Guys, Ron's Log is currently happening over on a Typepad site. It's too soon to make that a 100% official, hard commitment, but I'm liking it there. I will keep you informed, go check it out.

Typepad.com

Consider this.

Digital Photography Review has a few words about Ritz Camera's Digital Single-Use Camera.

Sorry, but I simply don't get this, I can't imagine a $10.99 single-use digital is going to come anywhere near to even the cheapest decent (known brand, recent) two megapixel digital camera. It certainly won't be any replacement for disposable film cameras which can deliver surprisingly good results. To me this concept flies in the face of the logic behind digital photography. Lastly how many 'cycles' can one camera go through before it has to be thrown away?

The Fung Wah bus. Boston to NYC for $10. Thank goodness the Globe protected us from exposure to the actual URL for the bus, which is needed to buy those advance tickets. http://www.fungwahbus.com/

Their slogan: Fung Wah Bus service is permsitted by Federal Highway Administration.

Seen behind a friend's house in Palm Springs.

Just to keep my nose to the ground, I went out and looked at some 1 bedroom/1 bath open houses in my neighborhood yesterday. Yikers. Saw a 400 sf demi-hovel. 7-foot ceilings, bathroom was like some sort of damp storage closet, kitchen was so tiny one visitor stood looking at the fridge, stove and sink and had the nerve to ask "Is this the kitchen?" $189,000! Next door was a similar unit, 450 sf, worse condition. The amazing thing there was that the rental tenant still living there had refused to clean up one bit. There I was walking through some messy guy's apartment. Here were his credit card receipts. There were his photos he was scanning. In the bathroom the magazine he was reading. In the bedroom his dirty laundry, his unmade bed. It was some sort of weird exhibitionism (or voyeurism?). $179,000. This is in contrast to another spot where the tenant had refused the real estate agent access! Instead of an open house, the agent stood on the sidewalk and delivered a vague description of the place every 10 minutes. Unfortunately, he had only brought one info sheet, so nobody could take away the info they wanted. $350,000. But that's 2 bedrooms and deeded parking. I had just wanted to get inside this building to see the view.

Last night saw Das Experiment at Richard's. Highly recommended. Not for kids...unless they are already fervent libertarians. Came in second place for best libertarian film of the year (based on year of American release, I guess). Minority Report got first prize.

Dennis, Massachusetts, struggles to keep its beaches fully clothed in the face of a Russian onslaught.

"For a supposedly cosmopolitan place, there is such narrow thinking here," said Raygorodsky, a retired engineer who left St. Petersburg 14 years ago.

Damn! Are they all retired engineers?

Bay Windows has an article about yet another AIDS fund raiser bike ride. The Harbor to the Bay ride is on September 13, and will go from Boston to Provincetown (there's also a Sandwich to Provincetown option). Beneficiaries are Fenway Community Health and AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod. 100% of donations will go to the charities. The riders pay a $50 registration fee, which is more than enough to cover a one-day ride with no silly frills.

The AIDS Action Ride is still scheduled for the weekend of August 8-10, but it hasn't been getting much publicity. Back in June I made several contacts with them to get volunteer information. They ignored me mostly, but when I finally got someone on the phone they discouraged me from volunteering, saying they really wanted riders. I don't know how they expect it to go off.

In the course of searching for info on the Bay to Harbor (or was that Harbor to Bay?) ride I found out about 2 other fundraising bike rides for AIDS:

Heart of America Ride is Chicago-based and is filling in after the Pallotta Heartland AIDS Ride. Heart of America is a two-day event with loop rides from one location. Good way to trim expenses. But the ride was back on July 12 and 13, and the website has no informaton on how it went, no photos, no declaration of victory. Burned out staff?

