Directions in New Media

Dr. Ronald Federici: A Tribute

2009-05-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

Dr. Ronald Federici has received worldwide recognition for helping orphans and the adoptive families.

He has done a lot of work with children from countries the authors of this blog hold dear, such as Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia as well as Romania and others. For that reason, we'd like to honor and thank him.

He holds a Psy.D. degree, and is licensed by the Virginia Board. From his offices in McLean, VA, he helps local families, but his reach is truly global! He has, for example, served as a consultant to Angelina Jolie, assisting with her adoptions.

In addition to his regular work, Dr. Federici is also an outspoken opponent of dangerous therapies, such as those that killed Candace Newmaker, and also done everything he can to improve deplorable conditions in orphanages around the world.

The Relevance of Ayn Rand

2009-04-19T14:54:00.000-07:00

There have been recent reports of a resurgence in interest in the work of Ayn Rand, specifically her novel Atlas Shrugged.

This is a good thing. What is not a good thing, however, is the suggestion that Rand’s work somehow stands as a criticism of the policies of the Obama Administration.

There have been specific references to the bailouts, government removal of company executives, and the fact that the “heroes” of Atlas Shrugged are businessmen and businesswomen.

Some people must be experiencing short term memory loss. The bailouts predate the Obama Administration.

They are part of the legacy of George Bush and Henry Paulson. The executive in question is Rick Wagoner, formerly Chairman and CEO of General Motors. General Motors, like several other U.S. automakers, was in trouble and asked for help.

It should be noted that Wagoner was unable to cut losses or to make General Motors profitable in North America. If he stayed, he would be rewarded for failure. He was not removed, he was asked to leave. The difference is subtle, but important. One of the successful businessmen in Atlas Shrugged is Hank Rearden, who has invented a miraculous metal. He did not run a failing company, and he did not take a private jet (or, appropriate to the time of Rand’s novel, private train) to Washington to beg for taxpayers’ money.

He was a success, both as a scientist and entrepreneur.

Another is railway magnate Dagny Taggart. Like Rearden and unlike Wagoner, Chase Manhattan’s Jamie Dimon or Bank of America’s Kenneth D. Lewis, her company was not failing.

The “government” in Rand’s novel is actually quite unlike the Obama Administration. It is, however, very like the Bush Administration in many ways.

One of the novel's main characters, John Galt, is tortured with an electrical device, foreshadowing the atrocities of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

The Obama Administration has taken a clear policy on torture-that it is unacceptable. The outrage at the excesses associated with the bailouts and many of their recipients is well deserved, as is the interest in Rand and her work. One would, however, do well, to read Rand and learn what she stood for!

The Year of the Ox

2009-01-25T17:35:00.000-08:00

Here are some photographs from the Tet celebration at Eden Center in Falls Church, VA.

Falls Church has a large Vietnamese community, and the Eden Center is Viet Nam in microcosm!

The photos were taken with a Nikon D50 and a Tamron 18-200 lens.

They were shot in RAW. Minor corrections were done in Photoshop, as well as the conversion to .jpg for posting to this blog.

Turkmeniscam - This Book is a Scam

2009-01-19T12:36:00.000-08:00

I actually quite liked Ken Silverstein's The Radioactive Boy Scout as it showed how easy it would be to create some of the components of a nuclear weapon.

His latest, Turkmeniscam, is something else again.

Silverstein posed as a representative of a nonexistent UK company that did business with Turkmenistan. He approached various US lobbying firms to see what they could do to improve Turkmenistan's image.

Silverstein admits he has never been to Turkmenistan. I have. The place is not perfect, but what place is?

If Silverstein wanted to deal with an oppressive regime, he could have stayed at home. The nearly now defunct Bush administration has almost completely destroyed the US reputation abroad, started two senseless wars, eroded civil rights, and, possibly most disturbingly, made torture a part of its foreign and domestic policies.

I can only hope that President (elect for only a day more!) Barack Obama will reverse these excesses.

If Silverstein wanted to deal with those who provide positive publicity to an oppressive regime, he could have done his book in Washington, which is what he did for Turkmeniscam.

There are plenty of places that have promoted the Bush/Neocon ideology. The Competitive Enterprise Institute comes to mind, as does the Institute for Liberty. These people receive ample funding from Bush-friendly entities such as Exxon Mobil, deny the existence of global warming, and were fervent supporters of the McCain-Palin ticket.

С РОЖДЕСТВОМ!

