway to their final site. There are about 360 ahu. The moai did not look out to sea, as commonly assumed, but they faced away from the sea, towards the villages. Some completed and erected statues had white coral eyes and wore stone hats or top knots called pukao, carved from a rock that was more red (scoria).

    There is much debate as to exactly how the heavy statues were moved, assembled, erected etc. They are so heavy, that engineering on a grand scale was definitely needed, but the methods used have passed from memory.

    It seems clear that at some point, the statues were worshiped as gods, and were a means of control for the ruling society, called the “Long Ears”. Everyone else, lived as subjects of the ruling Long Ears. However they were not slaves, but simply lowly subjects of the rulers, who would eventually rebel aginst the Long Ears and topple the very statues that generations suffered to construct.

    It is said that so much wood was expended on the statue making that the islanders could no longer build canoes, so they became unable to travel to and from other parts of Polynesia. However, it is possible that the forests were burned to clear land, without any understanding of the long term environmental consequences. Without canoes, there was little opportunity to fish offshore, and without the lush vegetation, farming was all that was left.

    So in isolation, with the natural resources of the island being eroded, burned and used for making statues, the people sealed their fate. Numbering as high as seven thousand in it’s heyday, the society on Rapa Nui became unsustainable with the resources at hand, and they were unable to leave or go for help.

    Eventually, out of this declining situation, a powerful warrior class emerged, called Matato’a. And a change of power and leadership ensued. This also heralded the second art movement. All of the statues were toppled, some face up, some face down, and a new, even sillier religion began to dominate.

    This was the birdman cult, (Tangatamenu). Once a year on a small island off the coast of Rapa Nui, migrating birds laid eggs. It was a bountiful annual harvest. The young warriors would hold a swimming race across the rough, shark-infested straits between the main island and bird island. The first man back holding an intact egg became absolute ruler for exactly one year, until this was repeated.

    In the time after the upright moai, the art consisted of carvings and drawings on rock, depicting a bird-man character. Again the sheer quantity of this art in the virtual absence of all other, shows us that life at the time was all about the birdman. And a new monotheism emerged, coincidentally featuring a single, creator god, not the Jewish-Christian-Moslem one, but one with the name Makemake.

    If the Western sailing ships had never found Easter Island, the natives may or may not have survived to this day, but considering what the sailors did to them, it is amazing that any have survived. The so-called advanced civilizations from Europe murdered, enslaved, kidnapped and infected the people with diseases such as smallpox and syphilis, and those few who survived these horrors were later subjected to forced Christianization.

    As a result of the missionary subjugation, at this point there was no more art for a long time. The island was culturally dead until relatively recently when inhabitants of Polynesian decent began to nurture their cultural heritage, which amazingly still has much in common with other far way parts of Polynesia. And so through dance, costume, cuisine and the tatoo, the art of the island survives, but this time it won’t kill them, it may save them, from us.

    The path to our news

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    newsAs more and more newspapers disappear from the marketplace, more of us turn to the Internet to read our news.

    But although there are many sources to choose between, only a few actually gather the news, and these news organizations have to give it away and foot the bill.

    No longer can they rely on the business of printing, selling and distributing paper that sells for a quarter or a dollar, and no longer can they sell page after page of print ads to cover the rent, salaries and countless other expenses of news gathering.

    To illustrate this, let me use one of my own daily routines. I have in my Google home page, a ‘gadget” or columnar panel that highlights Current News. This is tier one.

    If I click on the header it takes me to current.com. This is tier two. Once here, I can select a news article or click on “more news” and then select an article. Let’s assume I do the latter and pick an article that is not in the top three. This is tier three.

    In “more news”, I select an interesting headline, click on it and arrive at tier four, an excerpt of the article, that includes a link to the original article which in this case resides on bbc.co.uk

    So I click through to here and arrive at the page on BBC, tier five, and see a television interview video and read the article, which was gathered in the UK by BBC staffers. None of my money went to the BBC, and I was five tiers away from the article.

    Along the way, I saw advertisements. There were none on Google, which is one of the many reasons why it is better than the mouse-over pop-up ridden and animated Yahoo!, There were none on Current, except for links to Current features, but then on the “more news” page I saw a small ad for Mini (the car). At the article level of current I saw one ad for AT&T, and then at the final BBC tier, there were no ads, except for BBC features links.

    So assuming I did not shop for AT&T service or BMW minis, I got my story for nothing.

    This is great for me, and I am not complaining, especially since my eyesight is not really up to reading a traditional newspaper anymore. But somewhere, someone has paid a lot of money to bring me the story, and eventually, we may end up with a news shortage, because no-one is paying the bill.

    Louis the Scooterer’s last ride

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    lou5d

    Louis the Scooterer 1935-2009

    Since 2004, Louis the Scooterer, Louis Scop, has contributed to the-vu, and his readers number in the thousands. Sadly, I have just learned from his daughter that Lou passed away on July 26th 2009, and was buried in the Netanya cemetery, Israel, on 31st July.

    Lou’s last input was a comment on June 15th, and his last email to me was on June 26th, in which he mentioned he had not been feeling good for several weeks, but would soon be writing another chapter. Some followers of Lou will no doubt learn of his passing with these words. I will be reading his writings again in order to celebrate his life, but of course he did more than he wrote about, and for a lot longer.

    Metaphysical Binarism in Culture and Practice

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    By H.E. Whitney

    binarypictureSport and Ethics

    Metaphysical binarism is our cultural mythology. Take for instance sport. Popular sports events that are team and/or individual oriented pose two contestants or two sets of contestants wherein the outcome of play must determine a winner and loser. Sports can have no meaning unless this outcome is satisfied; teams or individuals competing are only characterized by what category they fall when competition has concluded. While there are such things as ties, the goal is in most sports to continue play until a winner can emerge.

    Most systems of behavior and belief partake of metaphysical binarism. Each seeks to define good and evil as the only relevant or possible objects of human action. Ethical action, presumably, cannot terminate in an unclear or ambiguous object. To achieve good, as an end, requires satisfying a debt; to achieve evil, as an end, requires the failure to pay a debt. When our ethical systems are constructed along these lines, is it possible for an action to have ambiguity as a goal? If we can find an example of such, it would seem that good and evil are not the only ends of human action. Given this possibility, we can perhaps then claim that good and evil are merely privileged or preferred ends among many.

    So what might constitute an example of human action where good and evil are not ends or where ambiguity is the sought after object? Suppose I am invited to a party of friends. If I choose to go, I will perhaps have a joyous time and maybe my friends will too. To attend the party would thus achieve good. If I fail to go, I will perhaps regret my decision and so will my friends. Now evil isn’t necessarily the outcome of my failure to attend the party but nonetheless the outcome is not good, which is sometimes how evil is defined.

    But what if I suspend the choice of alternatives and decide that I may or may not attend the gathering? This suspension of action or choice is nonetheless an action, but it is an action of which we would be presumptuous to label good or bad: we simply must wait to see if I decide on one of the alternatives before imposing a value claim. Nevertheless, the suspension of choice is an action where in some cases, it may be inappropriate to assign a value of good or bad. Obviously, it is highly likely you have committed an evil act if you suspend judgment on whether or not to attend a dinner date with your devoted spouse or significant other on your anniversary.

    So what have we learned here? What I wanted to suggest is that all of our actions do not necessarily terminate in a good or bad value. If the contrary is absolutely the case, then our ethical (or even aesthetic) systems are limited in terms of the possible range of values that can describe a (human) action. This limitation then suggests that a binary system of values cannot neatly put all human actions into diametrically opposing categories.

    Arithmetic

    I don’t want to spend much time here on the subject of numbers but mathematics also suffers from a heavy dose of binarism. Arithmetic functions mostly by the use of binary oppositions such as addition and subtraction and multiplication and division. Quantity can only be added to or taken away. The question for our purposes is whether quantity can neither be given or taken away, added to or diminished and still make sense as a value. If the value of the variable is zero, then if it is added to or subtracted from itself, its value remains the same. Yet, against the idea or absolute binariness in arithmetic is that out of all real numbers, zero is neither positive nor negative. Additionally, zero is a number which seems to resist being divided by any other number to yield an actual quantity (i.e., the result of dividing by zero yields an undefined result, a non-number). [link]

    Logocentrism and Capitalist, Heterochauvinist Ideologies: The Social Consequences of Binarism

    There are several issues I would like to point out with logocentrism. First, logocentrism has a fascistic obsession with binariness and imposing binariness wherever there is none. For example, there is the idea that the moon must either be made of green cheese or either it is not. We can, of course, empirically verify this, and “safely” side with the negative. Yet the fact that we must choose either horn of the dilemma as being true or false is only one prescription for dealing with dilemmas out of many prescriptions: we could just simply ignore deciding upon the statements’ veracity or lack thereof.

    What about “Either God exists or does not exist”, a quite polarizing binary that we are well familiar with? What is problematic about this is binary is that it pits against each other two opposing views and assumes that only one of them must be true and the other false. But what about the position that there simply is not enough information, theoretical or empirical, to form an opinion one way or the other? This must also be taken as a point of view in its own right, but not necessarily a negation or affirmation of either of the opposing views.

    There is an applicant for a job and on the application, neither M or F (male or female) is marked for sex. Again, the logocentrist fascistic obsession with binariness emerges and we seek to equate gender with specific biological parts when identity is problematic or fluid. A person with a vagina must be a woman, although they identify behaviorally or socially as a man; a person with a penis must be a man, although he may lactate.[link] Vestiges of evolutionary origins seem to point to either androgyny or sexual reproduction without the assistance of the combinatorial fusion of egg and sperm.

    The binary fetishism of heterochauvinism seeks to put people in discrete, twofold, M/F categories where seemingly most sexist or heterochauvinistic stereotypes arise. History used to assign reason to men and emotion or sentiment to women and claim that reason was the higher faculty (thereby seeking to justify man’s exalted place in the great chain of being as well as in marriage): as if emotional expression in men was always unfit or superior intellectual ability in women was an aberration to be ignored and even ridiculed.