Ride For A Cause has one of those websites where the designer was more concerned with showing what a lovely design he could create than conveying important information. Heed the instruction to view it only in IE. It looks like shit in Opera. It still suffers from some unreadable fonts in IE, but at least the spacing works. If you dig and dig really hard you will discover that the ride is actually 4 rides! I won't tell you where that info is buried. See if you can find it. This ride benefits Project Inform and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (neither of which is linked from this lovely, lovely website). The rides themselves will take place in Italy! Even so, 100% of donations will go to the charities!! How do they do it? Well, if Dan Pallotta had, instead of setting a minimum pledge of $2500 and paying rider expenses out of that, charged each rider $1000, and required a minimum pledge of $1500 (same total, $2500) he could have made the same claim too. In other words, the riders pay for their travel, meals and the villa. Yes, the villa!

And look. A bonus 3rd ride: the Ron Wilmot bike ride which also benefits Project Inform. It was held on May 10 with 92 riders who raised over $60,000. Looks like it starts in Golden Gate Park.

As a service to Bostonians, here is today's uncensored Doonesbury.

The Globe changed "sucking" to "wacked." Some newspapers simply dropped the strip today. Lord yes, we must be protected from suck which one hears much more frequently than "Aww, too bad," or "Better luck next time," or "I feel your pain." "That sucks!" is probably the most popular way in America to refer to mid-level hardships. "That's fucked!" is held in reserve for greater tragedies, like being called to the principal's office.

We certainly cannot fail to note the passing of Erik Braunn, the guitar on In-A-Dadda-Da-Vida!

A story so amazing, you will want to read it again and again, even after it disappears from the Globe website. So here it is:

Refusing help, woman gives birth aboard T

By C. Kalimah Redd, Globe Correspondent and Mac Daniel, Globe Staff, 7/31/2003

A 42-year-old Braintree woman gave birth to a baby boy while standing on an inbound Red Line train yesterday morning, refusing help from stunned passengers who heard her moan and seconds later looked down to find her baby on the floor.

Witnesses told police that Joyce M. Judge, a former nurse who later said she was on the way to a Boston hospital, kept quietly refusing help during and after the delivery.

"'Thanks for your concern, we're OK,'" she said, according to Chris Chin of Duxbury. Standing 4 feet away from Judge, Chin said, he saw her tie the umbilical cord in a knot and wrap the baby in a silk scarf. "She cradled the baby in one arm and grabbed the handrail with the other and continued to ride the T and stare out the window."

Bill Mahoney, also of Duxbury, watched the scene unfold: "It was simply surreal."

Transit officials said they received a call from the train operator for medical assistance and had an MBTA official waiting at the JFK-UMass station on the platform when the train arrived. But Judge refused help and sprinted up a flight of stairs toward the turnstiles, MBTA Lieutenant Gary Fredericks said. She then grabbed some newspaper to wrap up the baby, ran across the platform toward Morrissey Boulevard, and hustled up another flight of stairs to the Columbia Road overpass.

MBTA police intercepted her and took the baby boy, who was breathing and kicking but not crying. As two officers examined the baby in the front seat of a police SUV, Fredericks said, Judge pounded on their backs and screamed: "Let me see!"

Mother and child were doing fine yesterday at Boston Medical Center, authorities said. Officials from the state Department of Social Services are investigating.

Clutching the faded pink and beige silk scarf, Judge sat in her hospital bed and told a reporter how she woke up at about 5:15 a.m. yesterday and began vomiting. She decided to go to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Brighton and left her two other children, ages 15 and 11, at the Motel 6 in Braintree, where the family has been living for the past year.

But once she was on the train in North Quincy, she felt the baby coming. "It wasn't too painful, it happened so fast," Judge said. "The contractions were from 1 to 2 minutes apart. I said, 'Let me get off this train.' "

People, she said, started screaming. When asked why she refused help from other passengers, Judge said: "They couldn't do anything on the train so I thought it was better to get to the hospital."

Passengers, many of whom responded to a Boston.com announcement seeking witnesses and were then contacted by phone, said they were startled by the chain of events.

After the train left North Quincy, while crossing the Neponset River around 7:20 a.m., passengers reported hearing a muffled groan. Judge, dressed in a pink velour top and matching skirt, stood in the middle of the fourth car. Suddenly, her water broke.

"At first I thought someone spilled coffee, but it kept dripping," said Chin, 32. "But she stood staring out the window ... I started doubting what I saw."

