The Real Big Bird a/k/a the Diatryma or Gastornis

Taken by David Fuchs; reconstruction of Diatryma

Ever since I learned of their existence in this story in The Seattle Times I have been fascinated by this seven foot, 350 pound Big Bird Diatryma, or, Gastornis, that used to walk in my old haunts along the Green River in Southeast King County. Also living there were 18 pound horses, and tiny hippopotamuses (or hippopotami).

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Sha Na Na Video: At The Hop (Woodstock Festival 1969)

I was a little shocked when I first saw Sha Na Na perform in the movie Woodstock. I didn't really know the difference between Doo Wop and Perry Como. If you grew up when I did, it was all Beatles, and British Groups, all the time (and around '66, Dylan, and the emerging American bands and musicians like Love, The Doors, Chicago, Joni Mitchell , The Grateful Dead, The Zombies, and others). But Sha Na Na played 50's music, and we just couldn't hear it. It was only later I came to appreciate Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, the Doo-wop bands, Elvis and the other 50s music. Sha Na Na's spirited performance at Woodstock helped change all that, and I think their performance, in some ways, helped ignite a revival of earlier music, and probably helped lead to that great movie The Buddy Holly Story starring Gary Busey. This is absolutely the best and most frantic performance of this song I've heard.

Poem: Changes 35/Progress

The sun rises over the earth.
We have another day.
That is progress.
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John Lennon Video: Watching The Wheels

I remember this song playing that terrible December day (Dec. 8, 1980), when John Lennon was assassinated. I was at home on the Upper West Side of NYC, and could hear dozens of sirens. Just a few blocks away, John Lennon had just been shot.

I was listening to Vin Scelsa on the WNEW-FM 102.7, and he broke in crying, telling us his good friend John had just been killed at The Dakota. Friends like Jerry Melin called, and my friend Cheryl Hardwick called and insisted we needed to drink some wine together. Of all the stupid killings over the years, this one hurt the most. It's hard to convey how much this one hurt. 27 years later, things have not much improved. No one knows what the years would have brought, but I don't think it would have been so bad to hear John's take on the 21st century.


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The New York Times May No Longer Be Actually Printed In Five Years

This echoes Michael Corleone telling Kay "The Corleone family will be entirely legitimate in five years." But I think the New York Times may keep its promise. Arthur Sulzberger, a very rich dude, owner, chairman and publisher of the most respected newspaper in the world, is in the middle of a transition from print to internet. He may be thrown out of the wagon before it gets there, however. Morgan Stanley, his banker, recently seems to have launched a campaign that will cost Sulzberger control of the paper.

"I really don't know whether we'll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don't care either," said Arthur Sulzberger.

Read the story by Eytan Avriel on haaretz.com here. This is a shocker. The New York Times is a great 'paper, and it hurts to think of the day when I can't carry it along with me. We have subscribed every since we moved from NYC 25 years ago. It's hard to picture the day when we are cut off. Sure, we'll still be able to print it all out on 8 1/2 x 11" paper. But that is not the same. On the other hand, when is the last time you saw anyone under, say, thirty holding a newspaper?
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Painting: Old Glory

. . .click the painting to enlarge. . .

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Poem: Changes 34/ The Power of the Great

1
A goat butts against a hedge
It cannot go backward
It cannot go forward

2
You can give up
Your stubborn ways
And not live to regret it

When your inner worth rises
And comes to power
Its strength passes the median

That deadly middle point where
You rely on your head of steam
Asking what's next instead of what's right

3
The gates of success begin to open
Resistance falters
And you forge ahead

If you perservere chiseling away
At the resistance
The obstructions fall into pieces

4
Your power may not show
Like a prairie schoover

Whose strength lies in its axle

Your tenuous hold on earth

Is disguised by a long shadow

When you are tethered

To the ground

By the soles of your feet
And a theory of gravity.