    There is also, finally, the capitalist ideology and its addiction to logocentric binariness. The obvious goal of capitalism is to profit from either no labor or from laborers who will accept the least compensation, in comparison to other laborers, to improve their material existence. The assumption here is that labor must eventually be abolished or that laborers must be made to produce more at the least possible market rate for their services. The problem with this either/or situation is that one the one hand, if you abolish labor, society has no lawful means to support its existence as a whole or as individuals. On the other hand, the assumption that people must be made to produce more at the least possible market rate assumes, without any shred of evidence, that laborers would not work harder (i.e., produce more) if they were paid more. But most importantly, capitalism functions when a product has value (i.e., something external to what it (the product) is which is nevertheless abstract). Its real value or price and the profit to be made from its sale can be never the same which seems to suggest that any product that you buy must always have an inflated price. This is a fundamental charade of capitalism: the value the consumer pays for a product must necessarily be higher than what the seller pays for the product. The consumer is thus giving the seller money in addition to purchasing or paying the real value for the product.

    Conclusion

    To have a conclusion here would seem to suggest that what I have said above are premises in an argument to lead to a particular conclusion. It is the presumption of binariness that all arguments need to have a conclusion: whether valid or invalid.

    I conclude nothing here. The only thing I would like to suggest (and logic can only prescribe truth instead of deriving it) is that we perhaps need closely examine the notion of binariness that is not only a part of our Western intellectual tradition but also our common social discourse and broaden our thinking to seize alternative ways of conceptualizing the world. Would such a reconceptualization be practical? I think of HTML as a not so binary language (i.e., not every tag needs to be closed) that is practical.  And its goal is to arrange or create a representation (i.e., a web page) that informs: as opposed to ruling, by absolute deference to a set of arbitrary rules, whether a particular argument is valid or invalid.  The logic of good and evil, truth and falsity, validity or invalidity, either/or, neither/nor, are lenses that narrow the scope of the mind, while over-adherence to these binaries leads one to assert their metaphysical finality and necessity: the grid by which all is to be measured and judged. A restless, searching type of critical thinking dispenses with such intellectual indolence, and recognizes binariness as a prescriptive quality or structure, among many, that is perhaps imposed upon the world as opposed to being found within it.

    H.E. Whitney, Jr. is a PhD student in history at Florida State University. H.E’s fields of study are the history of science, intellectual history, and technology and culture. H.E. is originally from Suffolk, Virginia but has called California, Ohio, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Florida home at some point. H.E. has taught philosophy and graphic design/multimedia studies at the college level and enjoy creating digital art when not pontificating on scientific, cultural, or historical matters

    My Summer 2009 Tech-Rant

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    rolhpd10

    By Jeffrey the Barak

    Time for a tech-rant. It’s been a while, but believe it or not people still ask me for my opinion, as if it really mattered.

    I have decided to base this rant on the technology that I personally own, which is a naturally narrow band of goods, since I am not rich, and I am also a bit of a minimalist at heart.

    As always, please note the date of this article, as tech articles do not stay fresh for very long, so it will soon stink even more than it does today, and believe me, it already stinks. It is 2009, July 20th.

    I have three computers in my arsenal these days, all of them are Apples. (No, I said arsenal, wise guy). First is my 24 inch Apple iMac. It is two and a half years old and still operates on Tiger. It will stay on Tiger until Snow Leopard comes out in a couple of months time.

    This was the big white beast that liberated me from the Windows experience. I had been wrestling with, maintaining, cleaning and generally nursing Windows since 3.0, so switching to Apple OSX in 2007 was a move that freed me from working for my computer. Now my computer works for me.

    I also have a white Macbook, also purchased in 2007, which rarely gets switched on, unless I go away from home. The main reason for this, is I am spoiled by the 24 inch screen environment, and I unfortunately do not have very good eyesight.

    Therefore my third Apple, a little white 16GB iPhone, is much more capable than it needs to be since trying to read a web page on it is torture for me, and unless it’s an emergency I don’t even try to do email on it.

    So as I sit with my three white Apples, I often consider the state of personal computing today. I think that folks with good eyesight who never edit a batch of 200 photos or edit a movie or, like me, work with a fifteen thousand row, twenty column spreadsheet all day, would be fine having a netbook instead of a home computer system, but, and it’s a big but (I prefer little butts), they would need to have readily available fast wireless Internet to make it bearable, and it could definitely not be a netbook that ran Windows. Using Windows to run a netbook is like towing a motorcycle with a water buffalo. Some of the Linux flavors are apparently very good on netbooks, but Windows itself needs more power than a netbook possesses simply to play politely with human beings. And I can definitely say from experience, no-one likes any computing device that seems to work slowly. That is worth repeating, no-one likes any computing device that seems to work slowly.

    Moving to the living room, we are still happy with our old 42 inch, room-heating, plasma TV that is on the wall with all the ugly wires hidden inside that wall and coming out of a socket lower down to fan out into a bunch of black room heaters.

    But what is really needed is some modern take on the consolidation of all the mess. The aforementioned room heaters are the sound amplifier, the DVR from the cable company, and two different DVD players, neither of which is currently connected because the cable company’s DVR does not like the HDMI cable so it had to borrow the composite cables. Honestly, the amount of vinyl-clad copper spaghetti and the basket of remote controls is a complete mess. Someone has to invent a simple connection and control system for home entertainment. I sometimes feel like I’m shoveling coal and filling a boiler on a steam engine just to watch TV. I have to manually change the aspect ratio from channel to channel and go through a multiple button sequence on more than one device to do anything more complicated than change the volume. No wonder so many people watch narrow pictures squashed into wide screens so everyone looks short and wide, it’s too much hassle to adjust anything.

    One piece of technology that is dear to my heart is my Keurig K-Cup coffee system. Anything else is so messy and uncivilized that I rank this device as one of the greatest technological feats since the rocket engine. Look elsewhere on the-vu for more about this charming lump of counter-top tech.

    And lastly a piece of technology that made something extremely huge into something tiny. My Roland Handsonic 10. This has replaced a van full of drums, cymbals, cases, microphones, stands, racks, and more, and it’s not much larger than a laptop computer. Oh yes, this too is white, exactly like my three Apples.

    Jeffrey the Barak is the publisher of the-vu

    Watching Time

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    By Andrew Lim

    t'was my grail watch for a long time

    t'was my grail watch for the longest time

    Like most people I’ve gone through a number of hobbies, photography now being the greatest one. However the fascination with watches is one of the oldest. In general, I’ve always liked anything small and complicated, anything with tiny clicking bits. My very first watch was probably a yellow plastic Garfield watch that Mum bought for me. According to her it was a pricey timepiece. Given my age, I think anything above $2 would be considered a pricey item. So old and obscure is this watch that I can’t even find a photo of it online, and I can’t even photograph it for you to see because it’s overseas, stashed away in a shoebox with a dozen other cheapie watches I amassed over the first decade of my life.

    The second serious watch (ie. daily wearer) was a tiny analog Casio watch, probably designated as a women’s watch, but worked well for a sub-10 year old at that time. It had a black dial and cheerfully colored minute, hour and second hand. Around this time I learned all about ‘water resistance’ in a watch and became obsessed with it. This little Casio was good for only 50 meters but that was all fine. The beach was my favorite hangout and the watch accompanied me everywhere, including bath time. I probably never took it off.

    I was very curious in those days and spent much time rummaging through my parents’ dressing table when they were not looking. In it I found two watches, a strapless Jaeger Le Coultre Club and an old Rotary with an original strap (more about this later). I begged my Dad for the JLC (funny how, despite my age, I knew which was the more expensive of the two) and he initially refused. I didn’t think much about it and went straight to bed to prepare for the next day of school. But then I overheard my parents talking, and shortly after Dad placed the JLC under my pillow. I was thrilled with my first mechanical watch and had it in my pocket for a good length of time. It continued to work well, at least until the minute hand warped and got stuck between the markers on the dial. I stupidly tried to take the watch apart to repair it and wrecked the thing completely.

    Needless to say, I’d give a lot to get the same watch back today. It taught me an important lesson: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. If it is broke, don’t open it yourself!

    At around 10 years old, I bought a Lorus Mickey Mouse pocket watch (from memory it was $69, my own savings) a few more Swatch watches, mostly quartz, but one automatic. These were courtesy of gift money from my grandfather, who passed away early last year. They are lovely watches but were never my daily wearers. I still have them today and they’re in pretty good nick. During those years I started to pay more attention to what was on my Dad’s wrist, a two-tone Rolex Datejust with a fluted bezel. On a couple of occasions I tried it on for size, again when my Dad wasn’t looking.

    A foray into the models of that brand name led me to the advertisements on the back of those Readers’ Digest magazines. That was when the Rolex Explorer II first caught my eye, and it became my grail watch. An officially certified chronometer, and a lovely model name. I always wanted to think of myself as an explorer in some ways, mostly because I liked open space, the sea and quiet forests.

    Note: If any of you have copies of these Readers’ Digest advertisements for the Explorer II and would be able to send them my way instead of throwing them out, I’ll be happy to shoot the postage fee your way via Paypal. Serious!!

    Dad's Rotary (left) and the all-titanium Citizen Eco Drive Corso from my 21st birthday (right)

    Dad's Rotary (left) and the all-titanium Citizen Eco Drive Corso from my 21st birthday (right)

    The Rotary (see left), which was the only other old watch left in my parents’ dressing table was given to me at 11 years of age after doing well in my final exams. It is still working after 16 years in my hands. I used to kid myself that it could be a family heirloom and it’s probably worth as much to me, at least in terms of sentimental value. The next year I got my 3rd serious daily wearer, also a Casio, a quartz all-stainless, mid-sized diver with a rotating bezel, attractive polished case, and almost the look of a the Rolex Submariner’s evil twin. Beautiful watch it was, and that was on my wrist for a good 4 years until another Casio took its place. This was in turn followed by a watch under a cheap, obscure brand, ’25 hours’.

