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Things have been very light here at Ron's Log recently, because I've been expending my digital energy getting ready to work up the grand and glorious thank-you for you people who supported me in AIDS LifeCycle. It's going to be at www.rbgilbert.com/life/, the same place where I originally begged for contributions. And, yes, you can go look at it now, but it'd be a waste to do so. It's got only one page and several broken links. I'll let you know as it progresses.
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Tough British Marines unnerved by very friendly locals during search for K-Duh (Al K-Duh, that is).
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Grab your hankies and salve: Jerry Mathers has suffered for ten years with psoriasis! (Apparently, it's no longer referred to as "the heartbreak of…") And he's done it so well, the National Psoriasis Foundation has made him their spokesbeaver for the "Step Into My Skin campaign." In this photo, do you suppose his facial expression is caused by the misery of psoriasis, or is something else going on down below? His birthday's coming up on June 2.
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Traffic on interstate highway in Georgia comes to abrupt halt to save cute little doggy. Yes, he's a cute little doggy, oh yes he is, kissy kissy!
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Amazon, taking a cue from Google, perhaps, adds restuarant menus to its site. Only Boston, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C. so far.
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I haven't seen this suckass bicycle sidepath at Fresh Pond yet, but if John Allen says it sucks, it sucks. (In this case, sucking is a bad thing.)
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The Provincetown Banner brings you up to date on public sex in P-town (where sucking is a good thing).
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Mildred Benson, creator of Nancy Drew, died this past Tuesday. In 1993 she said "I'm so sick of Nancy Drew I could vomit." I turned to Nancy Drew after I exhausted the Hardy Boys books at my local library.
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A few voices in the wilderness manage to promote seafood sales in Kansas City, where salmon is considered exotic.
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Clinton, Iowa's, Carnegie library opened in 1904 and it's time to replace it, the city council says with a new facility that will feature a parking lot capable of handling up to 165 cars! Wowzer. They are expecting that library to be a major draw…or maybe they're planning to shut down all the branches.
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More fuck-ups on the MBTA Silver Line.
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The Boston to Portland, Maine, Amtrak line continues to succeed with a growing ridership that exceeds original estimates.
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Spelling Bee excitement builds as Matt Gassman of Ames, Iowa, correctly spells "megrims."
I may have typed too fast. It looks like Matt failed to correctly spell "chela."
Other words that have knocked people out of this year's competition:
- epopt [one instructed in the mysteries of a secret system]
- gabion [a cylindrical wicker basket filled with earth and stones, formerly used in building fortifications]
- balmacaan [a loose, full overcoat with raglan sleeves, originally made of rough woolen cloth]
- barathrum [a band?]
- putsch [you know, a putsch]
- sortileger [one who foretells the future by drawing lots]
- chamfer [a beveled surface to eliminate an otherwise sharp corner]
- verticil [an arrangement of leaves, flowers, inflorescences, or other structures which surround the stem in a circle upon the same plane about the same point on the axis]
- limitrophe [bordering upon]
- orpiment [an arsenic-sulfur combination yielding a brilliant yellow color known as king's yellow]
- nephelognosy [observation of clouds]
- sculpin [a family of small fishes that have long bodies, broad pectoral fins, and wide mouths]
- epiphora [watering of the eye]
- astuciously [subtle; cunning; astute]
- termagancy [the quality or state of being termagant; turbulence; tumultuousness]
- secernment [to discern as separate; discriminate]
- maillot [a woman's one-piece bathing suit]
- throstle [a machine formerly used for spinning fibers]
- periphyton [the community of microorganisms that are attached to or live upon submerged surfaces]
- caracole [a half turn to right or left performed by a horse and rider]
- nainsook [a soft, lightweight muslin - check out vintageskivvies.com]
- ponerology [division of theology dealing with evil]
- vaticinal [prophetic]
- nephalism [abstinence from spirituous liquor]
- chevon [goat meat]
- monture [proper name of a creek in Montana, French for "mounting"]
- objicient [one who makes objection; an objector]
- serotinal [of or relating to the latter and usually drier part of summer]
- hierophant [originally the high priest of the Greek Mysteries at Eleusis — more generally, any priest of the Mysteries who reveals sacred secrets to initiates]
- roriferous [generating or producing dew]
- pasquinade [a satire or lampoon, especially one posted in a public place]
- casein [a white, tasteless, odourless protein precipitated from milk by rennin]
- seston [the term used for all particulate matter which is in suspension in the water]
- brevet [a randonnée to qualify a rider to enter a longer randonnée]
- skiagram [a picture or photograph made up of shadows or outlines]
- masseter [large muscle that elevates the jaw]
- instauration [renovation; restoration]
- pisiform [pea-shaped]
- doyen [the senior member of a group]
- marcescent [withering but not falling off; marcescent leaves dry out in autumn, stay on the tree through winter and fall in the spring]
- beignet [New Orleans pastry, deep fried and served with powdered sugar, like a fritter]
- spheterize [to make something one's own: appropriate]
- pesade [the act or position of a horse when rearing on its hind legs with its forelegs in the air]
- drupaceous [resembling a drupe, which is a fleshy fruit with a pit or stone, for example, a peach]
- garibaldi [a bright-orange fish that lives in warm waters, including the kelp forests off southern California]
- Torquemada [Spanish Dominican friar who was appointed grand inquisitor by Pope Innocent VII]
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The Liberty Memorial is being rededicated and re-opened in Kansas City this weekend.
The Liberty Memorial site itself.