About 90 seconds later, Chin said, "I saw a head, then full baby fall out from her skirt, hit the floor sideways and slide the length of the doorway, stopping when he bumped up against the next row of seats. Still she stared out the window. Either she didn't know it happened or didn't want to acknowledge it."

Judge bent down, picked up the baby and wrapped it in her scarf, Chin said.

As passengers slowly realized what had happened, witnesses said, the train rallied around the new mother. People offered sweaters and implored her to sit or lie down. Still, Judge refused.

"I'm fine," she repeated throughout the trip. "I'm fine."

With the JFK-UMass stop still three minutes away, passengers, some of whom vomited in the wake of the bloody birth, inundated State Police with cell phone calls. Dispatchers told passengers to ask Judge if she had passed the placenta. Passengers yelled back that she had not. Dispatchers asked if the baby was breathing. Others yelled back that they weren't sure.

At one point, Judge took some nearby newspapers and placed them on the floor to soak up the blood. Some witnesses heard Judge apologize for the mess.

After leaving the train and heading for the stairs up to the station's main lobby, witnesses said, the placenta fell to the platform. Judge turned around, grabbed the afterbirth, put it in her shoulder bag, and headed upstairs.

"She just literally picked it up with her hand and put it in some kind of bag she was carrying, and this was in mid-stride ... It was the craziest thing I've ever seen," said Robert Busby, of Weymouth.

Lisa Judge of Rhode Island, who visited her sister yesterday, said Joyce Judge didn't realize how dilated she was. "She said she thought she could make it" to the hospital, Lisa Judge said.

Lisa Judge said she has taken in her sister's children at times when she has had "spells, she would turn inward and wouldn't talk to anybody."

Marie Judge of Roxbury, said her daughter seemed stressed recently and admitted she was pregnant only when Marie Judge confronted her a month ago.

DSS, which has no record of any prior contact with the family, placed Judge's two other children in temporary custody yesterday. Denise Monteiro, a DSS spokeswoman, said the baby will not be released to Judge, who said she works for Boston Public Schools in food and nutritional services, unless the agency is convinced she can care for the child. The hospital is conducting a psychiatric evaluation of Judge, Monteiro said.

"We're trying to find out what prompted this behavior," she said. "It makes us concerned about her and it makes us concerned about her baby."

Michael Rosenwald and Farah Stockman of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.

This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 7/31/2003.
© 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

A small "ha."

A better "ha."

he allegedly called the principal a "fucker, a fag, and a fucking fag." English is the best language!

Very likely the last, very last, photo in the snow phallus series. I have no idea what this is.

A panorama in the Copley Place pedestrian bridge in the late 1980s.

News to me was the story in today's Boston Globe about the special mud used to take the polish off of baseballs before they go into play. It comes from a secret place in New Jersey, along a creek near the Delaware River close enough to the shore to experience tidal effects. There are photos (in the paper Globe), so I don't think it should be much harder to find this spot than to find, say, Saddam Hussein.

Here the Globe editorializes for a permanent subsidy for the worst train system in the world.

Here a report on the Channel Tunnel Eurostar, a train, that has exceeded 200 mph (yes, MILES per hour, not K).

The Coachella Valley's viewpoint on Bob Hope.

The electrician (not the one who bailed) installed the ceiling fan today. It has a remote control for the sybaritic.

How come all these repairmen I'm getting (plumber, painter, electrician, general handyman) are all men and all want to use just their first name? Not that I'm complaining. I guess I would be bothered if I had to call a guy "Plumber Jones," or if I had to be make the check out to "Joe Jones, Pbr."