    On my 21st birthday I received a titanium Citizen Ecodrive from my parents, which I wore for the next 5 years. Both the technology and the material of the watch were fitting for my strange taste for geekiness. This is a dressy watch that’s equally suited to casual use. The movement is powered entirely by solar energy, which is harnessed by a solar cell hidden behind a translucent black dial, and stored in a rechargeable cell. When fully charged the watch can run for approximately 6 months when left in total darkness. Under normal conditions a watch like this would never stop running. It was a solid timepiece but marred easily, presumably because the titanium is just too soft.

    In the early part of 2008, after much saving, I could finally afford to take a white-dialed Rolex Explorer II home. I was surprised at how much it cost, even for a second-hand 1999 production model. Later I was even more surprised to hear how much the thing costs brand new in Switzerland where my parents previously had a vacation, and hence continue to tell (read: deceive) myself about how good this deal was. On my 6 inch wrist the watch looked a bit strange initially because I had always worn small watches, and the watchmaker even had to break a link to get the bracelet to fit. It’s an utterly beautiful watch with an understated elegance. The brushed surfaces of the case and that of the fixed bezel are hard-wearing, yet both are set off by glossy, polished highlights that catch the light at some angles. The sturdy, screw-down crown is adorned by the famous Rolex crown logo, and further protected by polished guards, which are extensions of the case itself.

    The Explorer II is all about strength, endurance and adventure

    The Explorer II is all about strength, endurance and adventure

    The dial design is simple and legibility is high. That is not to say the design is spartan. Besides the usual crisp Rolex printing, the luminous triangular marker at 12 o’clock, rectangular ones at 9 and 6 o’clock, plus the round ones at other hours (except at 3) are distinctive, as is the Mercedes design of the hour hand and the single balled end of the second hand. In my opinion, the two most significant design elements on the face are the red GMT hand and the cyclops over the date window. The former can be used to track a second time zone, or simply synced with the 24 hour non-rotating bezel. It can be adjusted backwards or forwards (and hence adjust the date) without disturbing the minute and second hands. In reality it is of little use to me, but the red and black colors are just so nicely set against a pure white dial.

    Speaking of white, the Explorer II is a timepiece that conjures up images of snow-capped peaks, vast icy wilderness, wolves and polar bears, and like its namesake, explorers dressed in thick parkas and yielding ice picks. That is a special aura like no other, a watch that speaks of the strength of human will and adaptability. The elements of the watch face are protected by a hard-wearing sapphire crystal, supremely scratch resistant and right up there in the Vickers scale along with high-tech ceramics and hard metal (eg. tungsten carbide, stuff found in the nib of your ball point pen). The Oysterlock bracelet is functional, not showy but bearing some presence nevertheless because of the relatively large, solid links. It’s comfortable to wear, doesn’t pinch, and doesn’t pull your arm hair off. At the heart of the watch lives a calibre 3185, 31 jewel, COSC certified automatic movement with about 2 days of power reserve. Its high beat makes the action of the second hand smooth and classy, while the tried and tested movement keeps time with astounding accuracy against a modern quartz and LCD watch.

    The Explorer’s asset is really its unobtrusive appearance which in turn prevents it from being a ‘one-trick pony’. The watch looks as good on a day out fishing as it does with a suit during a black-tie event. While substantially bigger than what would normally be accepted as a traditional ‘dress watch’, it still slips easily under a sleeve. When checking the time however, be prepared to receive some glances from those around you! The Explorer II simply doesn’t feel out-of-place anywhere, except perhaps the odd paintball game. The water resistance is guaranteed to at least 100m, although Rolex seems to advertise that their watches would tolerate pressure under water to way beyond their guaranteed limit. For the vast majority of mortals who only get as wet as a swim in the pool or a little snorkel in the sea, such water resistance is more than enough.

    As human nature would have it, the Explorer II doesn’t hold nearly as much mystery for me now that it’s in my hands, compared to my younger days when all I had was a photo of it. But even though other expensive watches (though less so than this one) are now on my radar, none of them would hold as much significance as this watch does. One should never underestimate the importance of a childhood dream, fulfilled.

    The purchase of this watch has unwittingly sparked off a recent buying spree into some weird and wonderful vintage watches, some of which I no longer have. But for sure, this hobby is far from over. So, what’s your Watch Story?

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    (Above) A Rado Electrosonic with tuning fork movement housed in a tungsten hardmetal case and a sapphire crystal

    326v4447edit
    (Above) A bizarre, thick bracelet Tissot Seastar I recently sold

    326v4391
    (Above) A blingy, almost pimp Rado Diastar with a square tungsten hardmetal case

    Increase Vertical Leap Fast

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    By Tom Jackson

    jumpThe purpose of this article is to help those that want to learn to jump higher faster. After reading this article one should have gained the knowhow to increase there vertical leap and more importantly start their jump training with a solid foundation.

    (Editor’s note: the-vu is not pro-sport, but we understand the real value in being able to jump very high).

    Two Legs Or One?

    That’s the question. Are you a two legged jumper or a one leg jumper. Sometimes even if you are a one leg jumper your sport may require you to train for two legged jumping. Although you can still improve your overall jumping ability regardless of witch types of methods you use you won’t be able to jump your highest until you find out what type of jumper you are. A simple test to see how high you jump with one leg or two can help you to figure it out. If you jump higher with one leg for example you are a one legged jumper.

    Where to Begin?

    You simply have to know where to start before you begin your jump training. There are certain questions that you need to ask yourself. For example are you overweight? What type of physical conditioning do you have are you a beginner, intermediate or advanced? In some cases you may have to get into top physical condition before you’re able to start a jump training program. In addition if you are an advanced athlete then you may be able to skip ahead advanced training techniques.

    Explosive Workouts

    You need to train with explosive exercises in order to improve your vertical leap. That’s just the bottom line. Lift weights does not equate explosiveness. It may make you stronger and you may see a small improvement in you jumping ability, but it does not make you jump the highest. The ability to move weight quickly plus strength equals power or explosiveness. If you’re not combining jumping exercises with weight training then you are missing out completely on the full potential of your gains.

    Examples of Combining explosive works and exercises to jump higher:

    • Lower Body
    • Lunges + Exaggerated Skipping
    • Squats + Rim Jumps
    • Upper Body (for arm swinging motion)
    • Front Shoulder Raises (for deltoids) + Over The Shoulder Throws (with medicine ball)

    These are just a few examples of what you can do to combined explosive exercises with weight training. But it takes more than that to jump higher fast. You have to also know how to do these exercises properly and at what weight you need to lift and how many reps as well for best results.

    Author Tom Jackson says, “The best jump program I’ve used is offered at http://jumphigherfaster.blogspot.com “.

    How Wine Survived Prohibition

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    By Thomas Ajava

    wine7North American wine is now considered excellent and comparable, if not better, than any wine in the world. This seems oddly so given the fact of prohibition. It takes time to develop a vineyard and wine. How did North American wine survive the plague of prohibition?

    The year was 1920. A conservative, religious movement had reached full steam. It’s target? The evils of alcohol. With the passage of the Volstead Act, alcohol for libation purposes became illegal in the United States of America. The concept was better known as Prohibition.

    As we know now, prohibition was an utter failure. It costs states and the federal government billions in tax money. It also introduced a huge upswing in organized crime as the mob moved to provide supply for the inevitable demand that existed for adult beverages. While beer and hard alcohol are the focus of the period, what about wine? It was included in prohibition as well, but winemakers are a subtle group.

    Wine has many uses. It was in this area that pockets of the wine industry were able to survive the decade plus of prohibition. They focused on niches for legal uses of wine and supposed legal niches that could be subverted for more rollicking affairs. Let’s take a closer look.

    Medicinal wine is an amazing thing. Have a headache? Drink it and you’ll feel better. Had a hard day? It can make things better! As you can probably guess, medicinal wine was wine with a few additives that all had one interesting trait – they all hardened and settled to the bottom of the bottle when the wine was chilled! Oddly, statistics showed many people seemed to get sick on Friday and Saturday nights. Imagine that!

    The backers of prohibition had another problem. Their movement was a religious one. As you can imagine, this led to problems because many religious ceremonies include the drinking of wine as a symbolic act. This problem was dealt with when wine use for religious purposes was exempted from prohibition.

    You can guess what happened next. Yes, “churches” and “synagogues” started popping up everywhere. Why, you could find many an adult suddenly finding religion again. Oddly, masses and gatherings were held during the evening, not the more traditional morning. I won’t even begin to describe the nature of the new priests and rabbis!

    For these reasons, the North American wine industry did not have to start from scratch once prohibition was repealed in 1933. Still, prohibition did a world of hurt to the wine industry and it would take decades before it returned to prominence. Fortunately for us wine drinkers – it did.

    Thomas Ajava is with http://www.nomadjournals.com – makers of leather journals to preserve your wine tasting experiences in.

    Dark secrets behind today’s trends. Part One

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    By Oxi Singh

    Warning, you have been tricked into doing and buying things that are not in your best interest.

    sknyjSkinny Jeans.

    These make your feet look big. Smaller looking feet, in proportion to your legs, are more desirable. Skinny jeans aside, any pants, trousers, suits that have narrow foot openings, that do not extend over the entire instep and reach the creases of the toes, make you look like Bigfoot. Of course if you try to buy anything other than the above in any man’s clothing store in 2009, then you are limited to boot legs jeans, or gangster pants.

    Low slung pants, trousers or shorts.

    Some shorts are so long, they are essentially long pants that are too short. The crotches are so low, you cannot take a full size stride. Basically, this Hip-Hop inspired look makes you look like you are 80% torso and 20% leg. It is ugly, silly, impractical, unflattering and may even get you shot. Get that crotch up where it belongs and get leggy.

    Rap.

    Yes I know, criticizing Rap makes me a racist, blah blah blah. Well fuck you. Rap is crap and nothing else is true. Forget that nonsense about it being valid poetic commentary on today’s society. It is rubbish, plain and simple. The vocalists have no talent. The backing music is simplified to the point where a flea would get bored. The drums are a button on a mixing desk, and there’s not an ounce of musicianship anywhere in sight. If you purchased a rap recording, you are a sucker. If you recorded or performed one, you are a thief and guilty of stealing intelligence from your fellow human beings. If you are African American and you are into rap, you are pissing on the graves of your jazz ancestors, the intellectual heroes of the 20th Century.