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Here's a sign prominently displayed at all Delta work areas at Logan airport (maybe other airports, too, but I haven't noticed). I saw it on an earlier flight, and I'm glad they are still using it so I could get a photo of it. I try to imagine how the committee arrived at such a flat, uninspiring, inoffensive statement. I suppose they started with "United We Stand" since that is so ubiquitous these days. But they didn't want to sound like everybody else, so they ran it through a speech transmogrification program - or maybe just through some crotchety, retired English teacher. There it got switched to "We Stand United". Then a thesaurus subroutine told them that "together" could be substituted for "united." I don't know why they stopped there. Why not "We Hang Out Together?" (Too close to "We Hang Together" maybe). How about "We Stand Around?" Did they consider they were possibly excluding those unable to stand? Maybe a simple "Here We Are" would satisfy everyone and offend no one
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During takeoff from Logan we made a nice pass over Spectacle Island on a clear, sunny morning. I got a few pictures showing the roadways that have been laid out.
Spectacle Island has been, for you not familiar with it, one of the major dumping sites for rock and soil removed during the Big Dig. Here's a short history from the City of Boston site:
Spectacle Island got its name because two drumlins, East and West Spectacle, are connected by a sandbar; at low tide, the island resembled a pair of eyeglasses. The 97-acre island was privately owned and used for agriculture in the 1660s, but in 1717 it became the site of a quarantine hospital for victims of infectious disease. Twenty years later the hospital was moved to Rainsforth Island, and Spectacle became a summer resort with two hotels in the 19th century. After 1857, this island was also the site of a factory that rendered dead horses for horse-hair, hides, glue stock, bones, and neat's foot oil. In the 1950s the island's fortunes took another odd turn when the City of Boston purchased it and began to fill its sandbar with municipal trash. The fill reached the depth of seventy feet before the dump was abandoned in 1959, and it gave the island its current saddle shape.
The dump has been burning since it was closed. This Big Dig soil is supposed to be the ultimate cap to end all caps. The island is certainly higher now, and I haven't seen smoke coming from it for years. Soon ("real soon now") it's supposed to be another wonderful park in the Harbor Islands. Click on the photo and you will be able to see 3 different photos I took.
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from Bay Windows - National News Issue: 05/23/02
AIDS bike ride replacement in California denies negative reports
By Beth Berlo
After coverage appeared in The New York Times and several news wire services about financial problems at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center due to problem with the beleaguered AIDS bicycle rides, Bonnie Osborn, the center's director of media relations, is trying to set the record straight.
While it's true that jobs have been cut at the center and a massive restructuring is under way, it is not solely the result of a lawsuit brought on by Pallotta Teamworks, managers of the California AIDS Ride and other national fundraiser rides, she said.
Fed up with receiving just a fraction of the funds -- less than half -- raised by Pallotta riders each year the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center teamed up with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) to create their own AIDS ride fundraiser, but were soon sued by Pallotta Teamworks for what the firm believed was an effort to weaken its event.
In January, Superior Court Judge David Yaffee refused to sign an injunction to stop the AIDS/LifeCycle from continuing. And while the lawsuit did contribute to the L. A. Gay and Lesbian Center's money problems, the economic downturn after Sept. 11 was also a factor, Osborn said. "People's mutual funds and investments aren't making that much money anymore and for that reason, donations have tapered off," she said.
Osborn suspects that the lawsuit created confusion and people didn't know whether the ride was on or off, she said. "It had a real depressing effect on the registrations."
Twenty percent of the center's staff -- 55 positions -- was eliminated. The total staff has dropped from 275 to 220 employees. In addition, the center has eliminated its primary care practice, she said, excluding HIV/AIDS services. Many HIV/AIDS patients have since been transferred to the Center's Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic.
The center provides an extensive list of services to the gay community and 70 percent of its $37 million budget goes directly to HIV and health services. The center is also home to the California AIDS Clearinghouse, the statewide information clearinghouse on HIV and AIDS education materials.
According to Osborn, 700 cyclists participated in the weeklong AIDS/LifeCyle ride, a fundraiser in which organizers hope will be become an annual event. The ride spanned 600 miles in seven days, from May 13-19 and has so far grossed $4.4 million, organizers say.
After the two organizations cut ties with Pallotta Teamworks, short-term losses were expected, said Gustavo Suarez, SFAF communications director. While layoffs weren't necessary, administrative positions remain unfilled -- at least temporarily -- and "various activities have been cut," he said.
Lisa Cohen, director of public relations at Pallotta Teamworks, said its California AIDS Ride scheduled for next month is down by more than 1,000 registrations. The AIDS/LifeCycle Ride, she said, made a definite impact on ridership. Cohen called the strife between Pallotta and the organizations "silly," saying, "We want to do what's best for AIDS. We always wanted there to be one ride."
To worsen things, the AIDS/LifeCycle Ride and Pallotta's California AIDS Ride are less than a month apart.
"We have two rides less than two weeks apart," Cohen said. Asked about the ongoing criticism around the percentage of profits -- 46 percent in Boston -- that actually make it to AIDS organizations, Cohen said, "Obviously, the low percentage is not acceptable to us. We've tried to cut costs with new vendors and by having no brand-name snacks, etc."
But Suarez said it was more than that. "It was a range of fiscal improprieties" that pushed them to cut ties, including, he said, "everything from a very large cost overrun, which we were contractually supposed to sign off on before they incurred, which they did not. In addition, we were being billed for Pallotta's delinquent taxes in Philadelphia, for purchases of domain names that didn't exist and for things like concrete barriers in Chicago."