I already mentioned the apparent lack of any accessible ramp at the Monarch Brighton (or is it the "Brighton Monarch"). Today while I was waiting for the electrician to show up, I was entertained watching the unloading of a zillion (well, not more than 84 each) refrigerators, stoves, dishwashers...and something else in a smaller box, maybe a microwave. Every single one had to manhandled by brute physical force up the 15 steps to the entrance. Still no ramp. The refrigerators fit on two-wheelers, but the stoves had to be simply lifted by hand (a two man operation) and carried. It was fascinating to see how fast they worked with one worker in the truck, one worker at the lift, 2 or 3 workers disassembling boxes, and 4 to 6 workers carrying the appliances in. I never saw an accident, and they never laid anything down the wrong way. I don't think they took a lunch break. I heard them asking a landscaping worker if they could use his waterhose for a drink (he seemed to refuse them). They were working for at least 6 hours before they finished up. The most interesting moment was when they grabbed someone from Suffolk (the general contractor) to tell him they somehow had 6 extra stoves and didn't know what to do with them. Oops. The guy whose job it is to catch those things that "fall off the truck" must not have been around today.

First naked motor cycle rally of the North American Nude Bikers club. In Tennessee. With a photo.

David very foolishly clowning with a cholla. He came out of it okay.

A new, unfinished Boston Symphony Orchestra mural being painted in the parking lot behind Symphony Hall. The old mural can be seen here.

I took a few photos of the state of things at my condo. The kitchen, which is not getting much of a fix up at all, is a real mess now, so no photos of that. But everything else is there.

First Massachusetts vehicle fatality involving a moose. They don't tell us what happened to the moose.

An article in the Globe about an irritating woman who tries to teach what she calls cell phone etiquette. The main reason I'm linking it is as an illustration of how the Globe is moving in the opposite direction of the NY Times on the publishing of URLs. The Times has begun to learn that when it publishes a URL it needs to make it a link. The Globe, on the other hand, now simply doesn't publish URLs, nor does it give the title of a site. In this article it simply refers to "her website." How irritating. Anyway, here it is: Cellmanners.com

Really, the only thing she did that irritates me is that she went up to two men who were having lunch together and talking on their cell phones. Obviously they were bothering no one, and they were happy with each other, so where does she get off interfering with them?

Also in today's Globe, an article about grafitti on the BU railroad bridge, which I've photographed a few times here. (You may notice that again in this article they mention a website, but do not give its name or URL. I can't find the website, but here is the Charles River Conservancy.) In fact, here's a panorama I shot just a couple of days ago (144 Kb).

Not long ago someone told me they had heard of a disposable digital camera. I poo-poohed the idea, reasoning that if the price were similar to disposable film cameras, the quality would be so atrocious as to be almost useless. What would be the point?

Well, I may have been wrong. Here in the Globe (paper version) I see a Ritz Camera ad for the "Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera" for only $10.99. 25 images, you can delete and retake your "last shot" (which suggests the earlier shots are not erasable). It goes on to say you can "e-mail and share" your photos, so obviously there's a way to get them out. Does $10.99 include a USB cable? Maybe the memory is on one of those little USB disk drives. But only $10.99!? Good lord, maybe it uses an actual old diskette! 1.44 Mb divided by 25 would be about 56 Kb per shot, adequate for a small, low quality jpeg. And now the use becomes obvious to my sweet, innocent, naive brain. It's so those people who can't afford real digital cameras can get those shots that you don't want your neighborhood photo processor to see.

A few hours later...
I took myself down to Ritz Camera so that I could answer the querying minds of Ron's Log readers. The catch to the Dakota Digital Single-Use Camera, is that you cannot get the photos in it to go directly onto your PC. No indeed. You bring the $10.99 camera back to the store and for another $10.99 they will "process" it, returning to you prints and a CD containing the photos. Basically, a $22 disposable without the privacy of digital, without the quality of film, without the speedy satisfaction of digital. The worst of all worlds! A camera destined to die on the market. The only advantage it has over a film disposable is the ability to delete images. So, I suppose, if you're at your only child's wedding and this is your only camera, you don't have to panic if you accidentally take a photo of the inside of your handbag. Just delete it and continue.

I poo-pooh the idea.

During my packing process I found buried way deep the slides I had taken on my trip to the Soviet Union in January 1973. I hadn't seen them in years. Thank goodness they are Kodachrome. Unfortunately, they were taken with a 110 camera with a fixed shutter speed. Moscow in winter is much too dark for Kodachrome 64 and a fixed shutter speed. I grabbed one slide at random and scanned it before packing up my scanner. This is it. This looks like an area inside the Kremlin. Fortunately, I found (in an entirely separate place) a log where I had carefully identified the location of each photo. Eventually I'll be able to scan all the slides and correctly identify them. But until then, here's this one.