2009-01-07T08:41:00.000-08:00

RIP: Benazir Bhutto

2007-12-27T07:49:00.001-08:00

It is unfortunate that the 2007 holidays will be remembered for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

Memory Eternal.

Happy Holidays!

2007-12-23T06:03:00.000-08:00

All the best from Directions in New Media! (Medea and Friends)

Aerial Photography: Swiss Alps

2007-12-18T08:42:00.000-08:00

Here are two photos showing lakes and glaciers in the Swiss Alps.

They were taken in late 2006 with a Nikon D50 camera and a Tamron 18-200 lens.

Does This Frighten You?

2007-11-24T12:07:00.001-08:00

It shouldn't!

Contrary to popular opinion, calculus is not a difficult subject. This notion persists despite the availability of modern textbooks, graphing calculators, and, of course, some very nice mathematical software packages.

But the best way to learn calculus, and yes, you can teach yourself, is with a book.

That book is "Calculus Made Easy" by Silvanus P. Thompson. It is a rare book that can make a supposedly difficult subject easy; another, dealing with economics, is described here.

Thompson begins the book with a motto: “what one fool can do, another can” and that sets the tone for the entire book.

Thompson’s book appeared in the early 1900s and is still in print. There have been some updates, but most appear to have been in changing examples using old British currency system, which was not a decimal (100 cents = 1 dollar) system.

Thompson was an engineer, and the book reflects this. This is not a bad thing, as many people find calculus to be useless. Thompson not only teaches it well, but shows its application to an important discipline.

Над Бабьим Яром памятников нет

2007-11-18T07:48:00.001-08:00

Babii Yar is a ravine in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. In the course of two days, September 29—30, 1941, German Nazis, aided by their collaborators murdered 33,771 Jewish civilians. The Babii Yar massacre is considered to be the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust.

Dmitrii Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor (Op. 113, subtitled Babii Yar) first performed in Moscow on December 18, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin. The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky.

The work sets poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko that concerned the World War II Babii Yar massacre and other topics.

The first poem, Babii Yar, criticises Soviet anti-Semitism.

The second, "Humour", describes humor as a mischievous rascal who constantly eludes censorship.

The third, "In the Store", glorifies the women of the Soviet Union, always tired from standing in long lines at the store, often in bitter cold.

The fourth, "Fears", recalls the pervasive atmosphere of dread during the Stalin era.

The fifth final poem, "A Career", is a celebration of Galileo's refusal to recant his discoveries about the nature of the heavens, even when faced with the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition.

The symphony was completed during a thaw in Soviet censorship, but even so Nikita Khrushchev criticised it before the premiere, and threatened to stop its performance. The premiere went ahead, but afterwards Yevtushenko was forced to change his poem, replacing a stanza declaring in part "I am every old man shot dead here, I am every child shot dead here" with a stanza mourning the ethnic Russians and Ukrainians that died alongside the Jews at Babii Yar. Thereafter the work was infrequently performed until more recently.

Shostakovich originally intended the first movement to stand by itself, but ideas kept coming to him and he had to expand the work into its current symphonic form.

The Secret of Cobalt Blue Skies

2007-11-05T16:57:00.000-08:00

A polarizing filter, used both in color and black and white photography, can be used to darken overly light skies. Because the clouds are relatively unchanged, the contrast between the clouds and the sky is increased. Atmospheric haze and reflected sunlight are also reduced, and in color photographs overall color saturation is increased.

Both photographs were taken with a polarizing filter in place. The photograph on the left shows the minimum effect of the filter, the photograph on the right shows the maximum effect of the filter.

This is how photographers are able to achieve sky colors that are rarely, if ever found in nature. Some people may not like the effect, but it is very striking!

Polarizers are the type of filter whose use is least affected by digital photography; while effects that may visually resemble the results of a polarizing filter can be simulated with software post-processing, many of the optical properties of polarization control at the time of capture simply cannot be replicated with tools such as Photosop, particularly those involving reflections.

Perspectives On Islam 1: India and Pakistan

2007-11-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

If you ask people about Islamic countries, most will name one of the Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia.

Few people will think of India, but it has the third largest Muslim population in the world, behind Indonesia and Pakistan.

The Taj Mahal, one of the wonders of the world and in many ways the “symbol” of India, is the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, favorite wife of Mughal (and therefore Muslim) emperor Shah Jahan.

The Taj Mahal is beautiful from an architectural perspective, but, up close, it is even more beautiful due to the Arabic calligraphy that adorns much of it. This calligraphy, is, of course, verses from the Qur’an.