Suarez also criticized Pallotta for what he described as a lack of focus on HIV and AIDS. "At times, it was almost like it was never mentioned and we weren't supposed to mention it. What was also occurring were these incredible other promotions by Pallotta Teamworks, like the breast cancer walk and other events. We got a huge number of complaints and people said we're never doing this again. It was offensive."
Of criticism by Pallotta Teamworks that its ridership dropped significantly this year because of the AIDS/LifeCyle event, Suarez said, "The majority of our riders were brand new to this event and never participated in the California AIDS Ride."
As for future AIDS/LifeCycle events, Suarez predicts the new ride will "match or exceed what the California AIDS Ride produced for the two beneficiaries by our third event."
"We're not neophytes or ingenues," he said. "We know it costs money to raise money, however we strive to keep the cost of fund-raising as low as possible, and we expect our contractor to do the same."
Said Pallotta's Cohen: "We want to do what's best for AIDS. We wish them the best for their event. We hope they raise a lot of money for the cause as well. It's all about the cause."
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The Commonwealth of Massachusetts chooses this method to promote their new domain name: MASS.GOV - and I thought Pennsylvania was tacky when they put theirs on license plates. Massachusetts has stopped just one step short of stitching it into the flag!
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Here's an article from Frontiers that gives some more information about another suit against Dan Pallotta.
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Security has obviously been increased around federal buildings, but maybe not at airports.
On Tuesday I went to LAX early, expecting that at America's second most insecure airport they could be having problems due to Dick Cheney's recent nervous statements. Not so. I sailed right through everything. But this was the first time I got called over for "secondary screening," which is what they call it when you get pulled over right at the gate. I had a little backpack which contained (going from bottom to top) CDs, noise-cancelling headphones, snacks, a book, my bulky grey sweater, and (right on top) my mini-CD player. The woman who inspected the bag lifted out the mini-CD player, popped it open and stared at the CD mystified. She looked quizzicaly back and forth to her co-workers who ignored her. She dropped it back on top of my sweater and that was that. Apparently the grey sweater cast its magical "cloak of invisibility" over everything else in the bag. Wannabe terrorists take note, a grey rag wool sweater from Land's End will let you get anything through secondary screening at LAX.
So this made me think of the unlevel situation between the passengers and the security teams. West coast of the U.S. you've got lots of wealthy passengers from both the U.S. and Japan who are going to be carrying every sort of new, cutting edge, freshly designed electronic, consumer device there is. Then you have these security agents who get paid laborer's wages who are supposed to be able to distinguish between these cool electronic bobbles and sophisticated little bombs. How do they do it? Apparently one way is by looking quizzicaly at their co-workers and then ignoring everything.
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Every day on the LifeCycle ride we had our little daily "newspage." The only thing of real import it contained was the day's altitude profile. The rest was filled with pit stop closure times (which were the same very day) a bit of Chamber of Commerce fluff on our day's destination, menus, maybe a short touchy-feely article. You can get them all (you mad fool) in this 1 megabyte PDF file.
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Avon set to dump Pallotta Teamworks from its "Breast Cancer 3-Days", which have been returning an average 62% of gross proceeds to the charities involved.
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Dan speaks, in this SF Chronicle article. They also give a little bump for his book, When Your Moment Comes: A Guide to Fulfilling Your Dreams by a Man Who Has Led Thousands to Greatness. Check out the reviews for that. It's either 1-star or 5-stars, depending on what you think of Dan. In the article he claims he's not yet a millionaire! If that's true, then he's as bad with his own personal finances as he is with those of the AIDS Rides. The article also mentions that the tent cities on the AIDS Rides feature "cozy beds." Maybe they do, but there's no reason to give Pallotta credit for that, unless you happen to be the one sleeping with Dan himself. Otherwise, we all bring and make our own cozy beds.
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SF Chronicle article about the start of the LifeCycle ride.
AIDS trek begins
A bitter, protracted legal battle can't dampen the enthusiasm of 700 cyclists pedaling from S.F. to L.A.
Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
Their ranks may have diminished, but their spirits were high.
Just 700 riders left San Francisco Monday for the inaugural AIDS LifeCycle, a 600-mile trek to Los Angeles to raise money for AIDS charities. By comparison, last year's eight-year-old California AIDS Ride drew 2,800 participants.
The lower numbers are in part a result of a protracted legal battle -- and in part, organizers fear, a growing complacency about AIDS. AIDS LifeCycle, the ride that left San Francisco on Monday, was created out of a dispute over money between the organizer of the California AIDS Ride and the two charities it benefited: the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.
The two charities claimed ride organizer Pallotta TeamWorks did not return enough money to the nonprofit groups. As a result, they started their own ride, which began shortly after 6 a.m. Monday.
Pallotta, a Los Angeles commercial fund-raiser, which started the AIDS Ride in 1994 and has contributed $40 million to the two groups, countered with a lawsuit contending breach of contract. A Los Angeles judge dismissed the case. Riders on Monday were steadfast in their commitment to counterbalance the forces at play, including mounting evidence that more people are putting themselves at risk for HIV, in part because of the availability of medications to treat the disease.