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Fear Of Flying, Fear of Dying

What do Jack Brummet, Isaac Asimov John Madden, Dennis Miller, Billy Bob Thornton, Kate Bush, Muhammad, Ray Bradbury, Cher, Florence Henderson, Glenda Jackson, Michael Jackson, Bob Newhart, Ronald Reagan, Elisha Cuthbert, Doris Day, Aretha Franklin, Tony Kornheiser, Kim Jong-Il, Matthew Sweet, Richard Wright, David Gilmour, and John Gotti have in common? We're all scared s***less of flying (or were, in the case of the departed. . .none of who actually perished in an airplane); we're all aviophobes.

There are even fictional characters in our ranks, like B. A. Baracus of the TV series The A-Team. They usually have to slip him some heavy drugs, or knock him out with a punch to get him on a 'plane. And Tyler from Snakes On A Plane is in the same boat.


illustration from http://www.fearofflyingdoctor.com/

When my fear of flying comes up in conversations, people remind me that being a hard core commuter, I am at far more risk going to work than I am flying off somewhere. False! According to the wikipedia "there is no way to unambiguously validate or invalidate this notion. While there are far more automobile deaths per year, that is mostly due to the far greater number of automobiles in society. In the United States, the number of fatalities per 100 million miles traveled is slightly higher for commercial air travel than for driving! with rates of 1.9 versus 1.3, per 100 million miles traveled, respectively.

"The risk, however, that someone randomly selected from the general population will die in an aviation accident during a single year is far higher for motor vehicles (1 in 7700) than for aircraft (1 in 2,067,000). The air travel statistic includes small commuter flights, which, if excluded, would improve the air travel statistics; however, the number of motor vehicle deaths do not include motorcycles, which, if included, would substantially worsen the motor vehicle risk." I don't ride motorcycles.

Travel on commercial airlines is reasonably safe; when you toss in the Cessnas, Lear Jets, home-builts, and Beechcrafts, flying becomes far more dangerous. And air travel in developed countries is several times safer than air travel in developing countries, a statistic I remember every time I fly to Mexico.

Another thing people tell you is that most aviation accidents (like car accidents) are due to human error rather than mechanical failures. But, you know, that does little to assuage my angst. In fact, however, I am probably less afraid of flying than I am of flying and then not flying; it's not the air that spooks me so much as the ground!

Link to my poem, "Notes On Flying."
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Reverend Haggard says he is "cured," and no longer gay

Ted Haggard, the disgraced former president of the National Association of Evangelicals, and head of one of the largest churches in the country, says he has emerged from three months of intensive counseling convinced he is now "completely heterosexual." Reverend Haggard was outed about three months ago by a male prostitute he patronized. He lost his pulpit and he lost his position with the evangelical association.

All This Is That articles on the Reverend:

"I am a deceiver"

President Bush Silent On Recent Ted Haggard Revelations

Rev. Haggard hauls out the old reliable "just the tip" and "I didn't inhale" defense

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Happy Birthday To Ronald Reagan (President, 1981-89)

Happy birthday to 40th President Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004). Ronald Reagan was also the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975) a film and television actor, and a spokesman for General Electric. At 69, he was the oldest person ever to be elected President of the United States.

You think we were shellacked in the 2004 Presidential election? Take a look at how Reagan owned Walter Mondale in '84:

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Prince at the Superbowl

Prince slyly outdid Janet Jackson without even whipping out his willie! No outrage, no FCC fines, no blacklisting. . . Which reminds me of a story. After Jim Morrison was busted for indecent exposure at a concert, the other Doors were very angry. At the band meeting they asked him why he had exposed himself. "I wanted to see what it looked like in the spotlight."
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Bright lights reported over Midwest skies: Have the Chicago UFOs headed west?

From Wisconsin to Des Moines and St. Louis, people reported seeing balls of fire, possibly meteors, streaking across the sky Sunday night, according to the Associated Press

"No major meteor showers were expected in the northern hemisphere on Sunday night, "said Jim Lattis, director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison astronomy department's Space Place.

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