Since many Muslims believe that even artistic representation of living beings is a form of idolatry, they have developed many forms of abstract art, including calligraphy, and the Taj Mahal contains some of the finest examples of it in the world.

Even though there is political strife between India and Pakistan, that is exactly what it is: political.

There is very little strife within India between religious groups; much of the strife that exists comes from issues relating to language and ethnicity.

For example, in southern India, languages are spoken that are not at all related to Hindi, which predominates in the capital of New Delhi. There is great resistance to Hindi by speakers of languages such as Tamil and Telugu, and there have, in fact, been riots over signs in Hindi appearing in Tamil-speaking cities such as Chennai (formerly Madras).

In our home town of Falls Church there is a theater that shows Bollywood films. It is always packed-with Indians and Pakistanis, sitting together and enjoying the film, not fighting over religion.

The Mughal Empire that was finally toppled by the British was not an Arab Empire. The Mughals can be traced to descendants of Genghis Khan who conquered portions of what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This means that the Mughals are tied to the other great Islamic empire, the Ottoman empire, which flourished in Central Asia, in the modern states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

The Mughals spoke Persian (note that the “Dari” language of Afghanistan is very similar to the “Farsi” language of Iran), not Arabic, although Arabic was venerated and used for religious purposes (as is the case in modern Islamic societies).

Russian Election 2008: Congratulations!

2007-10-26T09:51:00.000-07:00

The content from Russian Election 2008 is now part of the offering at Petroleum World.

Microsoft: Beginning of the End?

2007-10-22T08:23:00.001-07:00

On October 22, 2007, Microsoft Corp ended three years of resistance and agreed to comply with a landmark 2004 antitrust decision by the European Commission.

The defeated software giant announced it would not appeal against a decisive European Union court ruling two months ago that backed the bloc's executive Commission.

"The repercussions of these changes will start now and will continue for years to come," Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes told a news conference, adding that Microsoft's agreement would have "profound effects" on the software industry.

"It is a victory for the consumer," she said. This decision may make it more realistic for Apple Macintosh and Linux-based systems to gain more acceptance. There are many who already point out their superiority in certain areas.

Microsoft, which was fined nearly half a billion euros in 2004 and a further 280.5 million euros ($400.6 million) in 2006 for non-compliance, faced the prospect of steep new fines if it did not accommodate the Commission.

"As from today Microsoft has established compliance, no doubt about that," Kroes said. "There is no reason to impose further penalties on Microsoft as of this day." Microsoft still faces fines for lack of compliance between 2006 and now, potentially reaching hundreds of millions of euros.

Among other reversals, Microsoft will make available to so-called "open source" software developers information they need to make their programs work smoothly with Microsoft's Windows operating system for personal computers. Microsoft also sliced high royalties that commercial firms would pay for that interoperability information.

Microsoft suffered a major legal defeat in September when the EU's second-highest court backed the Commission on all major points, ruling the world's largest software maker abused its dominant market position to crush rivals. Microsoft's Windows runs on 95 percent of the world's personal computers. The Court of First Instance said Microsoft must give rival makers of server software information they need to connect smoothly to Windows desktop software.

Open source software developers, such as Samba, will be able to access and use the interoperability information at no cost and Microsoft will assert no patent rights against them. Commercial developers such as IBM or Red Hat must pay a license fee of 0.4 percent of revenues to Microsoft when they redistribute that software, to protect against patent challenges.

That is far less than the 5.95 percent Microsoft had demanded, but it was unclear whether it would meet Samba's General Public License prohibiting any royalties. "We will have to wait and see what the actual documents are," said Carlo Piana, a lawyer for Samba in Milan.

Those who do not need interconnect information on which Microsoft claims patents can make a one-off payment of 10,000 euros for a license. As Microsoft updates its software or adds new software that, too, will be covered by the decision. Disagreements will be settled in London's High Court.

Religion In Russia: Paganism, Christianity, and "Destructive Cults"

2007-10-19T08:46:00.000-07:00

When Christianity was introduced into Russia, it spread quickly, but many pagan beliefs were retained. This was despite the constant reprimands of the Church but also in part due to the Church’s own actions.

For example, it attempted to replace Kupala, a holiday associated with bathing, with a holiday that honored John the Baptist. This only strengthened the "folk nickname" (narodnoe prozvishche) that the peasants had already given John; "Ivan Kupalo" or, translated loosely, "John the Bather." The straw man used in the pagan ritual is to this day known as "Ivan Kupalo," which must appear to be sacrilege to many Christians. Yet this intricate interweaving of faiths is characteristic of Russian folk belief and is termed "dvoeveri" or double faith.