Many acknowledged that the legal wrangling divided the ranks of ride supporters. Some past riders were angered, would-be participants were left confused about which event to support. Some simply decided to skip both events. Peter Baty, who has participated in the California AIDS Ride for the past five years, considered taking a break this year. Then he heard about the legal dispute and decided to throw his support behind the AIDS Foundation event. "I've lost too many friends to AIDS," said Baty, a 34-year-old interior designer from Palo Alto, who gathered at the University of San Francisco under clear blue skies tinted pink by the sunrise. "I can't not do it." "I'm really excited to be part of a new beginning," Baty said. "I'm hoping the new ride does well enough to convince the naysayers -- the ones who said, 'Split the money and nobody wins' -- that this was the right decision." A Pallotta TeamWorks spokeswoman said the fact that there are two rides will inevitably siphon participation from California AIDS Ride-9, scheduled to start from San Francisco on June 2.
"The fact that (LifeCycle) started will damage both rides. It's hurting the beneficiaries and all the people who need services. Having two rides means money that could have gone to services goes to costs to produce two events. It's depressing," said spokeswoman Janna Sidley.
About 1,100 riders are registered for the Pallotta sponsored-ride. "Clearly, we're disheartened to hear those numbers," Sidley said. With ridership down, that means less money for AIDS charities at a time when some organizations are facing budget cuts.
This year, Pallotta's California AIDS Ride picked 13 new beneficiaries, among them AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Center for AIDS Research Education and Services in Sacramento and the San Diego HIV Funding Collaborative. One thing is certain: Funding to the AIDS Foundation will be down this year because of its split with Pallotta.
Last year, Pallotta gave the San Francisco AIDS Foundation $6 million, or about one-quarter of the nonprofit organization's $24 million budget. Foundation Executive Director Pat Christen said it was too early to say how much of the $4.4 million in donations from its own ride will go to overhead, a key part of the dispute with Pallotta.
"We had a challenge to face putting on this event," said Christen, who took off Monday along with the other riders after a brief sunrise ceremony. "After we made the decision to end it with the California AIDS Ride, they took us to court and we didn't get a green light from the judge to go forward with LifeCycle until the end of January."
That cost valuable time which could have been spent raising money and wooing riders to participate in LifeCycle, Christen said. The Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center was forced earlier this year to slash 60 jobs and some medical services for its clients, citing a $4.5 million shortfall which officials attributed in part to the legal battle.
And although it is too soon to tell whether the San Francisco AIDS Foundation will face a similar fate, officials said there will undoubtedly be belt tightening.
"That said, we have close to 700 folks on the road with us today and $4.4 million in pledges so far," Christen said. "That's a terrific showing given that this had to be pulled off in five months."
A few hours after riders left San Francisco, tragedy struck when a 57-year- old San Francisco man suffered a fatal heart attack. Riders were on southbound Highway 1 in southern San Mateo County when the rider collapsed shortly after a lunch break and medics were unable to revive him. Authorities did not release the name of the rider.
The ride was extremely personal for Darrel Nystrom, a 47-year-old HIV positive, self-employed handyman from San Francisco. For Nystrom, the weeks leading up to the ride have included building up his strength, while revisiting some forgotten feelings.
"This is my way of reconnecting with the cause," said Nystrom, choking back tears. "I'm riding for friends I lost 20 years ago. In a way, I'm starting a grieving process I put aside so long ago.
"Today, I feel great," he added with a smile. "I feel strong and ready to go."
The ride will conclude Sunday in Los Angeles.
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LA Times story about the AIDS LifeCycle ride.
Cyclists Triumph Over Adversity
Activists: Inaugural AIDS/LifeCycle raises $4.4 million. Suit had sought to block ride.
By JEFFREY L. RABIN
May 20 2002
After a week of triumph and tragedy, 670 cyclists rode into Los Angeles on Sunday, ending a 600-mile trek to raise money for HIV and AIDS services and educational programs.
The inaugural AIDS/LifeCycle was born last fall out of a falling-out between two nonprofit agencies and the promoter of the California AIDS Ride, Los Angeles-based Pallotta TeamWorks.
The Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation created their own ride because they thought Pallotta devoted too much of the funds raised to marketing and operations, rather than to the two groups and their programs. Pallotta sued to block the AIDS/LifeCycle ride, but a Los Angeles Superior Court judge in January ruled that the dueling events could go forward. The ninth California AIDS Ride, sponsored by AIDS Project Los Angeles and produced by Pallotta, will be June 2-8 with an estimated 1,100 participants.
The controversy significantly dampened participation in this year's bicycle journey. The two rides combined will draw fewer than 1,800 participants, compared with 2,700 riders in the single event last year. The organizers of last week's AIDS/LifeCycle ride said their event raised more than $4.4 million in donations.
The AIDS/LifeCycle got off to a difficult start Monday after leaving San Francisco. Shortly after lunch, one participant died of an apparent heart attack on a hill along the San Mateo County coast near San Gregorio State Beach.
But on Sunday, after traveling 65 miles from their last campsite in Ventura, the cyclists drew cheers as they rode the final segment together and attended a ceremony to celebrate their achievement and pay tribute to people who have died of AIDS-related diseases.
The event attracted people from all walks of life, ranging in age from 18 to 71. Each participant was expected to raise at least $2,500. A contingent of New York riders distinguished themselves by wearing green crowns modeled after the Statue of Liberty affixed to their bicycle helmets.
Jesse Dubler, 19, of Los Angeles rode despite being unable to hear traffic or fellow riders along the state's highways. He hopes to create a team of deaf riders next year.
"I'm riding because I had an experience--a 'scare'--that had me sympathize with HIV-positive people," Dubler wrote in response to a reporter's written questions. "I know this is one of the best ways to raise funds and promote awareness."