    Vitamins and food supplements.

    Waste of money, ineffective and no substitute for good fresh healthy food. Take them all to the toxic waste dump, write of the thousands of dollars you wasted and enjoy some healthy fresh real food.

    Feel free to attack me via the comments.
    Love from Oxi.

    Oxi Singh is the non de plume for a certain angry chef in Torrance, CA

    The Ancient History Of Blinds

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    By Thomas Pretty

    blinds2Blinds are prevalent throughout the modern world, used in the commercial world extensively and present in many homes. They are a practical and elegant form of window covering that gives the user ultimate control over the light being let into their interior; as such they also provide high levels of privacy. Blinds are available in a range of different styles from horizontal venetians to fabric roman shades and roller blinds that effectively block all light coming into a room. But where have blinds come from? What is the history of this variety of window covering?

    Forms of blinds are evident in many civilizations throughout the evolution of the world. It is understandable that the more modern varieties do not resemble these early blinds in form, but in function the similarities are startling. Desert civilisations are believed to have used wetted cloth to cover their windows. Fundamentally these kept out the fierce heat of the desert sun; the reason they were wetted was in order to cool the warm air being passed into the home and to keep the sand out. Essentially this method of window covering acts much like the air conditioning units we use today.

    blinds1The use of blinds in desert civilizations was eventually passed onto one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever known; Ancient Egypt. As with many items in this civilization reeds were used in manufacture. Reeds were laid in to mats and then hung over windows. These reed mats could be raised and lowered when necessary and resemble the modern roller blinds used today, it is even possible to pick up reed window coverings today, standing testament to practicality of this type of blind.

    It was not just the ancient Egyptians however that were using a type of blind for window coverings. As with many inventions attributed to the western world the ancient Chinese can lay claim to some of the earliest blind varieties. In China instead of reeds an equally prevalent natural material was used in the manufacturing of blinds, bamboo. These window covering were controlled in much the same way as their reed counterparts and in many parts of Asia are still used today. Bamboo has also become an increasing popular material in interior design during modern times.

    blinds3The Romans also developed a form of window covering that differed somewhat from reed and bamboo varieties. Roman shades, popular today in many homes are constructed using fabric and organised into overlapping slats, today they epitomise Mediterranean styling and are still frequently used in many countries across southern Europe.

    This article has only touched upon the history of blinds and has predominantly focused on their development in ancient times. Today this heritage is plain to see with all of the varieties discussed above still available to the buyer today, naturally material and manufacturing processes have evolved with the times but modern variants fundamentally carry out the same purpose as their ancient ancestors.

    Thomas Pretty is an expert in the field of interior design and studies the use of blinds in some ancient civilizations.

    Scooterer Stories part seventeen, Tiberias, Rama and a Druze Wedding.

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    By Louis the Scooterer

    Readers, a reminder. These “travel chapters” are written in a manner that could describe me and 3 passengers in a rented car, OR show me on my scooter, and a couple of other scooter riders scooting with me. Your imagination is tested. (I must also mention that many thousands of my great pictures were deleted in error, by a technician while servicing my computer, a serious great loss to me.

    We’ve arrived and settled in to our accommodation at Poriya Hostel http://www.iyha.org.il/eng/Index.asp?CategoryID=64&ArticleID=46 spectacular views over Sea of Galilee, and lovely and peaceful, especially in the wooden cabins.
    Also other rooms with great views, and even some cheap small rooms with a small window, but the same facilities to make visitors comfortable. Here we do not need to go looking for the sunrise, many places have been built have benches and chairs to watch.

    Breakfast is one later than other hostels and we pack our stuff into the car. Then take a walk to end of the hostel grounds and a short hike on the Switzerland forest, passing cows and other animals grazing. Look to see some of the memorials, and viewsites, and take pictures.

    triptib272829mar04078

    A little later, I will pick you up in the car and we take a drive up to the neighbourhood of Poriya, seeing views of the Kinerret on the one side, and the valleys on the other side. The Switzerland forest is designed for families to enjoy picnics, and tables and benches are laid on with enough parking under the trees and no parking at all on the narrow road.

    triptib272829mar04076

    Digressing for a few minutes.

    THE FIRST time I came to this area through Tiberias Illit (upper Tiberias) (http://www.israelimages.com/see_image_details.php?idi=10238 ) I was on my scooter, and the road construction was well under way. It seemed there was no supervision, and quickly I was in this muddy quagmire, withno signs anywhere that work was in progress and also no person visible. From a distance this mess looked like gravel road, but when on, I realised it was muddy mess and difficult to manouvre, but lucky my scooter had thick “offroad tyres”, and I was able to stay on, skidding uncomfortably. Lucky for me a truck trundled past slowly and I was able to ride in those tyre tracks the last couple of hundred meters to the end.

    On a later trip, all the roads were finished with excellent sidewalks, parking bays and paving and benches and trees and flowers. This became a beautiful Boulevard as it is now, and has many lovely lanes joining the lower and higher roads. All roads in these neighbourhoods are built on terraces with sidewalks and viewsites, and I even found a tiny pizza place. Alumot Junction, is close to where my favourite filling station and coffeeshop and giftshop was, under a previous owner. A quick visit into Alumot Kibbutz and recieved some brochures about bed and breakfast accommodation . A climb to top of the spiral steps tower, is a must, and has spectacular views.

    380293

    On my first visit in this area, I came upon in the middle of nowhere, a giant car dealership, with many exotic cars and all types of jeeps and minibuses for sale. and beautiful coffeeshop attached to filling-station

    triptib272829mar04068 triptib272829mar04064

    After some driving around we get to the bottom sea level road, and another short drive into Kibbuts Kinerret, for a quick visit to the “dates and honey shop” on the kibbuts. Here we buy some real sweet stuff and move on. There are a couple of important museums in kibbuts Kinerret, to see another time, perhaps.

    On the sea road towards Tiberias, we pass luxury hotels on both sides, and beaches and restaurants on the lake Kinneret. Here we can enjoy a quick snack overlooking at the sea. Carrying on and we pass some tombs of important Rabbis, also an ancient cemetery, and the current cemetery as well. A point-of-interest here is, there is a shooting range tucked into a corner of the hill, next to Rabbi’s tombs.

    We’ll take a side road through industrial area to leave the city Tiberias, and head for a short scenic drive, to see a couple of magnificent viewsites from Mt. Arbel. Take some pics and get back on the road, now #77 heading west. After a few kilometers drive we find ‘South Africa Forest’ and we’ll make some time to plant a few trees.

    An important army museum is close by, and we will visit this Golani Brigade. Next to that, we will take coffee and a hamburger at the busy hamburger joint. Then hit the road at Golani junction #65.

    imgp5056

    There are many and varied small places, all with many interesting stories, but, we will head through Rama and on to Pekiin.

    img4236 img4126

    We arrive at the beautiful friendly Pekiin Hostel, and met by the manager. Our plan is to stay over for at least 2 nites.

    img4230

    A good short drive around this fascinating ancient place, as well as much walking through and around, we’ll have dinner at restaurant at the ancient square at the well in centre of Pekiin and then a good nite sleep.

    I must tell you about RAMA, a little story I wrote a few years earlier.

    The Druze Wedding at Rama.

    On one beautiful day with nothing special planned, on scooter. I was riding to PEKIIN, (from Rd 85,) and the narrow winding-mountain road up to RAMA was heavy with traffic of all-sorts of vehicles, which had come to a stand-still. Compact, Cab Driver, Bus, Low Rider, Road Trip, so, I overtook a couple of hundred vehicles until I was in the front, and seeing this long line of men, in single-file Rave Rave Rave Rave Rave Rave doing a dance to loud music and singing, with music from big speakers mounted on a jeep ?, and being guided by a man with a loud-hailer.

    I also noticed many vehicles just standing and waiting to go down. I asked a young woman standing next to the front car, what did she think this ceremony is? and she thought it could be a wedding. That was immediately confirmed a few seconds later, when we both saw the bride walking a few meters behind the dancing men. So, the men danced or marched to the music, a few steps forward, then turn to their left, then right-turn and holding the shoulder of the man in front, and again a few steps forward, and one-by-one these men turned into a narrow lane leading to a large building that was out of our view.

    Behind the last dancing manRave came the Bride, in white, and her attendants, and all the women and children attending: Son & Mother, 9 To 5, Daughter & Mother, Mom And Baby, followed the men down the narrow lane. A lot of people attending, so the procedure took a lot of Alarm Clock minutes, then back-to-normal.

    I was the first vehicle to go, and I rode many kilometers on the winding mountain road, before the first car came up behind me. Someone was directing the hundreds of vehicles, allowing a few up, then a few down. One of these cars flagged me to stop, and the young woman I spoke to, and her father, told me what they knew about the wedding ceremony. We swopped phone numbers and carried on our journeys.

    A short while later, when I arrived at the Youth Hostel in Pekiin, I related to the young man at reception what I had seen, and he told me I had seen a “RARE EVENT” the “traditional” DRUZE wedding procession, dancing and music, TO the “marriage-ceremony”, and although he lives in Pekiin, he had seen that procession ONLY once. He also gave me much other information about many interesting places, and he took me in his car for a guided tour. A FEW more visits are in planning. Find PEKIIN on the Internet. A most amazing place to visit.

    Please feel free to email me louisdrinkingt@013.net

    Bells, Gargoyles, and University

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    by H.E. Whitney, Jr.

    University Archaisms: Campus Bells, Gargoyles, and Reflections on the University’s Purpose

    welcometoflorida1The central campus bell at my university clangs promptly at 8am (beginning of the school/work day), noon (lunchtime), and 5pm (end of the work day, although classes still begin and last long after that hour). A different campus bell that is off in the distance softly chimes each hour and each half hour between those three all-important hours.