Many people also kept their beliefs in their various gods and spirits although in somewhat altered forms. For example, on occasion, old women can still be seen in the Metro making the sign of a cross over the chair before they sit down, to make sure they do not sit on a "devil" and hence anger it.

As another example, although the carvers could probably not always identify the source of the symbol, the sign of Rod, a rose in a circle, can still be seen carved on rural houses to bring good luck to the home. Kupala is still celebrated much as it always has been, though now always on July 7th, the day of John the Baptist as set by the Russian Orthodox Church, the dominant Christian sect in Russia.

The issue of encroachment by other Christian denominations into Russia is a particularly sensitive one to many members of the Russian Orthodox Church. They argue that the Orthodox Church now finds itself in a weakened position as a result of decades of secular Communist rule, and is therefore unable to compete on an equal footing with Western Churches.

Smaller religious movements, particularly Baptists and members of other Protestant denominations, have claimed that the state provides unfair support to the Orthodox Church and suppresses others, referring to the 1997 Russian Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations.

This law stipulates that those religious organizations that could not provide official proof of their existence for the preceding 15 years were seriously restricted in their rights and ability to worship. The law was formally presented as a way to combat destructive cults, but was condemned by representatives of other religions and human rights organizations as being written in a manner that explicitly favored the Russian Orthodox Church, as the Soviet Union had prohibited the establishment of other religions.

Consequently, this law gave full rights only to a small number of "major" religions, such as Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. The situation is expected to normalize as the 15-year window starts to slide over the post-Communist period. Due to its deep cultural roots, many members of the Russian government are keen to display their respect for the Church. It is common for the President of Russia to publicly meet with the Patriarch on Church holidays such as Easter.

Meetings with representatives of Islam and Buddhism occur less frequently, but Islam’s influence is growing, partially due to nationalism in the former Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

The Mystery Machine

2007-10-10T10:10:00.000-07:00

What is this?

One of the first remote controlled devices!

Read about it here.

Scientology Propaganda (The End)

2007-10-06T14:04:00.000-07:00

Our observations on Scientology propaganda generated a huge response, much more than we would ever have expected.

Normally, we’d just move on to the next topic. In this case, we made a mistake, and we want to close the matter once and for all.

Originally, we found two blogs. Both have names very close to what we’ve had confirmed is a site run by the Church of Scientology. One of them appears to have been closed down, one is still up.

Two other blogs were brought to our attention. One has a name similar to that of a company run by the person who runs the Scientology blog, and the other is in the name of a person who was apparently affiliated with Scientology many years ago.

It seems the allegations on the blogs regarding a certain prominent person are false, and we’re very glad to hear that. We just don’t understand why anyone would take the time to make blogs that mimic the behavior of a Scientology website.

Of course, one of them has an entry called “Standing Tall Against the Stalinist Wizards from Outer Space!” which we find utterly hilarious. In a bizarre parody of Harry Potter, we imagined young people brandishing hammers and sickles instead of wands and with flying saucers instead of brooms!

We’ve taken the time to look at the site that we believe to be run by the Church of Scientology. These are some of the claims it makes about people; from time to time, we will add a comment:

A person did not make their credit card payments and fell behind on their child support payments. These are not good things to do, but hardly examples of outrageous criminality.

A person was photographed naked. We hate to be the ones to break the news, but lots of people have been photographed naked!

A person is an unemployed attorney. This is unfortunate, but, once again, we’re baffled as to why it is a problem for others.

A person works for the German government. We’re fairly certain quite a few people work for the German government.

A person thought he was surrounded by Visigoths. We’ll set aside the fact that there have not been any Visigoths for some time, but we still fail to see why this is a problem.

A person joined the Church of Scientology to have a relationship with one of its members. The ulterior motive here may or may not be a good thing, but we still don’t see what the big problem is!

A person worked for both the Voice of America and Radio Liberty. Scientology says these are part of the CIA. Some of us remember these broadcasts fondly.

A person has bipolar disorder. We understand lots of unfortunate people have this.

A person is a former Roman Catholic and makes anti-American statements. For better or for worse, that can be said of many people.

A person is described as a Vietnam-Era veteran. It is our understanding that this applies to quite a few Americans.

A person uses very rude language in Internet chatrooms. Once again, we’re sorry to break the news, but there’s lots of rude language on the Internet!