Ben Goldstein, 53, rode with a group known as the Positive Pedalers, people who have HIV or AIDS, who led the cyclists down Santa Monica Boulevard to the closing ceremony in West Hollywood. Goldstein has been HIV-positive with symptoms for more than 20 years and he has had AIDS for six years.
"I feel like I was going to climb over my own kind of Mt. Everest doing this trip from San Francisco to L.A.," he said. "It was my way of saying no to the virus."
Goldstein said he rode to support the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which has helped pay for his medications, and to maintain awareness of the health crisis. More than 47,000 people live with AIDS in California, and an additional 94,000 to 130,500 are living with HIV.
Rabin participated in the ride in honor of his brother, Neil, who died of AIDS-related complications in December.
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A survey by ChangeWave Investment Research (doesn't say who paid for it) that shows that 40% of AOL subscribers are dissatisfied. I'm amazed. AOL is an amazing thing. The subscribers are amazing. A service that you pay top dollar for and you get the crudest possible e-mail interface where it's a herculean task (or is it sisyphean? or maybe promethean?) trying to block spam. Useless Usenet interface. Ads directly from the ISP who you're paying! And I think that damn 46-minute timeout is still lurking in there. Properly, 95% of the users should be dissatisfied. The other 5% would be either very mentally challenged or very recently moved here from places where they don't even have electricity.
"This survey has the most overwhelming, and negative, response to a company or technology we have ever seen," said the director of research at the survey firm (so I guess AOL wasn't paying).
In my personal survey, friends of mine who are AOL subscribers are almost all more intelligent, have higher income and are much better informed consumers than I. Yet, when I question them about AOL they seem to be rather blank about what the world is like outside of AOL. According to the survey 8% of the subscribers keep AOL for the content. I'm not aware of any exclusive content they have. The content they promote in their TV ads (WebMD, E! Entertainment, etc.) is all available outside AOL as well. I'd like to know what reasons the other 92% gave for staying. Did they include "dead inertia" as one of the possible choices?
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Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science has finally been published. My first clue was the note from Amazon this morning saying they had shipped my copy. Wolfram wants to be the Newton of the 21st century. How long before Nabisco or Keebler name a cracker or cookie for him? Let's hope this at least overshadows the Segway.
"'Worthless!' says renowned physicist Freeman Dyson"
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Just home from Los Angeles and I find the steam heat is still on! What gives?
Lots of stories and hundreds of photos from the LifeCycle ride, but those will be shared with you in due time. For now, all I have to offer is this one of the orange-quartering man who volunteered at Pit Stop 2 every day. He wasn't quite as good as the orange-quartering man at Pit Stop 1 who would actually PEEL the quarters for us, but we were willing to overlook this young man's shortcomings and admire his energy and spirit of charity.
$4.4 million is the total number they're giving for donations raised, but it's got to be more because I know I still have 'em coming in. And it's not too late for you to donate! Donations to this year's ride will be accepted until sometime in mid-June.
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Total contributions in my name for AIDS LifeCycle now easily exceed $5000 with at least 35 donors.
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Cardinal Law's Wednesday deposition.
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SEGWAY FALLS OVER! That should be up there with those other standards of newsiness: "Man Bites Dog" and "Bush Defeats Gore Fair & Square."
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Conspiracy theorists: "Let's roll!" (Another article here.) (List of articles here.)
Consider this…
| October 4, 2001 |
The Siberian Airlines flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Novosibirsk, Siberia, is shot down by a Ukrainian missile. Passengers include "four or five" microbiologists. |
| November 12, 2001 |
Dr. Benito Que, cell biologist involved in research on infectious diseases, dies of either a mugging or a heart attack [the Miami police were a bit hazy]. |
| November 16, 2001 |
Dr. Don C. Wiley, microbiologist, dies of apparent suicide by jumping from a Memphis bridge. |
| November 21 2001 |
Vladimir Pasechnik, Soviet biological weapons developer, dies of a stroke. |
| November 24, 2001 |
A Swissair flight from Berlin to Zurich crashes. The dead include the head of the hematology department at Israel’s Ichilov Hospital and directors of the Tel Aviv public-health department and the Hebrew University school of medicine. |
| December 10, 2001 |
Dr. Robert M. Schwartz, founding member of the Virginia Biotechnology Association, stabbed to death. |
| December 14, 2001 |
Dr. Set Van Nguyen, scientist in the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization’s animal-diseases facility where a highly virulent form of mousepox had been developed, is found dead after entering a refrigeration room filled with the "deadly gas" nitrogen [sic]. If nitrogen were deadly, then the world would have no blogs. Probably it was a lack of oxygen that brought about his death. The CSIRO denies any connection between Nguyen and foul play. |
| January 2002 |
Ivan Glebov and Alexi Brushlinski, members of the Russian Academy of Science, die. Glebov died in a "bandit attack." Brushlinski's cause of death is not specified in the Pravda report. |
| February 9, 2002 |
Victor Korshunov, an expert in intestinal bacteria of children, dies of massive head trauma. |
| February 10, 2002 |
Katherine Smith, who was scheduled to testify before a federal magistrate the following day against five Middle Eastern men who allegedly paid her $1,000 each for fraudulently issued Tennessee driver’s licenses, burns to death in her car. |
| February 14, 2002 |
Ian Langford, one of Europe’s leading experts on the links between human health and environmental risk, dies at home after some sort of attack. |
| February 28, 2002 |
Tanya Holzmayer, whose research focused on the part of the human molecular structure that could be affected best by medicine, is shot to death by Guyang Huang. |
| February 28, 2002 |
Guyang (Matthew) Huang, microbiologist, dies by shooting himself after shooting Tanya Holzmayer. |
| March 24, 2002 |
David Wynn-Williams, who studied the habits of microbes that might survive in outer space, dies after being hit by a car while jogging. |
| March 25, 2002 |
Steven Mostow, a noted expert in bioterrorism, dies when the airplane he is piloting crashes near Denver. |
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Criticism of the design failures of DVD menus. I agreee 100%. I hate the slow, animated, noisy transitions used on some big-budget movies. The author doesn't mention the labeling on the discs themselves. If a DVD comes with a widescreen and a butchered version on opposite sides of the same DVD, the label for that is in teeny weeny print on the disc (usually in a red box). My eyeglasses and powerful halogen lights are required to decipher them.
