Cramblings

2006-03-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

Econimic growth is bad. Economic competition is bad. Our standard of living is too high. We are too rich. We are too free.

2005-10-17T12:34:00.000-07:00

more alive

2005-07-07T10:46:00.000-07:00

alive alive ho

2005-07-07T10:45:00.000-07:00

Keepin it alive!

2005-04-26T18:26:00.000-07:00

Canadian Party Platforms

Liberals

Health Care |
Child Care |
Environment | Cities

Conservatives

The Issues |
More Issues

NDP

Eight Commitments |
Platform

2005-04-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

Spraff me baby I hope that this will create a viral thing. I bought this domain name a while ago and now want to spread the word as much as possible. It is increasing in usage, slowly.

2005-04-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

Voice of Reason: The Truth Behind the Shroud of Turin

2005-04-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Massa "B" Pimpin Now!

My daughter is a fan of hiphop music, and has been since she was about 14, say 6 years ago. Up to that time I was not really aware of this music as a cultural force. Apparently it is as influential and as all-pervasive in the lives of this generation as rock was in mine. And as with my parents before me, it is difficult to get a handle on it. Without the immersal necessary to appreciate any musical form, "it all sounds the same to me!" Every now and then she will play something for me but I really can't appreciate the difference, and though I know the names of the current luminaries, at least the brightest as of who knows how long ago, I can never tell the difference between say Jay-Z or whoever.

I remember once she played me two songs by male rappers. One was a good-natured description of how the singer liked to fool around with lots of women, and the other was a typical (stereotypical anyway) description of the pursuit of material objects, of which women were an example. I imagine she wanted to shock me with both of them, but I could not really find fault with the first, as he genuinely seemed to like women and, though obviously not one to stay around, was willing to do what it took to give as good as he got in terms of enjoyment. On the contrary. the other singer exhibited a hatred and contempt for women which would have been unthinkable in my era. He saw them essentially as whores, regrettably necessary for the fulfilment of male desires, but of no more real interest than any other consumable; a cheeseburger, perhaps, or a beer: tasty at the time but immediately forgotten once enjoyed. And in my brief survey of the genre this seems to be a recurring dichotomy, the one representing the traditional African respect and admiration for female sexuality, and the other reflecting the dominant American culture of the day: the culture of selfishness, rudeness and stupidity which has taken over all discourse and threatens to plunge North American society into a new dark age. The stereotypical hiphopper falls into this category just as much as WWBush or Rush Limbaugh or whatever other shithead redneck is currently spouting his crap on prime time TV.

The strangest manifestation of this in black culture is the professed admiration for a most unlikely hero: the pimp. His styles, mannerisms and habits are held up as the highest possible aspiration. Why? Well, in my opinon it goes back to the liberation of blacks after the civil war. At that tiime, freed blacks were at liberty (theoretically) to take up any occupation, and 100 years later, they were actually able to put that liberty to practical use... and yet, both then and now, there was one profession to which no black person could legally aspire, and that was the one occupation that had had the greatest impact by far on the african immigre population: the slaveowner. I think the pimp represents that frustration, that at the moment of liberation there could be no hope of real payback in kind. So now the pimp, the closest thing in the modern world to the "massa" of old, abusing and exploiting his stable of hoes and bitches, becomes the ideal. Sad but true.

2005-03-18T11:02:00.000-08:00

Voice of Reason: The Truth Behind the Shroud of Turin

2005-03-11T07:17:00.000-08:00

ARTSEDGE: ArtsEdge

2005-03-07T05:51:00.000-08:00

Cramblings

2005-02-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

Spraff me baby

2005-02-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

Performing Medieval Narrative Today: A Video Showcase

2005-02-23T12:24:00.000-08:00

The Scientific Acedia

2005-02-23T04:54:00.000-08:00

Commemorating Anna Mae

2005-02-21T21:12:00.000-08:00

Katie's page; hope she gets more on here soon!

2005-02-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

OULOU is the best!

2005-02-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

https://secure.globeadvisor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/gam/20041122/RAMAZ22

Doing the math on the have and have-not provinces

BRUCE LITTLE

It's time again for the annual tally of some numbers that Ottawa and many
provincial governments love to hate. Who gains and who loses from the federal
government's getting and spending? Which provinces send more money to Ottawa
than they get back in spending, and which get more from the federal treasury
than they chip in?

20041122

Arts and Healing Network [pdf]
http://www.artheals.org/start.html

More and more people are realizing the possibility of utilizing forms of art
as a method of therapy and also as a way of affecting social change. One such
organization that has worked in this area for some time is the Arts and Healing
Network, which was founded by Marion Weber. This site was created in 1997 as a
way for people to learn about the healing potential of art, and includes
sections where people can learn about projects that combine art, community, and
healing. Additionally, visitors can browse through the organization's newsletter
and also funding opportunities for artists. Visitors will definitely want to
visit the projects area as they will learn about thematic ideas that combine
these two worlds, including those that raise environmental awareness and those
that build community.