A person posts information to the Internet that is not generally available. This is interesting, the Scientology site seems to do exactly the same thing!

A person belongs to the Heathen Society. We had to look this one up, don’t see what the problem is.

A person is described as an explosives expert. Yes, but did they do anything improper with explosives?

A person is described as agnostic and anti-Christian. We think this applies to a lot of people.

A person works for his family’s business, and the business computers were used to view porn. What is the problem with working for a family business? Once again, sorry to be the ones to tell you, but there’s a lot of porn on the Internet!

A person claims to have been a Communist. Many of us have that problem.

A person plays music described as “Satan Metal” (but it is not clear what this is). We suppose you could say “Abba” "Messiaen" “Rap” “Bartok” or anything else.

A person runs a private Internet channel. We think a lot of people do this. We would not be surprised if Scientologists had their own channels.

A person is a schoolteacher who has served as a source for a news article and who also applied for worker’s compensation. Could someone please explain what’s so terrible about this?

A person is a former computer programmer. We think there are a lot of those.

A person worked for a company the operators of the Scientology web site cannot locate. Maybe they should try harder? If the company really doesn’t exist, what’s the problem?

A person is a professional gambler. A little bit of research we did suggests that this can also be said about Mimi Rogers, often described as a Scientologist.

A person took photographs of Scientologists and put them on the Internet. Is this somehow different from what the Scientology site does?

A person works at Dunkin’ Donuts. Given how common these are in America, we suspect a lot of people must work there. A person doesn’t like President Bush. That can be said of many.

A person lives on a boat. It is our understanding Scientology operates a large residential ship.

A person admires B. F. Skinner. Scientologists admire L. Ron Hubbard.

We don’t like propaganda. Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes true. We don’t know how much of what Scientology says on its site is true or not. Free speech means they can do this, but free speech also means we can question and ridicule it.

Some people did not like our Nazi propaganda graphic. Fair is fair. We leave you with two Soviet examples. One preaches the unity of the people and the army, the other extols the glory of Soviet science (one trusts the cosmonaut is on the watch for the Stalinist wizards).

The Worldly Philosophers: Economics Made Simple?

2007-10-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

Economics. Some people find it a very difficult subject. We’ve found a book that changes that. It is The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers, by Robert L. Heilbronner. It was originally written in 1953, and is updated periodically.

It teaches economics by looking at not only the ideas, but also and significantly the lives of great economists.

Read about the eccentricities of Adam Smith, the turbulent life of Karl Marx, the adventures and politics of Henry George, and Thorstein Veblen’s romances. Along the way, you’ll learn a great deal about economics.

The fact that the book has been around for over 50 years and gone through several editions is interesting as well. The book has changed over the years, and it is worth getting an older copy to study the changes.

There’s no mathematics in the book, just a great deal of good reading. No, we don’t dislike mathematics, but we know that it is not the most popular subject in the world. The book’s appendices contain plenty of suggestions for further reading, and rest assured some of those books have quite a bit of math in them!

New Cosmonauts or New Arms Race?

2007-09-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

As part of their platform for the 2008 election, the Russian Communist Party has called for the partial reunification of the USSR, and would join Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan into a single nation.

Baikonur, formerly known as Leninsk, is a city in the Qyzylorda Province of Kazakhstan, which is rented and administered by Russia. It was constructed to service the Baikonur Cosmodrome and was officially renamed Baikonur by Boris Yeltsin on December 20, 1995.

The Soviet government established the Nauchno-Issledovatel’skii Ispytatel’nyi Poligon N.5 (NIIIP-5), or Scientific-Research Test Range N.5 by its decree of February 12, 1955. The U-2 high altitude reconnaissance plane found and photographed for the first time the Tyuratam missile test range (Cosmodrome Baikonur) on August 5, 1957.

It is possible that in addition to Kazakhstan's vast mineral and petroleum resources and affinity for the Soviet System, that the presence of Baikonur makes it very attractive to the Communists. Control of the Cosmodrome by a newly reformed USSR could signal the beginnings of a new space program, or more ominously, a new arms race.

Are All Calico Cats Female?

2007-09-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

Sorry to tease…read the answer here.

If you like cats-or genetics-you'll find this interesting!

The 2008 Russian Election

2007-09-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

This will be a very important election. A friend of ours is blogging it here, with original observations and translations from Russian news sources that may not get be getting distribution elsewhere.

An Epic Symphony With A Novel Voice

2007-09-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

Olivier Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony is well worth a listen.