The lower-budget HBO discs are really irritating. You have to wait through a slow opening display of the HBO logo, then you select an episode, then once selected you have to tell that episode to play, and each episode begins with the same long intro that they use on TV. That's understandable, but they don't index it so you can skip it. You can fast forward through it, but I'd prefer to just skip it. For some reason my DVD player has trouble bookmarking where I stopped it on an HBO DVD. I have to pause, then stop, then power off. If I do it otherwise, then when I restart, I may find myself at the beginning of the episode, at the episode menu, or even at the beginning of the DVD. By the way, I really like Oz.
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Art on silicon.
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Justice served.
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Iowa State University students develop a pizza crust made with okara, the highly nutritious soy bean fiber left over from the making of tofu and soymilk.
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White House discovers the second amendment! Let's hope they're on a fast track to discover the 4th, 5th and 14th as well.
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Long interesting read about Saddam Hussein from the Atlantic Monthly.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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"Shirtless boys" has become the search engine query with a bullet! At the current rate, the number of readers coming here for "shirtless boys" could surpass the number searching for "Paul Shanley."
Yesterday the prize search quest goes to the user looking for "naked shirtless boys." Those are not here at Ron's Log. They can be found only at the Department of Redundancy Department.
Really I just don't see where I might be coming across any pictures of shirtless boys any time soon. But I'll be in California, so who knows. It's warmer out there. Maybe if I buy the entire stock of chili popsicles from a young man in Santa Maria (yes! we will overnight there!), I could get him to bare his midriff for this insatiable internet appetite.
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Map of the area around the LifeCycle closing ceremonies in West Hollywood, May 19, with parking lots highlighted. Come see, if you're in the area!
The official word:"Closing Ceremonies will begin at 3:45PM and will be held on Santa Monica Boulevard at San Vincente [sic]. We hope you'll invite all your friends and family to watch you complete your journey! The Ceremony will be over by 5:00 pm."
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This picture has been showing up in ads for storeme.com on MBTA vehicles around Boston. Nice picture, but what is that sort of fuzzy pyramid climbing up the guy's left leg? Is it a tunnel where Comm Ave rips right through his raw flesh?
Click for full size
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THIS JUST IN: here's David risking life and limb yesterday at the Loveless Cafe and Motel 20 miles south of Nashville. The girls are named Lucy and Ethel.
Click for full size
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Christians for Cannabis. Not a joke. Really. I mean, who was it that turned water into wine so the party could keep on truckin'? Not our Attorney General, I assure you.
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Anybody got a line on this stuff? I'd like to give it a try.
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Strange entertainment.
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A winner in the "I Look Like My Dog" contest.
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More about swine A.I., or "pigs doing intercourse." It seems a 55-gallon barrel of pig and boar semen from Swine Genetics in Iowa, turned up in Arie Crown Woods in Cook County, Illinois. Nobody's got an explanation for how it turned up there, but it's very interesting that "police believe it was goat semen." How the hell could any police officer claim the skills necessary to distinguish between stored boar semen and goat semen? "The police department 'properly disposed' of the semen, but declined to say how." It begins to sound like the Police Officers Fraternal League had been expecting delivery of 55 gallons of goat semen for their annual "Spring Satyr Fest" or something like that and some unscrupulous agent in the semen black market was going to pass off some terribly unkosher pig semen as virile, enriching goat semen, when something went awry. I see Arie Crown Woods is bounded by Route 66 on the north. The very Route 66! Someone gettin' their kicks with boar semen on Route 66?
I await word from my Iowa readers to explain why they distinguish between "pig" and "boar" semen. Are pigs, like, virgins and boars experienced studs? Explanations from other hog producing states will be accepted, but Iowa, of course, will trump them all.
Here's a site that tries to define some terms:
Pig Terminology
Boar: Non castrated male
Barrow: Castrated male
Gilt: A young female kept for breeding that upon farrowing becomes a sow. However, some husbandry men consider a female to be a gilt until the second farrowing. An "open" gilt is one that has not been bred. A "closed" gilt is pregnant.
Sow: An adult female pig that has farrowed and is used for breeding.
Shoat: Newly weaned! piglet
Farrow: Parturition process of the pig.
Unfortunately they don't define "pig" or even "hog." I guess "pig" would mean the same as "swine." I do wish they'd explain that term "husbandry men." Is it something different from "pig farmer" or "swineherd?" Does it exclude women?
Then I found this: "All pigs are hogs. the term 'pig' means a young hog or swine, usually under two months or 60 pounds. hog refers to older members of the swine fraternity. A hog producer would probably produce swine for slaughter and up to slaughter weight. and hAVE THE BREEDING HERD ETC ETC."