    I have often wondered whether the university really needs a campus bell to mark specific times during the day since virtually everyone on campus—professor and student alike–has access to time through cellular devices.  (I would perhaps, in a less sober state, argue that the cell phone is probably even more ubiquitous than time itself.)  Moreover, the campus bell’s marking of time appears somewhat superfluous when we consider that the human body has its own internal chronometer (e.g., the lunch hour stomach roar or morning caffeine withdrawal) to direct our actions.

    Perhaps the real reason for the campus bell is not simply to signal specific times throughout the day but to provide a rather sentimental image of the university’s religious past. Obviously, most listeners would think of a church when hearing the campus bell. But would this perception be valid for universities or colleges that have had no historical affiliation with any particular religious congregation or sect? This image would be particularly ironic for an institution dedicated to the pursuit of truth when there is nothing in its history to signify an affiliation with a religious past. While my institution does have such an affiliation in its history with religion (the university originally began as a seminary), other universities that make prodigious use of campus bells–universities whose origins or history have had no religious roots whatsoever—seem to be promoting a false image of themselves and their history.

    464541gargoylefountain0Gargoyles populate my university’s campus (probably more prominently than students) and some of them are built into the sidewalk to serve as barricades for limiting vehicle access to walkways. One of the original uses of gargoyles during the age of Gothic architecture was to serve as water conduits on building tops. So there is some awkwardness in seeing gargoyles springing from the pavement instead of howling or spewing water from the roofs of campus buildings.

    Additionally, one of the important uses of the gargoyle during the age of Gothic architecture was to scare off evil spirits. Yet I seriously doubt universities that adorn their landscapes or buildings with gargoyles wish to be even seen as postulating the existence of spiritual realms since we are so far along now in the age of force, gravity, and quarks. (Ironic, isn’t it, that science has perhaps enabled us to discard outmoded occult powers and entities for its own!)

    The archaisms of the campus bell and the gargoyle raise several questions. Should we think of the university as a monastic institution? If we do, then such a thought would seem to suggest that the university was a secluded, regimented sort of place where the study of scripture and the striving for the religious ideal were dominant goals. We certainly don’t have anything close to that anymore in academia: modern universities in America have for the most part become skill factories and groupings of social networks geared to prepare students for the work life instead of for the next life. In many universities that have dominant business and/or technical programs, students in those programs will probably have taken little or no classes in religion or the human disciplines for the matter.

    In light of business world criticisms of the humanities disciplines, should we be concerned that universities now want to limit the exposure of their students to the human disciplines by requiring undergraduates take a bare minimum of “mandatory” or “required” classes that involve writing and/or critical thinking?

    It is one thing to make writing a “requirement”: advertising any class as a requirement generally frightens the student into taking the class. And when they finally take the class (sometimes after much delay), they put little effort into it (sometimes only barely passing).

    It’s another thing to make such subjects appealing as pleasures for their own sake. Universities need to show students how writing well can not only enhance their lives materially (obviously no employer wants to hire someone who can’t put together a sentence) but also provide a genuine source of intellectual pleasure. This would also be true of critical thinking which teaches students not only how to detect fallacious reasoning but to craft valid, sound arguments. The problem is that the all too familiar routines and character of modern life–with its churning, whirring, push button, bleeping, pop up, point and click efficiency–often resists critical thinking and literariness. Modernity, with its obsession with technological domination and instant satisfaction, has perhaps relegated the very idea of intellectual pleasure to the dustbin of archaisms.

    I guess this is just a midday mental meandering. Or a tea-time rambling: depending on what time your internal chronometer tells you it is.

    H.E. Whitney, Jr. is a PhD student in history at Florida State University. H.E’s fields of study are the history of science, intellectual history, and technology and culture. H.E. is originally from Suffolk, Virginia but has called California, Ohio, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and Florida home at some point. H.E. has taught philosophy and graphic design/multimedia studies at the college level and enjoy creating digital art when not pontificating on scientific, cultural, or historical matters

    Discovering Single-Serve Coffee, Keurig versus Tassimo

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    sscompLet me start this tale with the bottom line, I prefer the Keurig. Okay, now that’s out of the way, I’ll take it from the top.

    I feel like I’m on vacation, making good coffee with a single push of a button, and letting the hard work of earlier times fade into memory.

    Until a month ago I was at the tail end of an obsession lasting for decades, the obsession of making espresso based drinks at home. Normally, I would be the only one drinking these concoctions, and yet, at the end I had an array of equipment worth $1,400 and still, I could produce a lousy drink if I wasn’t careful.

    So one day, while out of town, I drank a cup of regular joe, and it wasn’t half bad. In fact I liked it. Upon returning home and getting some fresh milk for my latte and going through the usual grinding, wiping, cleaning, tamping, more wiping, warming, wiping, pulling, wiping, steaming, wiping etc etc. a seed in my mind began to grow. Do I really need to spend all this time every day as a full time cleaner, just to drink a few cups of coffee?

    As I was cleaning the coffee ground stains out of my grout lines with bleach one day, I considered getting a coffee pot, or a French press, or a glass cone or some kind of system that would quickly and easily make a good cup of coffee, but I wanted more. I wanted to remove stale grounds and mess and even the challenge keeping milk fresh from the equation. Enter the concept of single serve coffee.

    Now years ago, during my espresso equipment escalation, I had a super automatic espresso machine, which in theory would make a drink with one button push. But behind that push was a lot of hidden cleaning work and I have to say the drinks were pretty awful. So it was with some skepticism that I first turned my attention to the Bosch Tassimo and the Keurig systems.

    Since the Tassimo offered the option of pseudo cappuccinos, lattes and espressos, I began with that system. I found it to be a brilliantly clever system, but the only drink varieties that were not pretty darned awful, were the brewed coffee varieties from venture partners Starbucks and Seattle’s Best. And even these were nothing to get excited about, despite their very high cost per cup. The milk drinks, lattes, macchiatos, cappuccinos etc., were practically undrinkable to me, mainly due to to the Ultra-Heat-Treated milk, as were the Gevalia brand T-Discs, which were almost as bad as instant coffee.

    Enter the Keurig B60. It had me at cup one. Paired with the Tully’s French and other bold blends, it was heaven in a mug right from the start. Similar as the systems may be in concept, the drink quality is very different. To put it simply, one system makes generally poor coffee and the other makes great coffee.

    Also, over the course of the experiment, I trained myself to enjoy dry-powder fat-free Coffee Mate creamer in place of milk, because milk is only fresh for a short while, and with the long shelf life of the T-Discs and K-Cups, the Coffee-Mate made a lot of sense. If I was to take a trip, not only would I miss my Keurig, I’d also be able to return home and immediately be able to have a fresh cup, without shopping for milk.

    As I said at the beginning, I chose the Keurig over the Tassimo. But nothing is perfect, so here are my four small criticisms of the Keurig B60.

    1. It is too tall to fit under my upper cabinets and be able to be opened to drop in a K-Cup. For this, I blame my kitchen design, not the Keurig.
    2. Compared to the Tassimo, it takes a couple of minutes to warm up and makes a sound like an electric tea kettle as it does so. The Tassimo was immediately ready as soon as the switch was flipped. However, I can program the Keurig to switch on shortly before I stumble downstairs in the morning, so I have a workaround for the slower morning start.
    3. The Keurig is also a bit noisier than the Tassimo, but still quieter than lots of things, including a grinder, a vibration pump espresso machine, a working steam wand etc . I would not call it a loud device by any standard.
    4. The water reservoir of the Keurig is a little tricky to hold onto with one hand when filling at the faucet, but then there is always a jug.

    Keurig is owned by Green Mountain Coffee, and the more I look at the way they do business, the more impressed I am. The only thing I am a little uncomfortable with, is the fact that they successfully sued Kraft, the maker of the Tassimo, for seventeen million dollars, for copyright infringement with regard to the similarity of the Tassimo T-Disc system to the Keurig K-Cup system. Apparently, the court thought Keurig were right about it, but then what came before both systems? The pod. Now what if Illy sues Keurig, saying the plastic K-Cup is similar to a paper pod? Having had a Tassimo and a Keurig, I think they are very different in how they do things and I am surprised that the law suit was successful. But I wasn’t in that courtroom so maybe there was evidence of direct infringement.

    Anyway, who cares about law when there’s good coffee around. And with the Keurig system, there is a lot of good coffee. Every K-Cup I have tried, is far better than even the best of the best T-Discs. And that is the bottom line. I think the Tassimo may even be a better machine than a Keurig in many ways, but if the drink is not fantastic, what’s the point? As long as you don’t use the silly travel mug button and bitterly over extract the dose of coffee in a K-Cup that was designed to make a smaller cup of coffee, you cannot go wrong with a Keurig.

    You can’t keep me away from MyPoP

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    By Louis the Scooterer

    img6003

    You can’t keep me away from MyPoP, coz I wont allow a beautiful place..on the beach, to just go away..even if some smokers spoils it.

    Only in reality I havent been able to go for a couple of weeks as I had a tiny fall-off from my scooter and have been stuck indoors for quite a few days..the scooter is unscratched ..but I grazed my knee which is real painful, and I guess I will need to do little walking until that smaller than 2inch diameter scrape heals somewhat. I even cancelled my free birthday breakfast at MyPoP..will have to wait another year.

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    There are times when smokers are minimal and the wind in my favour as was the other day..a beaut of a day the beginning of summer type day..lots of people on the beach.. which is always kept clean and lots of people in the open air restaurant.. already quite a few bikini clad bodies looking for the sun..

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    and the service from pretty waitresses remains good so I was able to sit n stare at the Med Sea.. and think back a bit… about earlier days as well.. when I was a young fellow in Johannesburg..

    A specific series of thoughts came into my mind about some of the buildings in the “downtown Jhb” where I had visited many entertainment venues as well as having done glass replacements and fitted mirrors in many of the buildings..and some of these places had discos and lounges and had parties every night for unattached people looking for company..and some of these places also in popular Hillbrow and Berea adjoining downtown Jhb on north side… were magic..great views from some of the balconies..