Spotted this rather horrifying face on a mural along Mass Ave. in the South End. It's partly hidden behind a column, so I'd never noticed it before.

In case you haven't been following along, the Massachusetts Attorney General yesterday brought us a sweeping update of the Priests vs. Children story here in the Boston Archdiocese.

• 789 victimes, 237 priests and 13 "other" church workers.
• 110 of the 237 priests graduated from St. John's Seminary, right here in Brighton adjacent to the Archbishop's mansion.
• "Cardinal Law and his senior managers had direct, actual knowledge that substantial numbers of children in the archdiocese had been sexually abused by substantial numbers of its priests. Members of the cardinal's senior management team received complaints of abuse; determined the archdiocese's response to the complaints; determined the approval for their actions; and conferred with the cardinal and sought his approval of their recommendations. Any claim by the cardinal or the archdiocese senior managers that they did not know of the abuse suffered by, or the continuing threat to, children in the archdiocese is simply not credible."
• "'(N)one of [Law's] senior managers advised him to take any of the steps that might have ended the systemic abuse of children,' the report said."
• "According to one official familiar with the investigation, some of the bishops insisted that they be given questions a month before their interviews, that they would not take follow-up questions, that they would not answer questions about any documents and that some subjects would be off-limits in the interviews.
  "For those reasons, Law and at least six bishops were ordered to appear before the grand jury."
• No indictments.

Spotted on a California tree.

I am a movie thief. Went to the Boston Common cinema today to get out of the house and the humidity. Missed the start of Terminator 3 by a few minutes, so I saw The Italian Job instead. Will the L.A. River ever get the Oscar it deserves?

After Italian I wandered the vast, unpatrolled corridors of the cinema and saw that Terminator 3 was starting up in about half an hour, so I waited around to watch it. At least one other guy from the Italian screening did the same. With the $6.50 matinee price, it came to $3.25 per film, which is right around Blockbuster price, isn't it? BTW, Terminator 3 had me laughing with tears streaming down my face. I think they meant it that way.

I'm sure it's all clear to you all that from a libertarian point of view the best highway appropriations bill is no appropriation at all, and the best fuel tax is no tax at all, and the best state highway is no state highway. Our government, however, is not yet quite perfectly libertarian, and libertarians (like any other taxpayer) are not required to sit in dumbfounded silence as our government wastes billions on incredibly stupid, fucked up decisions. So here I go...

It seems the House Appropriations Committee is considering removing ALL (that is, 100%) federal funding for bike paths, pedestrian enhancements, bike lanes, improved bridge access for bikes, etc. About $600 million. All of it. Not a dime to be spent on bicycles. Sweepingly libertarian, you think? Oh, no! They are raising the highway appropriations by $2.5 billion! For a total of $34.1 billion! Isn't this obviously backasswards? We're in deficit and we spend more on highways, and nothing for bicycle access. Holy fucking loony tunes. They're also cutting mass transit and Amtrak funding, if that gets to you too. I say the faster Amtrak goes into flaming bankruptcy hell, the faster we get a real train system.

Ironically, we can't blame this on Bush, who had requested a $2.3 billion cut in highway appropriations. It's those twaddle-brained Republicans in the House who are to blame.

Much more info here.

I got a hilarious letter yesterday from the republican National Committee. But it's probably only hilarious if you know that I have never ever given a single penny to any Republican candidate or campaign, I've never registered Republican, I've never signed a petition for a Republican, and with some possible tiny exceptions in some minor race, I have never voted for a Republican. Even so, the RNC writes me...

And along those lines of nationally defending the security of our homeland, etc., here's a photo from the Palm Springs Airport where finally a safe spot has been created where we do not have to observe golfers golfing:

The putting green was in the gate area, that is, past security. And everybody knows the risk of golfing in a secure area.