So this guy seems to be saying "hog" can be applied equally to male or female swine, but then he uses the term "fraternity." Does he mean to refer specifically to brotherhood?
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As long as we're talking about bodily fluids in Cook County, Illinois, here is a story about the rather overwhelming public urination scene around Wrigley Field after a baseball game. It seems even women are doing it. Charlotte Newfeld, chair of Citizens United for Baseball and Sunshine showed her complete understanding of physics and biology when she said "If we're going to let everybody pour all the liquid in, it's going to come out." Yessiree, you can't pull the wool over the eyes of those midwesterners. (But when I was growing up, there no one taught us to identify goat or boar semen — not even bull semen.)
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Saturday I loaded up the Air Glide to ride out to Coach Bill's in Springfield — a century (well, 97 miles). Bike performed fine. No flats. I was a bit slow, but the hills didn't seem to be as bad as in previous years. The final approach to Bill's requires the ascent of a small mountain road climbing up from the Connecticut River valley to his house on the bluff. The granny gear on the Air Glide is fabulous! I went up that hill like it was flat!
Having completed that hilly, loaded century I looked forward with unbridled eagerness to re-doing it in the opposite direction on Sunday, but the predicted rain came in heavy and non-stop. Coach Bill would not allow me to get on my bike and head out into that stuff. He argued that the clients of the HIV services at LAGLC would just have to take me as I am, and that means no loaded hilly centuries in driving rain. I gave in to his persuasive argument and let him drive me back to Boston. This was especially nice, since we had been out late Saturday night testing the beverages at a downtown Springfield establishment.
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It's always good to see Anita Bryant having hard times!
"She has spent the past few years in small entertainment capitals across the Bible Belt, gamely attempting a comeback but leaving bankruptcy and ill will in her wake."
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"Missing Pet!" sign seen in a window in Hopkinton.
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Got my first LifeCycle contribution from a genuinely famous person today! That's an ego boost, especially since he's the only genuinely famous person I really know. I think… If you yourself are genuinely famous and I'm overlooking you, please make a contribution and then I'll be reminded.
By the way, if you have already made your contribution and are waiting impatiently for me to thank you, just let me know. The folks in L.A. (and Chicago, the location of the drop box where you mail your paper pledge forms) are working feverishly to deal with the flood of money, but even so it can take 10 days to 2 weeks before your donation shows up in the database that I can access via the web. So if you want your thanks fast, drop me an e-mail. Otherwise, please be patient, as am I.
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Boston Globe editorial pretty well sums up how the RC church has tried to dodge the issue again.
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RentMyDVD vs NetFlix
I've already covered this, but I keep getting hits from people searching for it, so here is the quick summary:
Netflix: Good, fast, big selection, good web interface.
RentMyDVD: Just about as good, just as fast, selection possibly just as big (in fact they have a few titles Netflix lacks, meaning Netflix is falling a little short of their promise to carry every DVD), web interface sometimes irritating and unclear.
I've cancelled my subscription to RentMyDVD and the process was rough, as it has been with anything I've done at RentMyDVD that varied slightly from the straight and narrow. It was easy to find a link labeled "Cancel." It took me to a screen where I was presented with a menu with 4 choices:
- Plan A
- Plan B
- Plan C
- [completely blank]
That was in Opera. When I restarted in IE 5.5 the 4th choice became something like "Downgrade from [some acronym I had never seen before] to [some term that was totally unintelligible to me]." And, by the way, Plans A, B and C were presented exactly like that. There was no explanation. In none of my earlier dealings with RentMyDVD had I heard of Plans A, B or C (although I'm sure they have "Plan 9 From Outer Space"). Nothing looked like "Cancel."
I went to Customer Service and the FAQ. The Frequently Asked Questions there never answer what you really want to know. They answer things like "Which way is up on the DVD disc?" and "Why doesn't my girlfriend like the same movies I do?" So I had to be the first one to ask "How do I cancel?" Now, every time you submit a question to RentMyDVD they immediately follow it up with another box asking you "Why did you ask this question?" Some retail-psychologist must have told them this would get them some sort of information, but I always fill it in with "Because I want the answer."
I got a quick reply (they DO actually answer their customer's questions) saying I should go back to that 4-item menu and pick number 4. So I went to do that. Now, off to the side of that menu was a box displaying my name and the last four digits of my credit card number preceded by a string of Xs. RentMyDVD required me to fill in the whole credit card number just to cancel my account — but they didn't tell me that until I had gotten two pages further in. It bounced me back to the 4-item menu and reset it, a fact I didn't notice until I had gone a few more pages and seemed only to have confirmed my place in "Plan B."
Finally, I got it on the 3rd or 4th loop through: 4th [still unintelligible] item, credit card number, confirm, confirm, confirm, unintelligible reply. Fortunately, after I got all through that, I did get an e-mail message in plain English saying they had gotten my cancellation and it would be effective at the end of the month that I had already paid for.
I'll be double-checking to make sure they really stop charging me, but I'm not worried about it. The place seems to work well, they just need a midwesterner to look at their web pages — and they need to increase the customer's queue from a measly 50 DVDs to something a lot bigger.
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Frank Moore, creator of the red ribbon, died of AIDS this past Sunday. The history of the red ribbon is here.
Some of his art can be seen here and here and here.
Emigrants
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Pallotta gets sued.
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XM Radio up to 76,242 total subscribers at the end of the first quarter. Price cuts in motor vehicle equipment, but home equipment stays the same.