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    you saw down the main street at the traffic and everyone coming or going was in my vision… many great hours and many great meals and coffee and cake as well..Benny often played the piano in lounge of popular Cafe Zurich.

    The spotlessly clean General Hospital was a few corners away in most beautifully kept gardens.

    Recently I was sent pictures of what some of these building look like now..depressing the way things turned out and so many buildings turned into squatter camps ??

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    so I wont dwell on that, while surely is lovely to watch the waves and the sea in front of me.

    I remembered having owned beautiful cars and some were convertibles,< flavia1xxjpg >< paris4667jpg > and in mid 1950′s and 1960′s I could park my convertible anyplace, as well as my scooter and I knew it would not be interfered with…even parked my convertible one evening outside the City Hall in Johannesburg, and went to watch a concert..and the traffic officer in charge said he would keep an eye on it.. turned out to be Gerhardt who was in the citizen-force with me (several years earlier)..and I never recognised him with his new full thick mustache and his smart uniform.

    flaviaconv1xx imgp4667

    Unfortunately that easy going lifestyle changed over the years and currently I wouldn’t attempt to own any smart looking car..even the drab looking cars have a short life in Johburg.. as for the radio thieves..they are everywhere. Always plenty to write about those “olden days”..

    The bus to town was one corner up from where I lived..and the tram to town was 2 corners down the road. After starting to work at an early age..”taken from school” by an uncle who gave me a good job in a timber yard / hardware store business, and after a short while I bought a bicycle and cycled to work..didnt matter if it was raining..my best route was on flat roads and was a pleasant 20 minute ride.
    Never was a great deal of traffic and every ride was okay..until the day a guy in his Jeep station wagon, rode into me from the back..virtually destroying the bike..lucky I was not really hurt..he apologised and loaded the bike into his jeep and took it to the local bicycle shop close to where I worked, and he told the man to repair it..and he promptly vanished..

    At the end of the second day the bike guy called me and said the frame is too badly damaged and not worth repairing and I should get a new bicycle ..but the guy with the jeep refused to pay…anything.

    SO, a few days later, my father..a not big guy, and one of his poker playing friends ..a not small guy..paid the Jeep guy a quick visit.. and the jeep guy paid the full amount for the new bike which even had a few gears..but I knew that my “cycling to work” days were almost over..so back to the tram to go to work and back to the bus to come home…

    until the day I walked past the used car dealer that recently opened a few blocks “up the road” and saw that re-built 2 seater car on an MG chassis, which after a short while became mine…and funny enough even a whole bunch of new girls became my passenger..suddenly I was a lot more popular than before ??..and memories came flooding back.. and all the waitresses of today, are exactly like the girls of those way back times…

    so right now i sit and patiently wait for the scrape to heal.. so I can get-going again.

    img5451

    please email me louisdrinkingt@013.net

    Cleaning and taking care of your Diamond

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    By Ghostevyta Kamu

    diamondCaring for a diamond takes more than occasional cleanings. Diamonds are forever, but they can be damaged if you are not careful. By learning how to properly care for your diamond, you will ensure that your diamond is indeed forever.

    First, you should take your diamond jewelry to a jeweler once a year. Have him check the mountings and prongs that hold your diamond in place. Have him make any needed repairs. This will prevent your diamond from falling out of its setting and becoming lost.

    Diamond jewelry that is not being worn, or diamonds that are loose should be stored in a fabric lined jewel case, or in a jewelry box where it can be kept separate from other jewelry. Each piece should have its own compartment. This will keep diamonds from becoming scratched, and it will also keep your diamond from scratching other jewelry as well.

    Remove your diamond jewelry when doing physical work. Diamonds can be chipped and scratched easily. Also avoid allowing your diamond to come into contact with bleach or other household cleansers this can damage or change the color of the settings and mountings, and it may even irreversibly change the color of the diamond!

    Through our day to day, movements our diamonds get smudged and soiled. Even when we are not wearing them, they collect dust. Lotions, soaps, our natural skin oils, can cause film and grime on diamonds and inhibit their brilliance.

    Want to keep that Brilliance and Shine? Diamonds require cleaning so that maximum amounts of light can refract fiery brilliance. Remember that all it takes is a few minutes and a little care to keep that diamond as fiery as the day you first saw it.

    You can use a small soft brush such as an eyebrow or lip stick brush and soap and water to clean your jewelry. Simply make a bowl of warm sudsy water with a mild detergent and place your pieces in the mixture. Then brush the diamonds with the soft bristles of the brush while they are in the suds. You will need to make certain that you rinse them clear of the suds after cleaning them. You can use a small kitchen strainer such as a tea strainer to contain them while rinsing under warm water. Use a lint free cloth, or a jewelry polish cloth to pat them dry.

    If your diamonds are in need of a stronger cleansing, you may want to soak them for 30 minutes in a solution of half and half water and ammonia. Once they have soaked for 30 minutes, remove them and gently brush the mountings with a small brush. Then replace the pieces to the solution and swish them around in the mixture before removing them to rinse and pat dry.

    If you find your self too busy to be mixing soaps and ammonias, many department stores sell liquid jewelry cleaners. Most are kits, with everything you need included. You need to read the labels to determine the one that is right for your diamonds and other jewelry. Read the complete directions and follow all the precautions.

    And if you find yourself more the high-tech type”, even in your diamond cleaning routine, there are multiple ultrasonic cleansers on the market. These machines use high-frequency to create a cleaning motion. All machines are not the same, so please read the instructions before using.

    Only you can choose the cleaning method right for you. But, it is essential to keep your jewelry clean to keep it brilliant and sparkling. Between cleaning, try not to touch your clean diamonds with your fingers or handle your jewelry by its edges. This will help maintain its shine and brilliance for longer periods.

    More Information : http://diamonds-jewelry.net, http://discounts-stores.net, http://kampanye-damai-pemilu-indonesia-2009.com

    Ghostevyta Kamu writes from Medan, Indonesia.

    Time for a computing rant

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    I should begin by stating that today is April 8th, 2009. This is important whenever writing about technology, or as in this case, ranting about technology, because by the time you read this, things may well have changed.

    I am not a computer journalist, I don’t take advertising revenue from Microsoft or Apple or Norton, and I am no programmer. But I do use computers and I know what I like and do not like.

    So this rant is partly an observation, partly a wish list, and partly about 1973 Buick Electra converted to run on battery power. (More on that later).

    babbage_difference_engine_sRanting about computers, the big kind.

    I wrestled with Windows from early 3.0 until late in the XP era, before I became so busy with actual work that I decided it was high time to stop messing around with dialog boxes and virus scans and abandon Microsoft so I could get some bloody work done.

    My solution was to switch to Mac. Now I’m not one of these guys who says Apples are perfect and all other fruits are rubbish, because that is an exaggeration, but I will say that I no longer work for the computer. The computer now works for me.

    I remain open-minded about where computing may go in the future, but as people who have downgraded to “netbooks” will tell you, there is a future in online application use and assuming being connected continues to become more ubiquitous, that may be our direction.

    Ranting about computers, the small kind.

    I got into palm-top or handheld computing in the 1990s with a Palm III and dabbled in Windows tablets and then gave it all up when my eyesight deteriorated, only to jump back in when my wife bought me the first iPhone.

    I still find Internet use to be a pain in the eye on the iPhone, but I think that on one’s palm is the best place to work in many situations.

    But I always wanted to fill the gap between a notebook / laptop computer and a handheld device such as a smart phone. My first attempt at doing so was to buy an Acer tablet computer, but I found the operating system, the hardware and the screen to be very close to completely unusable. It was slow enough to make you scream, awkward to use, and hard to see in almost any light, but only for an hour then the batteries ran down.

    I held out hope for Palm’s “Folio Mobile Companion” invention in 2007 only to see them backtrack and cancel the release. And rumors continue to abound about Apple’s plans for something bigger than an iPhone and smaller than a Macbook, with an alternative operating system.

    And this is the key, and why the tablet failed for me, something roughly the same size and weight might succeed if it does not try to be a computer. That is: no Windows, no OS X, no full blown Linux, but something more like the iPhone operating system. We have to recognize that a small whatever-you-call-it is not a computer. This is why tablets were awful and also why these new “netbooks” don’t really work well with the Windows OS installed. They come with XP because it’s only about $25 now, but it’s not right for a little ten inch thing.

    People who run simple Linux shells to get them online to do stuff get much more satisfaction from their netbooks, without the squinting. It was the same when Palm had two versions of the Trio smart phone, one with Windows Mobile, the big seller, and one with the last version of the Palm OS. The Windows one was terrible because you really need a big screen to work well in Windows. The Palm OS one was less terrible. The little tiny keyboard was never as efficient as Graffiti, if you took the time to learn Graffiti.

    The iPhone reminded me that even someone with bad eyes and big fingers can still work in the hand if the OS and also the input method are clever enough, (they are). And as long as there’s an Internet connection, then there is room for a lightweight device that is larger than a pocketable mobile telephone.

    Another thing netbooks have done is throw the escalation of processing power and application complication into reverse. This has coincided with the end of the megapixel arms race in digital cameras, and the end of the economic boom, that never should have been a boom in the first place, due to it’s source in hype and debt.

    If applications can be usable over the wi-fi, then they will be better if they are less complicated, not more so, so this new small way of thinking can potentially move Microsoft’s fortunes into the hands of Google, Yahoo! etc. Anyone who develops good web-based applications.

    Revolutions still to come in display and input technology will add strength to this movement. The tortoise may beat the hare in computing.

    So about that electric Buick Electra, oh sorry, I’m out of time.

    Scooterer Stories, Part Sixteen – Around the Sea of Galilee

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    “Round and around the Sea of Galilee we go”!

    Good morning all. Don’t leave anything behind. We ain’t comin’ back to Kare Deshe.

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    Route decided… lets go.. early start..have packed breakfast..lets go watch sunrise from Syrian plateau ?? On the way I will let you walk for a few minutes on the newly made pavement, passed the pink Greek Church

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    and I’ll pick you up at Capernaum gate

    tripsat14sun15feblotsarainnorth049

    Gamla will not be open so early but from a high view we watch the sunrise in the east.. and in the west we see the colors sunrays on the cliffs inside . Gamla, and if we are lucky we may see some eagles flying..