Yesterday Tom and I found two little tiny kid's bikes in the trash that were in excellent condition. Very rideable. They even had air in their teeny weeny tires. We retrieved them, and they will go to Goodwill today, along with my old manual Olympia typewriter (vintage 1974) which is still an excellent typewriter if you can find the ribbon for it. Of course, back when I gave up on finding that ribbon we didn't have an internet. Even so, a Google search finds only this.

We get numerous requests for ribbons for older models not listed here and we would like to help but unfortunately we have only access to the above listed models. If it is spooled ribbon that you are looking for, and you have the original spools, you may try purchasing a similar ribbon from a typewriter dealer or stationery store and re-spooling it to your own spools.

Yes, mine is the ill-fated spooled ribbon type.

The guy who's painting my condo is going kind of slow, I think, but the work he's done looks good, so I'm not bitching yet. Plus, he's got some dark colors to cover over with generic white, so multiple coats are required. Yesterday, however, the painter got into a fight with the handyman who is fixing tiles in the bathroom and planing my ill-fitting doors. It seems somebody "borrowed" somebody else's tool. We don't have film, but allegedly there were threats of violence and threats to call the police, until the painter walked off the site early.

The electrician has bailed, for no particular reason, so we are looking at others. Plumber comes tomorrow to replace my antique toilet. Anyone who wants a last chance to try to flush the old one should meet me there tonight.

Oh yeah, the floors look good. Could be better. There's a spot in front of where Ron's Log's PC used to be where Ron's Log's chair actually ground down the surface of the wood a bit. I checked, and the area is better (of course) but still rough.

AMSTERDAM — This year's Gay Pride canal parade promises to be more sexually explicit than ever, with organisers protesting against what they claim is the "increasing prudishness" of Amsterdam's municipal authorities.

The soon to be famous Palm Springs nude bridge is practically next door to the resort where I stayed. I decided not to waste electrons by taking a photo of the bridge, it not being too especially interesting. Lucky for us there is this article from the San Diego Union-Tribune with a photo.

I forgot I want to bitch about American Airlines. I bought my tickets directly from AA via the web. They've got my e-mail address, home phone, cell phone, AND postal address. They send me spam almost every day. So why was it they couldn't notify me that my departure had been switched to a different flight at a different time?? Worse, when I discovered it was AFTER I had disconnected my PC, and not yet re-connected it here at Tom's. (Tom's place was essentially computerless until I set mine up here last Friday). That meant I had to use the phone to discover my new itinerary. Bastards.

Prayers (I think) and shadows of prayers in the California sun.

Theurgy (Noun)

Pronunciation: ['thee-êr-jee]

Definition 1: White magic, the conjuring of beneficent gods or supernatural powers to do one's bidding; divine intervention.

Usage 1: The adjective is "theurgic(al)" and the adverb is "theurgically." Not to be confused with "theology," the study of God and religion.

Suggested Usage: Here is a term we can use to indicate extremely difficult circumstances: "It would take an act of theurgy to get François to change his mind." Remember, this same word may refer to an appeal to the gods, "I've tried everything short of theurgy to keep the leaves out of my gutters; nothing seems to work." Keep in mind that the appeal has to be for good.

Etymology: Late Latin theurgia, from Late Greek theourgia, from theourgos "miracle worker," itself based on Greek theos "god" + ergon "work." The etymology of "theos" is beclouded. It does not seem related to Latin deus "god" but rather to feriae "holidays" (whence our "fair") and festus "festive," which led to "feast" and "fete." ("Fete" is from French fête where the [ê] indicates the loss of an earlier [s], e.g. bête noir "black beast.") "Theos" also underlies English "atheism" and "enthusiasm." "Ergon" goes back to an earlier werg- which produced German Werk "work, factory" and English "work," the origin of wright "worker," as in "playwright, cartwright, shipwright" and the wrought "worked, made" of "wrought iron."

yourDictionary.com

It seems William Bright has passed on. He was the founder of the Campus Crusade for Christ. Anyone who went to college in the U.S. in the last half of the 20th century is excessively familiar with these people who have worked hard to give Christianity an especially annoying image.