The work’s name is Sanskrit, made up of two words: "Turanga" denotes time, surging ever onward, held back by "Lîla", which signifies "play", articulating the flow of time with drama. Together they encompass the compound notions of oppostion, creation and destruction, and love.

The work owes its existence to the conductor Sergei Koussevitsky, who commissioned Messiaen to write something for the Boston Symphony, with complete freedom as to the kind of work, its length and size, and most importantly, the liberty of taking as much time as Messiaen needed to finish it. This beneficence was promptly repaid by the composer, who - although not exactly a fast or prolific composer - required only just over two years to come up with Turangalîla.

The result was a massive ten-movement work built on diatonic chords and systematically derived chromatic modes based on Asiatic Indian and Balinese gamelan influences. Leonard Bernstein gave the premiere of the work in Boston in December 1949. Significantly, the instrumentation included, in addition to a piano obbligato and huge percussion section, the electronic ondes Martenot (more on that later).

The nature of the music, freely formed after four central themes "found anywhere in the work", is radical and abstruse, and for most listeners, quite an unforgettable experience. The most easily available recording is on Naxos, with Antoni Wit conducting the Polish Radio Symphony, François Weigel on piano and Thomas Bloch on the ondes Martenot.

We recommend supporting small business, and a great source is smusic.

The sound of the ondes Martenot is an eerily piercing wail; in some ways artificial and inhuman, in other ways mysterious and fascinating. The instrument can be played in two ways, described in notation as au clavier and ruban. The former makes use of the keyboard, a five-octave span similar to that of a piano, with the additional ability of broad vibratos and quarter-tones. The latter style is an entirely different affair: the player wears a metal ring on the right forefinger, controlling a ribbon across a condenser to produce the desired pitch, using the keyboard as a visual guide to achieve portamento and glissando effects.

The photograph shows Bloch and an ondes Martenot.

Scientology Propaganda: Going Too Far!

2007-09-16T17:16:00.000-07:00

Two blogs, apparently operated by the Church of Scientology, claim that James "The Amazing" Randi was arrested. These blogs have names similar to a propaganda site operated by the Church of Scientology which is apparently designed to spread lies about its critics.

We know it is good blog etiquette to post links, but in this case we're sorry, we're rude. We don't want to show our support of Scientology by providing links!

Some of the authors of this blog grew up with propaganda. Yes, some of it is easy to laugh at, that is until people start to believe it. Lies, repeated often and convincingly, become true.

We have no idea what Randi has done to incur the wrath of Scientology. We doubt he's done the things the sites say he has. We're not going to repeat those, either.

We have a great deal of respect for Randi. He's very entertaining and he has done a lot to expose a wide range of frauds. We wish him well. If Scientology has managed to set him up (would not be the first time!), he can count on us for a contribution to his defence fund.

We call on Scientology to PROVE what it has said not only about Randi but also about all of the people named on its website.

The graphic? It says "death of lies" and we think it is appropriate for Scientology.

Photography: Seize the Moment!

2007-09-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Yes, another picture of the Eiffel Tower.

This dates from 2001 or 2002, it was taken by a friend as he passed over Paris. He looked out the window and hoped for the best with his Canon Ixus (called the Elph in America). This was not a digital camera, but one using APS film.

The conditions were far from ideal-or were they? Yes, the plane's window and glare did not help, but the Eiffel Tower is there, as are some of the bridges of Paris.

Aerial photography is great. Just look at the work of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. There's something here for almost everyone, and he did it with film. The book is very nice, but see the exhibit if you can.

To be fair, he also had access to helicopters. In fact, some of his best shots are people reacting to the helicopter!

Not all of us have such access. We may have to make do with an airliner. We won't be able to get the pilot to swing around for another shot, so we have to do what we can. Seize the moment!

Tribute to Joe Zawinul

2007-09-11T12:02:00.000-07:00

September 11, 2007.

Another great name in music has passed. Joe Zawinul: keyboardist and composer, but really much more. He worked with Miles Davis to fuse jazz and rock on two landmark albums, In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew.

He and Wayne Shorter left Miles and formed Weather Report, taking "jazz fusion" to another level. Very few people have not heard "Birdland" from Heavy Weather, which featured bassist Jaco Pastorius and Zawinul's amazing keyboard playing and compositions.

Zawinul was also an innovator in musical technology. He embraced the Fender Rhodes piano, and his work with Weather Report showcases synthesizers, progressing from experiments on early albums to full ensembles at the end. After Weather Report, synthesizers remained a vital part of Zawinul's music.