Letter to Dr. Laura - Clarifying the Law!

Earth Policy - What is their
agenda? Not sure, but they seem to make sense! See especially

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update44.htm and

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update45.htm

Family Videography a Unique and Lasting Gift for 'Family Elders' Who Have
Everything - A possibility for profit here?

World's scariest music videos? Some of them http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/halloween/

From a Jewish sermon

Jewish Center of the Hamptons - Sermon - Erev Rosh Hashanah

An aggressive American investment banker was at the pier of a coastal Mexican
village when a small boat with just one fisherman docked. Inside the small boat
were several large yellow fin tuna. The American complimented the Mexican on the
quality of his fish and asked how long it took to catch them. The Mexican
replied, "Only a little while." The American then asked why he didn't stay out
longer and catch more fish. The Mexican said he had enough to support his
family's needs. The American then asked, "But what do you do with the rest of
your time?" The fisherman replied, "I sleep late, play with my children in the
hills and the valleys, go to the Basilica, take a siesta with my wife Maria, and
then sip wine and play the guitar with my amigos."The American scoffed, "I’m a
successful Harvard MBA; I can help you. You should spend more time fishing and
with the proceeds buy a bigger boat. With the proceeds from the bigger boat you
could buy several boats. Eventually you would have a fleet of fishing boats.
Instead of selling your catch to a middleman, you could sell directly to the
processor, and eventually open your own cannery. You would then control the
product, the processing and the distribution. You then could leave this small
fishing village and move to Mexico City, then Los Angeles, and eventually New
York City from where you would run your expanding enterprise. The Mexican
fisherman asked, "But how long will this all take?" To which the banker replied,
" Fifteen to twenty years." "But then what?" asked the fisherman. The American
laughed and said, "That's the best part. When the time is right, you would
announce an IPO and sell your company stock to the public and become very rich.
You would make millions." "Millions?" repeated the fisherman "Then what?"
"Well," said the banker after a moment's pause, "Then you could retire to a
small fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your children in the
hills and valleys, go to the Basilica, take a siesta with your wife Maria, and
sip wine and play the guitar with your amigos."

The original Lord of the
Rings move, starring Humphrey Bogart!

Playing A Musical Instrument Reverses Stress

http://jam.hitsquad.com/vocal/viewtopic.php?t=41?nl04

Sloan Digital Sky Survey [jpeg, gif, pdf]
http://www.sdss.org/

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey "will map in detail one-quarter of the entire
sky, determining the positions and absolute brightnesses of more than 100
million celestial objects" as well as "measure the distances to more than a
million galaxies and quasars." The website details the Astrophysical Research
Consortium (ARC) mapmaking strategies, timelines, survey progress, and project
goals. Visitors can view the many fantastic images collected at the Apache Point
Observatory, the site of the SDSS telescopes. While a few of the data links are
accessible only to collaborators, the general public can still retrieve SDSS
data, tutorials, and algorithms from the archives. [RME]

(from Scout Report)

Global warming: scientists reveal timetable

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Correspondent

03 February 2005

A detailed timetable of the destruction and distress that global warming is
likely to cause the world was unveiled yesterday.

It pulls together for the first time the projected impacts on ecosystems and
wildlife, food production, water resources and economies across the earth, for
given rises in global temperature expected during the next hundred years.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0203-04.htm (originally published in
The Independent)

To friends around the world,

On November 3, the day after the U.S. election, I left for an

around-the-world speaking tour and have just recently returned.

During this trip, many of you asked me what happened in the U.S.

election, specifically to explain the differences between the exit

polls and the tallied vote. I had difficulty answering your questions,

but some analysts are beginning to examine this question.

Steven Freeman, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania,

whose areas of expertise include research methods, has looked at

the difference between the exit polls and the tallied vote in 11

battleground states. Freeman focuses on three of these key states:

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. His conclusion, based on probability

analysis, is that it is highly unlikely that the difference between

the exit polls and the tallied vote could be as wide as it was reported

in all three of these states.

Freeman’s paper can be found at

http://www.solarbus.org/stealyourelection/articles/exit-poll-discrepancy-1110.pdf

He welcomes comments.

Sincerely,

Lester Brown

2005-02-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

How Many Recycled Newspapers Does It Take to Save A Tree?

2005-02-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures

2005-02-21T09:53:00.000-08:00

NDP | Kyoto

2005-02-21T09:49:00.000-08:00

Captain America US Army tries to create supersoldiers!