But that brings me to Left Behind (the movie). For those of you who have lived under a rock, or who have learned to speed-shun any news from the fundamentalist Christian world [a word of advice, by the way, those guys are running the effing White House these days, so you should at least pay a bit of attention to their caterwaulings], Left Behind was (is?) a big seller as a series of novels, and so it was made into a movie which has had tremendous sales, too. It's an attempt to try to describe what it would be like for those who will be left behind on Earth after that moment when all the born again Christians ascend to heaven, i.e. "the rapture."

Recently The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction recently reviewed Left Behind and other apocalyptic literature without regard for religious accuracy. The overall conclusion was that a lot of it makes great fantasy literature, but that Left Behind is certainly the dullest and most poorly written.

So I was at the home of a couple of friends recently, one of whom is at least a Christian, if not a downright born again Christian. It was suggested that we might watch a movie, and that I should peruse their DVD library to see if there was anything I wanted to watch. And there was a copy of Left Behind. Here was my chance to see it while not enriching any of the people who made it. It put quite a damper on the evening, but my friends indulged me.

Short review: an incredibly dead clod of a movie. The people who made this thing actually believe they are describing a real future. You'd think they'd be really excited about it. You'd think it'd be hard to make such an exciting story dull, but somehow they do it. There are long, long scenes where the camera sits on a lone actor who I suppose is trying to emote, but who really appears to just be sitting there. The first couple of times it feels dramatic, because the viewer expects a door to slam open, or a gunshot to break the silence. But no, nothing. We just get lone actor sitting. It's like born again Christianity as told by nihilists. These long pointless scenes became more frequent and were easily predicted, so we began to fast forward through them to minimize our pain.

Plus, it seems their fact checker and supervisor of continuity both experienced the rapture before the movie was done. Kirk Cameron, who plays a sort of CNN reporter, appears to magically transport himself all over the world so that he can magically be on the scene any time the story is advanced. Often the viewer has no goddam idea where he is supposed to be, or why. As for facts, at the beginning of the movie Kirk is standing in a wheat field in Israel. A wheat field. He nods appreciatively, saying "It looks just like Iowa." Yikes, what a howler. All the good Christians in Iowa lost at the git-go.

The movie is totally lacking in wit or humor. It's a long suffering drudge from beginning to end. Nonetheless, sequels have been made. They are preaching to the choir, I guarantee it.

Christians are invited to write me to correct my views. I will publish the best stuff I get!

Naked chefs promoting the Vita-Mix!

The Minolta Dimage X20, a sort of shrunken version of my old Dimage X. Like mine, it's only a 2 megapixel, but the body is smaller and lighter. It still has 3x zoom, but the largest image size is 1600 x 1200 jpeg. The batteries are 2 AAs, which is probably a little improvement. No info on price yet.

Panorama around the area of the intersection of Dillon Road and Thousand Palms Road in the Coachella Valley east of Palm Springs. Click here for the full size ((199 Kb) image. Or, you can go to my folder of panoramas and view it in a smaller format. Dillon Road is a nice wavy road that follows the contours of the sand as it goes from Desert Hot Springs to Indio on the northeast side of I-10 in the Coachella Valley. Most of the urbanized areas are southwest of I-10. In this photo you can see rain falling from clouds. None of it ever reached the ground. It was 115°(F) that day.

Here's a Mapquest link showing you the location.

This may be old news for some of you, but here is a bit of e-mail that came to me while I was out west. This concerns Rep. Foley's shock (Shock, I tell you!) upon hearing that babies are born naked. Even boy babies.

NATURIST ACTION COMMITTEE

ADVISORY

http://www.naturistsociety.com/NAC/

DATE: July 7, 2003
SUBJECT: Naturists meet with Rep. Mark Foley
TO: All naturists

Dear Naturist,

This morning a coalition of naturists met with U.S. Rep. Mark Foley on the matter of his public posture and comments concerning youth camps at naturist facilities. The meeting, which took place in Rep. Foley's Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, district office, lasted close to an hour. It was followed by a well attended press briefing and interview availability session presented by the naturist coalition in a meeting room of a nearby hotel.