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    We will make a quick visit to a special friend at his home on a moshav..I’ll tell you a little about that.

    Way back on one of my first trips staying at KD I heard about a “mountain-bike event”, and tried to get some info.. I didn’t manage to get any start-times, routes, finish line and places the bikes would be at. By chance the next morning, on my very early morning scoot, looking for sunrise I saw a small bright green cardboard sign on a pole with a sketch of a bicycle ..that sign slightly reopened my interest in the event.

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    I learned the event begins and ends at a venue ON one of many beaches on west side at Kinerret..so I followed the sign and soon found a man with a van with a trailer-full of mountain bikes that he rents on the beaches…he was not connected to any event, but did point me to where he thought the cyclists would be.

    After some time n scootin’ around and asking several people I still could not get proper information, so I decided I will simply ride around and maybe by fluke I would get to see some of the bikes.

    WHAT a weird coincidence ..as I scooted slowly, on the main road, I noticed on my right, several bikes heading down the track and close to me at the side of the road ..behind a fence, they were waiting permission to “cross the road”…

    dsc01100bicycles

    and I noticed a man had stopped the traffic to let the cyclists get to the other side. Not a busy road at that time, so I pulled up next to this fellow and asked him “is this the mountainbike event”? ..he looked at me on my scooter, and his reply was “I know you” !…

    what ! you know me ? huh !

    We spoke a while and he told me where the event ends with a ride on the water edge

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    to a beach..some kms. down the road..there was no problem, and I was allowed to follow the cycles, exept there were some big water pipes and concrete drains that I could not cross..easy for the cyclists

    3bicyclesramot1

    ..they simply lifted their bike and walked across the pipe. My scooter couldnt get across these pipes so I began the ride back to the road (about 15 minutes) then back to find the end of the event ??..but there are several beaches, and at each beach there were some mountain-bike happenings with barbeques and picnics, and many people, and I could not find him.

    A relative of Albert’s, (known to me) had told him casually some years earlier that “one day” Lou will relocate to Israel..and who knows..maybe we will meet.

    Another mutual friend visited Albert once and I would say everyone forgot about ..until he stopped me to allow the cycles to cross the road. A couple of his teenage sons were riding bikes and Albert’s job was to see they cross the road safely.

    Albert had also seen a picture of me on my scooter in an insert magazine (more than a year earlier).. that is in every Friday Jerusalem Post..and he kept the article which included my fone number.

    Eventually we connected and I visited at his home on Givat Yoav..a lovely moshav dealing mainly in dairy, and also has entertainment for visitors

    326413givatyoavalbert

    and his taking me around to every interesting spot on the moshav with full explanations.. and nearby places as well.

    I have visited several times with scooter, and in rain season in rented car..and when Albert has reason to be in Netanya..we meet..and always talk about that incredible meeting.

    So now we have to leave after our quickvisit and head on beautiful scenic road towards the Kinerret, where many places on the beach entice us. Some are simple beaches with trees and benches and tables where people will always be picnicking..and also luxury Kibbutz Hotels that draw visitors from everywhere in the world.

    We will take a short walk along the waters edge a while at

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    and take a cold drink from the kiosk. We will also drink a coffee in luxury, at HA’ON Kibbuts and walk about in the gardens..maybe we will be able to see their ostrich farm.

    Then make a quick visit to the date factory/shop at Kinerret kibbuts..to buy dates and honey and other delicacies..(you remember we visited the baptism site the other day?)..this factory shop is just up the road.)

    We will take a ride into Tiberias and see some ancient sites at the waterfront and see the movie about “Galilee Experience”, and take a bite at one of the restaurants  in the center of Tiberias.

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    Then another quick visit, this time to Dona Gracia Hotel but only a quick walk-about coz you aleady know all about that place…(earlier chapter). We will drive past Mayouhas Youth Hostel where I have stayed a few times…no easy parking so we wont visit.

    I”ll show you 3 hotel buildings that were abandoned

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    and other sites as well.. and stop a while at ADI viewpoint to take pics

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    We then head to Tiberias Illit (upper Tiberias) and find our way into to Switzerland Forest,

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    a beautiful drive with breathtaking views

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    and many lovely spots to sit around and picnic..

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    ( no kiosks or stalls here).. and then at south end of this drive, we will find our hostel at Poriya…for a one night stay.

    Please feel free to email me louisdrinkingt@013.net

    Winecycling

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    By Jill Russell

    Winecycling – Prosser entrepreneur finds treasures “Après Vin”

    After the grapes are crushed and the wine is fermented, what’s left is a sloppy goop of grape skins, seeds and bio-waste. But, you know what they say- one man’s trash, is another man’s treasure. Dr. Eric Leber, chemist and Prosser, Washington’s newest wine country entrepreneur, has been taking the bio-waste from local wineries, and turning it into over 50 products made from grape seed oil.

    While teaching organic chemistry at Heritage University, Leber has been able to use this little seed to create things like wood stain, ink, even corks. But six years ago after founding his company, Après Vin- French for “after the wine,” his primer focus has been creating the ultimate line of culinary cooking oil.

    “In less than two years, the company has gone from a tiny little enterprise, to a larger one, but it still has a long way to grow,” said Leber. “It’s still just beginning, but it’s starting to catch on. Thank God for the internet.”

    Everything about the company is infused with the spirit of Washington’s wine country. Almost all of the grape bio-waste comes directly from in-state wineries and the products are produced locally by Prosser’s FruitSmart Company.

    Although FruitSmart is an organically certified company, products by Après Vin are not because they are not produced with organic grapes. Leber says organic grapes are difficult to come by, due to shortages of local organic vineyards.

    Certified or not, this has not seemed to be a problem for the growing company. The flavor-infused cooking oils have found a strong niche market with the culinary crowds and specialty foods shops. No order is too strange or outlandish for Leber, who says Chef Frank Magaña of Picazo 7 Seventeen restaurant and wine bar in downtown Prosser regularly orders vanilla chardonnay grape seed oil.

    The actual production is a huge undertaking. Wine pumice is collected from the wineries, separated, dried, and cold pressed with a European presses. It takes about 3,000 pounds of grapes- enough for 300 gallons of wine, to produce the 75 pounds of dried grape seeds needed to make just one gallon of grape seed oil.

    Leber explained although not a winemaker by trade, a passion for the industry has been in his family for over 50 years. In 1956, Leber’s father, Ralph, teamed up with his brother and professors of Washington State University, to create ‘Associated Vintners,’ the first premium winery in the state. Later, his father’s company would become Columbia Winery, which continues to function today in Woodinville, Washington.

    In July 2008, Ralph Leber, was inducted into the 2008 Legends of Washington Wine Hall of Fame. This annual function is organized and hosted by Prosser’s Walter Clore Wine and Culinary Center.

    Leber says by virtue of his father’s activities, he became aware of the industry, and used that knowledge during his time teaching at Heritage University. Upon receiving a grant by the Economic Development Administration, as part of the federal government’s Department of Commerce, Leber and his students began to examine the possibly of recovering value from agricultural waste. The group started with orchards, transitioned to dairy feed lots, and then found themselves at Apex Washington Hill’s Richmond Winery, which at the time was located in the old Dairy gold plant in Sunnyside.

    “Pretty quickly, we discovered that there is still a lot of value in the bi-products from winemaking,” said Leber.

    Over the next several years, the team successfully concluded that there were over 50 potential commercial uses that can be harvested from the grape bio-waste. Some of the most impressive discoveries include: writing ink, soap, a natural wood and shoe polish, and a chardonnay bio-fuel- which he has kept in a small glass wine bottle for over 6 years.

    “It’s still amazing, that after six years, it’s still fresh,” says Leber. “I don’t think that gasoline or diesel fuel would look that good after six years.’

    Grape Skin Paper

    Grape Skin Paper

    Besides heating homes and powering cars, there has been numerous health benefits associated with grape seed oil. Varietal grape seed oils are a rich source of healthful polyunsaturated oils, antioxidants, and other photochemical. Leber explained the oil also contains essential fatty acids, such as Linolenic (LNA) and Linoleic (LA) acids, which provide contribute to cellular function and vitality. Additionally, grape seed oil has a particularly high level or heart-healthy polyunsaturated fats and half the saturated fat of olive oil- Rachael Ray, eat your heart out!

    Currently, Leber focuses full time on running the business, but has promised that once his business becomes profitable, he will create a scholarship for Heritage University students to continue researching sustainable uses for winery bio-waste. He also stays connected to academia by giving lectures about sustainable winemaking. Meanwhile, he explained the newest classes of innovators have continued the research his former students began years ago. Leber explains it’s been incredible to watch the growth of winemaking in Washington over the past 50 years. Despite a shaky economy, Wine County continues to blossom, keeping Leber knee-deep in bio-waste and challenging him to ponder new uses “Après Vin.”

    Après Vin products can be purchased at www.apresvin.com.

    Jill Russell is a Journalist/blogger at www.recordbulletin.com. Her blog can be found at: http://readjillsblog.blogspot.com/

    Renaming MyPop to POSSS, and recalling Banias

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    By Louis the Scooterer

    Oh well.. I love being a quitter (like when I quit smoking !) but I hate being a “loser” as I am NOW with smokers all around.. and them winning, and by choice I need to leave a place.

    Today.. this beautiful beginning-of-summer-morning..first cup of coffee at the square where the smokers were in the millions..even though there was a pleasant breeze.. I left when it became unbearable. I then scooted to coffee at Mypop which I now call POSSS (place of smelly stinking smokers)..as the other millions of smokers come there.

    I get the impression that the owners / partners supply free cigarettes ? coz the place has become very popular, and remains a beautiful place. but, when many people are there, they have lost ME.. (who cares..no one gives a damn?)

    Anyway this morn I even saw the owners smoking inside the restaurant !!.. thats bad news (for me), and my decision is to reduce my visits at mypop and go ONLY when they open in the morning, and when I can be the first one there.