2005-02-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

Haunted Places in Canada > juiceenewsdaily� > alabama news. jasper news. juicee news.

2005-02-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

Tips for a Screenwriter Wannabe

2005-02-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Digging Deeper: Q&A with Peter Brown -- A discoverer of an extinct dwarf species of human reflects on one of the most startling paleoanthropological revelations in living memory

2005-02-21T09:25:00.000-08:00

Iron Mike's Metal Video ... Streaming Heavy Metal Music Videos 24/7!

2005-02-21T09:24:00.000-08:00

Who owns the UK
02 February 2005

Who owns Britain? Most of us would instinctively reply: we do. The British people own the British Isles. This is a democracy, isn't it? But the facts tell a different story. When you look at a map of the British Isles, you are looking not at your home but at a land mass overwhelmingly owned by a tiny aristocratic elite. Extraordinary though it might seem, in the 21st century, 0.6 per cent of the British people own 69 per cent of the land on which we live - and they are mostly the same families who owned it in the 19th century.

2005-02-09T11:45:00.000-08:00

www.dikka.com is Dikka

2005-01-17T14:02:00.000-08:00

Market Fever 1
The Market. That austere and unforgiving entity that has replaced God and the Communist Party as this age's mind. Some thoughts...

There are three types of players in the financial markets, of which only two are in evidence for most of the business cycle. Most important, though least visible is the investor. You have no doubt seen commercials for banks and mutual fund companies which seem to address you as if you were included in this rarefied breed (the same logic, in reverse, which puts someone making 200,000 a year into the middle class). You are not an investor. What you are will be made clear soon. The true investor knows what money is and what it is for. He (shes are rare in these circles) knows that the reason one buys stock in a company is

to share in the profits through dividends
to exercise control.

One buys bonds in a company or government to

ensure a steady, safe stream of income
to exercise control.

The second, and most visible, breed is the speculator. He (see note above) is generally an enterprising type who has discovered that, even in normal times, buying and selling financial instruments produces a better return on his money than sticking it under the mattress or into a savings account. He buys stocks with one aim in mind: to sell them tomorrow at a profit. Bonds he scorns, unless the stock market is flat and there's a chance of making a quick something on the yield. He scorns his less enterprising brothers at the racetrack or bookie shop, but he is essentially no different.

In ordinary times, the investor and the speculator are the only real players in the market. Every so often, however, something happens, and a new breed appears on the scene. In the carnival setting, they are known as "rubes"; the rancher knows them as "dudes"; the professional con-man welcomes them as "fish". They are, in short, the common people, for whom the promise of higher returns on their savings has become irresistible, and they fall over themselves to hand over their hard-earned gains to anyone who can promise a slightly better rate of return than the next. The financial advisor and mutual fund manager take the place of the priest and witch doctor...

During this time too, the nature of the speculator changes somewhat. The field becomes dominated by those testosterone-driven young men who have, in other times and settings, traditionally expended their excess energies in seduction, exploration, crime, or chopping or blasting each other's heads off in the name of some patriotic or ideological cause. They now derive the same thrill and sense of purpose from the pursuit of money. Their motto: "Take no prisoners!" Heedless of risk, the new speculators plunge headlong into the great adventure of "investing", seizing on the latest technology, the fastest prices, the hottest tips, taking in and acting on vast amounts of data, but it's never enough, never enough...

And as more and more people enter the market, and the prices start to rise, the true investors smile. They know what money is and how to increase their own supply, in war or peace, boom or bust. They will not be buying the inflated stocks whose price bears no relation to their real value, but they will gladly create and sell them to the suckers who are begging for someone, anyone, to take their money in exchange for a promise of future prosperity and the assurance that they too are savvy investors.
A symptom of such times as these, as is often observed but equally often ignored, is the divorce of price from value.

To the real investor, a share in a company means a share in its earnings. I recently found myself at the Toronto Financial Forum, listening to the president of a little-known company explaining why we should be investing in its shares. The company has been the leader in an essential service sector for over 40 years; its clients are established companies and governments; its finances are in good order. Most importantly, its P/E ratio, which compares the current share price to the actual earnings, was remarkably low, making it a bargain by any traditional measurement. So what was wrong with it???
More to come!

2004-04-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

cramberry cram glen cram www.cramberry.com

artiststatement www.artiststatement.com
artiststatement.com artist statement artist's statement artist's way

dikka www.dikka.com dikka.com

montreal
peoples gospel choir people's gospel choir

spraff

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dyke weddings

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grinth www.grinth.com

2004-04-23T14:03:00.000-07:00

People's Gospel Choir