BACKGROUND

Based solely on a New York Times newspaper article that appeared on June 18, the Congressman has labeled youth camps at nudist facilities to be a "reprehensible exploitation of children," and he has called for the immediate closure of what he calls a legal "loophole" that "subjects impressionable youths to denigrating and dangerous behavior and could expose them to pedophiles."

Naturists, of course, take vigorous exception to this vile misrepresentation of one of the ways in which naturist parents may involve their children in their family recreational and lifestyle choices.

The youth camp featured in the Times article was put on by the American Association for Nude Recreation (AANR) and the Florida Association for Nude Recreation (FANR), a regional affiliate of AANR. The newspaper article itself was the result of a recent media blitz by AANR and its hired public relations firm.

THE COALITION

The Naturist Action Committee participated in this morning's action in close cooperation with a coalition that included B.E.A.C.H.E.S. Foundation, South Florida Free Beaches / Florida Naturist Association, Central Florida Naturists, Sunsport Gardens and The Naturist Society. Also in attendance was a representative of the Christian naturist community, as well as a youth who had attended a recent nude youth camp, and the boy's grandmother.

Coordination for the collaborative activity was provided by Shirley Mason of B.E.A.C.H.E.S.

AANR and FANR were both invited to be a part of the coalition facing Foley directly on this issue. Both AANR and FANR declined to participate.

THE MEETING

Naturist participants met with Foley in his office at 9 a.m. and immediately let the Congressman know that they were displeased with his characterization of them and the irresponsible accusations he had tossed about. The meeting remained civil, but there was a definite edge to it throughout.

Naturists pointed out that nude youth camps have an enviable record for protecting the children involved. In fact, if one were simply looking toward the protection of children, instead of trolling for a campaign issue, there are many other types of youth camps that are statistically far more deserving of attention and scrutiny. Naturists challenged Rep. Foley to use his influence to improve the safety of children at all camps generally, rather than focusing on nude youth camps as a target for his unwarranted attacks.

The participants promised to provide Rep. Foley with additional material to assist his further education on the topic. Foley committed to a review of his inflammatory rhetoric, and he agreed to an immediate modification of his web site.

Recognizing that chances were slim that Foley would comply, naturists nevertheless demanded that the Congressman send a followup letter to Florida Governor Jeb Bush, reflecting the new understanding he'd acquired as a result of this morning's meeting.

COMMENT

Mark Foley was polite and attentive. He certainly was generous with his time. As a result of this morning's meeting undoubtedly had his eyes opened to some facets of this issue. However, it's not clear how much he's willing to back off.

Indeed, much of the damage has already been done. A state lawmaker in Texas has already filed a legislative bill to outlaw nude camps for children, and a Florida lawmaker has threatened to do the same. Both are direct results of the frenzy whipped up by Mark Foley with his unresearched and overblown reaction to the New York Times article.

Even if Rep. Foley appears conciliatory at the moment, we must not lose sight of the fact that Mark Foley has not suddenly become a friend to naturists.

WHAT CAN I DO?

This is an Advisory. The Naturist Action Committee is NOT asking for your action at this time

PLEASE HELP NAC HELP NATURISTS IN FLORIDA AND ELSEWHERE

The Naturist Action Committee exists to advance and protect the rights of naturists throughout North America. NAC is a volunteer nonprofit organization that relies on the grass roots participation of naturists who understand that individuals working together can make a difference.

NAC has no membership roster on which to assess dues, and it relies completely on voluntary contributions from concerned and involved naturists like you. Monitoring lawmakers across North America is expensive, but NAC knows that it's necessary for the protection of our freedoms.

Won't you take a moment to help NAC by sending a generous donation? You may send your donation to the address below, or you may call toll free (800) 886-7230 to donate by phone using your MasterCard or Visa.

NAC
PO Box 132
Oshkosh WI 54903

Thank you for choosing to make a difference!

Naturally,

Bob Morton
Executive Director
Naturist Action Committee