    Surely I will miss seeing the bikini beauties, and other people that I previously exchanged chats with.. but as I watched 3 newcomers sit at the next table 1 meter from me..all 3 began smoking.. then 2 others arrived and sat at another table 3 meters from me and both began smoking.. (and I refuse to take pics of smokers, any more.).. that means that the 5 newcomers were all smoking.. that means 100% newcomers were smoking ?? and while I breathed-in and swollowed their stinky smelly smells..I wondered at which place will I be happy.

    I thought about my visit to such a place ..BANIAS.. and I relate here about that visit to that most beautiful place…

    There are 2 main roads to the only Ski Site in Israel way up north, on top of Mount Hermon. The more popular route, takes you past the foot of Mt. Hermon where the source of Hermon Stream flows, at a mysterious place called BANIAS. I had visited Banias several times by scooter and in a rented car, and because I knew I couldn’t walk much, I usually stood at the entrance gate to this awesome place, received brochures and maps with walking routes.. and stared in wonderment what was directly in front of me.

    The gigantic arched entrances into the mountain caves, waterfalls, running water, ancient workings and remnants of buildings, and knowing that much walking is required. But my old knee wouldnt allow..so I sat on the saddle or in the rentcar for a few minutes, took a picture or two, and then moved along to elsewhere. Well..this is my story about a proper visit, a couple of years later, after receiving a TKR (Total Knee Replacement). Now at this time, I am able to walk some distances, painfree (perhaps with some stiffness), and started doing what I hadn’t done for so many years.

    I climbed up steps and walked on broken rocks and on beautiful grass lawns and next to the flowing waters in many areas in this incredible place, walking along the fast flowing very narrow streams and up and down rock steps and on muddy sand over little bridges through narrow tunnels. This was a new experience for a more than 70 year old scooterer..this trip was on my scooter. One of the excellent sites on internet is http://www.jafi.org.il/education/noar/sites/banias.htm. It was marvellous seeing many groups of children visiting this place, as well as many tour buses arriving with tourists from all around the world. There are also places with many tables and benches under trees for picnicking, or taking a rest.

    There are several different routes to follow, and I chose what looked like the “easiest and shortest” (purple route). (Not to kid myself)..this was a long and most interesting winding route which comes upon a longtime-disused hydro-electric plant, and cellars and ancient flour mills and other buildings that need time to explore, and I walked crossed a Roman Bridge… and need to know where to make the left-turn at the correct spot…(to follow the purple arrows). I even came across a tiny kiosk run by an old Druze man, and I jumped back in time at least 100 years seeing this spot..and “chatting” with this “picturesque chap”.. and eating what he makes..a thin bread filled with goat cheese, with a cool drink, or his special blend of tea.


    The streams flow non stop, and in wonderment I stand at many spots and take my hat off to those who designed these places for hikers and children and even older ones like me. I passed through underground tunnels to archaeological diggings, found plaques with English translations about what stands at a particular spot…and always found a place to sit in the shade.

    Later I met with tourists from USA and another group from Nigeria. Many groups of Christians travel in buses with their church leaders and guides..and my take on that is, unfortunately the time they spent at this magic place, is far too short to really explore. I casually joined one of these groups and listened to a well informed guide telling about some of the spots where they stop..take pics..listen to a quick story..and move along.

    After taking a coffee at the kiosk, and being very satisfied with my (new knee) achievement..and pleasantly tired..I chatted with tourists and staff, and listened to their stories. I then scooted along a couple of kms..down the road.. to the BANIAS FALLS.. and stood at the viewsite, and with my binoculars I could see many hikers of all ages, climbing up the pathways to eventually arrive at the Roman Bridge (where I was earlier).

    I learned that at the spot where I was standing, there are 100 steps to the bottom to see the falls… and my decision was “those 100 steps down and up again” ??.will be for another time…and I waved goodbye to the couple who began the climb down.

    Did I mention not to forget camera and wear comfortable walking shoes.. SO..dear reader spend a few minutes (google to Banias) and start planning your visit. Feel free to email me louisdrinkingt@013.net

    Los Angeles, what are we standing on?

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    Geologists would say that the Los Angeles Basin is like a huge bowl of sand

    The geologic center for the Los Angeles Basin is the place where the Los Angeles River and the river known as Rio Hondo merge in South Gate. At this central point, sand, silt, clay and other river sediments are the deepest. Actually in excess of 30,000 feet of sediment separate the surface here from the bedrock below. This is the height of the highest mountains in the Himalayas!

    Surrounding this enormous bowl of sand are mountains, namely the San Gabriel Mountains, the Santa Monica Mountains, the Santa Ana Mountains and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Just like today’s Santa Catalina Island, the P.V. peninsula was once an island offshore.

    Geology can only be studied on vast time scales. Today’s Los Angeles Basin was once underwater. Fifteen million years ago a shallow sea covered today’s L.A. The mountains surrounding it, which are still here, were slowly spiraling around the sea as the Pacific tectonic plate ground it’s way Northward past the North American plate.

    As the mountains slowly circled the sea, the Earth’s crust below twisted, stretched and cracked enough to allow molten lava to reach the surface. This newer crust began collapsing as it stretched thin, and eventually it formed a deep bowl of rock, above which sediments from not only the local rivers of the time, but also the sea itself, began to gradually give us our giant bowl of sand.

    Small microorganisms also poured in and as they lived, died and settled in vast numbers, they slowly began to change under pressure to become today’s oil and gas deposits.

    About 5 million years ago, the stretching of the crust stopped. As the bowl shrank, it continued to be filled with sediment and at the same same time, seismic activity started raising the level of the ground. The former ocean floor became the future backyards of the San Fernando Valley and Beverly Hills etc. As the sea floor became dry land, rivers such as today’s Los Angeles, Rio Honda, Ballona Creek, and countless others which are no longer visible from the city’s surface, meandered and flooded and cut and diverted and merged and separated over and over again.

    It is this sediment that we call our ground today. There are fossils of sea creatures in the soil of our backyards. There are winding boulevards built over old rivers and streams, and when the earthquakes come, the sandy bowl always throws us surprises, with one block shaking itself to pieces right beside another block that barely moves.

    It is this giant wobbly sandpit that contains our skyscraper foundations, our subways, and our utilities infrastructure. It is upon this sediment that we build our million dollar wood framed houses. In geologic time, it is but a moment since the first human set foot in the basin, and it will be just another moment before all traces of our stay here will have been buried or washed away.

    And eventually, the continental plate upon which we rest, will be subducted and recycled in the magma. And as if that wasn’t enough, the Sun will one day swell to take back the Earth, then long after that, will die itself and our atoms will potentially spark a new life somewhere else in the unimaginably long distant future.

    Jeffrey the Barak has lived in L.A. for more than twenty years. It has hardly moved during this time.

    The hazards of imagining countries

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    By Jeffrey the Barak

    Nomadic tribes move independently of each other and occasionally come together to interact through trade, war, sport, cultural exchange, intermarriage, murder etc.

    In the dense jungles of South America and Africa and Asia, the boundaries formed by geographical features such as ridges and valleys are all it takes to keep two nomadic cultures apart in language and traditions, until they either form non-nomadic civilizations or continue to roam independently of their neighbors. Then there is fate. One tribe may come into contact with, and survive contact with, outsiders and end up with new lifestyles and technology such as outboard motors and clothing, whereas their immediate neighbors may escape detection for decades afterwards.

    Tribes evolve into societies and eventually countries. We have seen it in today’s Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and surrounding areas and due to the fact that so many people have been exposed to the Old Testament of the Bible, and therefore have some awareness of nations and ethnic groups of the last two or three thousand years, it is easy to see how more modern politics and assumed differences can evolve into borders drawn on the map.

    If just one or two things had happened differently in history, the map of the Middle-East might be totally different, because in all that famous history, recorded in the world’s best selling loosely-historical book, there were only a few hundred or a couple of thousand people involved in most of those old conflicts.

    If you have a chance to find a map of the region that is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, a map made in the early or mid 19th century, you will see numerous regions defined by the make-up of the nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes and their leaders of those days.

    Today in the United Nations, you will never see little signs naming Tribes of the Turkmens, Buhara, Pamir, Darwaz, Roshan, Shignan, Badakhshan, Kunduz, Khulm. Chitral, Maimana, Herat, Kafiristan, Dir, Kohistan, Svat, Buner, Shinaki, Punjab and more.

    But these were names of regions, if not countries, on the maps of the day. Most are now either part of Pakistan or Afghanistan. The people of these regions are not necessarily Afghanis or Pakistanis, but the modern map tells them that’s what they are.

    There are seven main ethnic groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and many more obscure groups, some extremely small and hardly known to this day.

    And a failure to understand who these people are, who they were, where they came from and where they live now, means that occupying armies really do not have any clear idea who they are defending or who they are trying to kill.

    Add the complication of different religions, most of which are opposing or slightly differing views from within the Islamic umbrella, and the complications deepen.

    Shift West a few miles and look at Iraq. Like Pakistan, it is a modern country created not very long ago by outsiders. (The British, if you want to name names). Until the start of the current war, it held it’s violence and hate simmering below the surface, united by the common fear of their evil national dictator. But how many of those who voted to approve the invasion of Iraq had even a glimmer of understanding about the basic differences between the various peoples in the region? How many even knew anything about Sunni’s Shi’ites and Kurds, as they stood on the floor of the House and painted a picture of Iraqis cheering for parading American liberators marching triumphantly into Baghdad a few weeks after the Air Force blew it to bits for the good of the people.

    Perhaps it is too late to swap the Iraq on the map for numerous ethnic regions, and too late to swap the Pakistan and Afghanistan of today into the little countries and regions that existed before. But on the other hand, perhaps these people can never be unified into countries. The very model of a country may not be applicable to people such as these. They remain tribal and separate, in culture and language.

    Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, all examples of relatively new countries, each with their own set of problems. Without ever understanding much about the people within, outside military forces jump in to help, and end up killing or displacing thousands and thousands of people either directly or indirectly

    Surely a little research would be advisable?