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Gettin' tired of being jerked by Yahoo mail? Get jerked by a free webmail service with a sense of humor and privacy. Great choice of domain names!
Or there's webmail.mac.com which you can use from any computer, but you have to be on a Mac to CREATE your account.
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Someone has used Yahoo to find Ron's Log using the search term "pigs doing intercourse." Yes, the really creative searches always come from Yahoo. I suspect this user is not a native speaker of English, or is perhaps a young person with budding curiosity who has just learned a new meaning for "intercourse" and is now substituting it for the word "it." But I'm not entirely sure, so I did some research.
First, Intercourse, Pennsylvania, doesn't have a police force, so that's not what he's looking for.
Second, the web may have information about police sharing bliss with each other, but it's well hidden. I can't find it.
That leaves just one thing. The correct term for this, Curious User, is "swine breeding." You will find tons of stuff by using Google which has a category just for swine breeders. Unfortunately for you, people don't seem to want to use a lot of bandwidth to discuss actual swine intercourse. They'd much rather talk about A.I., which I finally figured out means "artificial insemination." That's where the money is, and there's very little "inter" in that course.
Perhaps the person doing the search is trying to follow in the footsteps of Robert John Bock.
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A sort of intercourse with pigs can occur here.
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China preparing internet attacks on the U.S.?! CIA says so.
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Lev Grossman at Time magazine is a bit weak on browser history, but says he is impressed by the upcoming Mozilla. The two good features of Mozilla that he specifically mentions are (1) it's more stable than Netscape (how hard is that?) and (2) you can open new windows behind the window you're currently viewing and then click convenient little tabs when you want to switch to that view. Well, as most of us here know, Opera has had both of those qualities for a long time. Mainstream media has me so impressed! Soon they'll let us know if it was Bush or Gore who won the election.
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The Library of Alexandria is open! The library's website is here.
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I suffered (we all suffered) through a Metafilter outage due to a Verizon fuckup.
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Bruce Sterling's blog.
And his very entertaining speech [really, very good stuff you should read] given to the Computers, Freedom and Privacy 12 conference. "…the Dell Dude is beginning to creep me out," Bruce says. He also makes reference to our president and attorney general, but the Dell Dude is first on his list.
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Recent streaking news.
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Good little animations.
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Whatta loada crap! Michael Williams, a Republican candidate for the Alabama 5th Congressional District seat "proposes a 1 percent 'NASA tax' on science fiction books, science fiction comic books, space sciences books and any other space-related literature." This would mean that somebody in IRS would have to determine what is, and what is not science fiction. I hope he intends to tax "creationist" literature too.
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From a little different point of view.
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While having her nails done at Fancy Nails Salon (3940 Troost Avenue; Kansas City, MO 64110; 816-561-8428) Ms. Reba Burgess suffered such a terrible manicure, she had to have the end of her index finger amputated. "…health experts recommend to people who get their nails done professionally to make sure that the equipment is clean and the chemicals used are safe. Inspection records with the cosmetology board are not public." Ms. Reba Burgess has found one way to determine that the chemicals are not safe or the equipment is not clean. Even as you read this, I am scouring the the web for methods that can be used more than just ten times. Here's an FDA page with some advice.
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Talk to me!
AIM handle: YellowBrighton
Amazon wish list
Netflix vs Rentmydvd
Index of my AIDS ride and Pallotta links
Ron's Log Index
7/21/2003 · 8/ 6/2003
5/29/2003 · 7/18/2003
4/25/2003 · 5/28/2003
3/24/2003 · 4/24/2003
3/ 1/2003 · 3/21/2003
1/28/2003 · 2/28/2003
11/30/2002 · 1/23/2003
11/ 1/2002 · 11/29/2002
9/23/2002 · 10/30/2002
9/ 5/2002 · 9/20/2002
8/10/2002 · 9/ 4/2002
7/24/2002 · 8/ 9/2002
6/27/2002 · 7/23/2002
6/ 3/2002 · 6/25/2002
4/24/2002 · 5/31/2002
4/ 1/2002 · 4/23/2002
3/ 1/2002 · 3/31/2002
2/10/2002 · 2/28/2002
1/22/2002 · 2/ 9/2002
1/ 3/2002 · 1/16/2002
12/16/2001 · 1/ 2/2002
12/ 2/2001 · 12/15/2001
11/ 1/2001 · 11/29/2001
10/16/2001 · 10/31/2001
9/23/2001 · 10/13/2001
9/11/2001 · 9/22/2001
7/29/2001 · 9/10/2001
7/ 2/2001 · 7/28/2001
5/29/2001 · 6/30/2001
5/ 1/2001 · 5/21/2001
4/ 8/2001 · 4/29/2001
3/25/2001 · 4/ 7/2001
3/11/2001 · 3/24/2001
3/ 4/2001 · 3/10/2001
2/18/2001 · 3/ 3/2001
2/ 4/2001 · 2/17/2001
1/23/2001 · 2/ 2/2001
1/ 1/2001 · 1/22/2001
12/18/2000 · 12/31/2000
11/30/2000 · 12/ 7/2000
11/ 6/2000 · 11/28/2000
10/29/2000 · 11/ 5/2000
10/11/2000 · 10/19/2000
10/ 1/2000 · 10/ 9/2000
9/24/2000 · 9/30/2000
9/15/2000 · 9/22/2000
9/ 7/2000 · 9/13/2000
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This is my blogchalk:
United States, Massachusetts, Boston, Brighton, English, Ron, Male, Photography, Nudity.
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