Mr. Kurtz's Neighborhood

A New Thing

Long Shan: Home of the Mountain Dragon

My personal screed on Chinese film and associated topics. Reviews, commentary and the occasional essay on movies, persons and whatever I find to while away the time when I'm not glued to the screen. There will be ads, for which I am not paid, simply to promote vendors and sites which I find valuable.

I am a movie fan, not a self-involved academic or Art-House politician - all posts originate from the center of my universe: me. Later, there will be some "guidelines" for comments. Note: This is not a democracy.

Mr. Kurtz's Neighborhood will cling to life (for now) as a repository for political ravings and photography.

Choices

'War is less costly than servitude ... the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau - Jean Dutourd, The Taxis of the Marne
Never Forgive

Never Forget

Spring is sprang.

Remembering

Anita Mui Yim - Fong 10 October 1963 - 30 December 2003

Courtesy of Womanheart

Much of Anita's life was about friendships.

Anita Mui Funeral Booklet Cover Printed by Ming Pao

Remember

Image courtesy of NASA

Surprise, Surprise ?

Terracotta Warrior (Qin Yong) - 1990

Given the history of its stars and the venue, this is something of an odd film, albeit quite generally conventional in its development. A thoroughly Hong Kong production, (in Cantonese) produced by the remarkable Tsui Hark of the "Swordsman" and "Chinese Ghost Story" and "Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain" films and directed by Ching Siu-Tung, director of "The Heroic Trio" and "Chinese Ghost Story" series as well as the god of action and martial arts choreography in such works as ""Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", it nonetheless stars the two most prominent figures of mainland, Mandarin film.

The action begins circa 215 BC as a soldier is overseeing the construction of the gigantic mausoleum for the first Qin Emperor, Qin Shi Huangdi , including the creation of the Terracotta Army. In scenes reminiscent of "The Ten Commandments" thousands of toiling and disposable workers labor under the lash to feed the Emperor's megalomania.

The Emperor's quest for immortality doesn't stop at architectural gigantism however; at the same time, he is driving the court necromancers to develop an elixir that will allow him to live forever, and he is not a patient man. Driven by a close call in which his construction supervisor, General Mong Tian Fong, saves his life, and the nature of politics at the time, Qin Shi Huangdi feels a cold hand on his shoulder.

It is now that the general meets an unhappy Imperial concubine, Winter, as she is considering suicide. A straight path is followed here as they fall in love, are caught and executed; he by being encased in terracotta and she by burning, but not before she slips him a non-FDA approved sample of the immortality elixir. Cut to:

"The Nineteen Thirties", as the shooting of China's first talkie is underway. Descending from a shiny airplane is the squeaky-voiced, giggly, wannabe starlet, Lily Chu, dressed like a Goodwill version of Gloria Swanson and evincing an airy cluelessness worthy of Carole Lombard. And here we come to the surprise, for Lily is played by none other than Herself, Li Gong, the powerful center of such films as "Raise the Red Lantern", Jou Do, The Story of Qiu Ju and "Farewell to My Concubine". Furthermore, she is alarmingly natural - and maybe having a little fun with it. She is also the exact image of Lady Winter from the ancient time.

Pathetically convinced that she will walk straight into a starring role, Lily breezes into the middle of the filming, centering on the star, Bai Yun Fai, played by the handsome and ever-dependable HK baddie Yu Rongguong , who has more history on his mind than film, namely, looting the priceless tomb of the Qin Emperor if it can be found.

In her glue-like pursuit of fame and rave reviews, Lily wanders into a site being investigated by Bai and his unholy henchmen, thereby earning herself a "ride" - one-way - in the scoundrel's plane. After his plot fails, Bai parachutes to safety leaving Lily to crash into a lovely soft sand bank and then be swallowed up and descending into...the The Emperor's Tomb where she meets; and you guessed it; General Mong Tiang Fong, just coming around after his 2000 year sojourn encased in terracotta.

The double surprise is completed here as Mong is played by Zhang Yimou, the great "Fifth Generation" director of many of the above mentioned films and the companion of Li for many years. A rare acting role for him is well fleshed out; he conveys the stolidity of an ancient warrior and bureaucrat (plus nifty combat moves) and the bewilderment of confronting the twentieth century and the flighty Lily, whom he is convinced is his long-lost Winter. He also displays a neat sense of deadpan humor with temporal dissonances involving autos, guns, a train and a pair of sunglasses.

Here the story returns to its adventure/romance mode with few surprises, generally following threads of heroic archeology and time-dislocation films such a the "Indiana Jones" series, "Time After Time" and the hilarious The Iceman Cometh starring Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk and Yuen Biao. I won't follow the story to the end to avoid possible spoilers for those who might see it. The film does end, or does it, in the "1990s" After all, the real point here is the answer to a long held question of mine; can she do comedy? Damn right!

A note here: I purchased this DVD from hkflix.com; it isn't available at NetFlix and I'm too far removed from any possible rental site like San Francisco's Chinatown. Also, the transfer quality is miserable and the English language subtitles, while surprisingly correct, are tiny and hard to read, so maybe this is only for fanatics like me.

The Journey Continues

A Chinese Odyssey 2002 (Tian xia wu shuang) - 2002

When local restauranteur Li Yilong, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, returns to his home town after a two-year trip afield, (loafing) he's dismayed to find his lovely but hoydenish Little Sister still unmarried and apparently without much hope. Phoenix, Zhao Wei, has immersed herself in the business and abandoned all femininity. No wonder, as her brother is the infamous "Bully the Kid" and empties the street with a glance. He too, is pining for a lost love.

Meanwhile, back at the Palace, the young Ming Emperor Zheng Die, Chang Chen and his sister, Princess Wushang Faye Wong are bored, Kept relentlessly under the thumb of the Queen Mother, their somewhat idle and cockamamie efforts to escape are routinely thwarted. (Some excellent play-by-play here.) What's to do?

Few will miss the inevitable course of events unfolding here but the way is indeed not straight. The team of Director Jeffrey Lau and Producer Wong Kar-Wai have offered up a kinder, gentler fantasy than 1993's insane The Eagle Shooting Heroes (*****) and done it with wit and grace.

This is a true Hong Kong film, complete with loony anachronisms, some truly pathetic martial arts, a bit of song and dance and the usual gender confusion. (Faye Wong is about as male as her predecessors Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, Anita Mui Yim-fong and, for God's sake, Cecilia Cheung.) The film also benefits from the work of Rebecca Pan as the Queen Mother and the always bright spark and often underused Athena Chu, as Amour Amour; "In Chinese? Ro-Man-Tique", a gadfly seer, Cupid or just plain bum.

For those who have only seen Tony Leung, Rebecca Pan, Chang Chen or Faye Wong in such art-house fare as 2046, In The Mood For Love, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Chungking Express, take a look at the true range of these actors. (A later post will discuss why Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk is the funniest woman alive.)

Altogether, this is a film for movie lovers; a sweet and funny journey without obscure digression into film school obscurantism or the posturing attitudes of many Western actors prone to mail it in and collect their check. The word here is delightful.

(4 Woks)

A View to a Thrill (or not)

Princess Raccoon - Operetta tanuki goten (2005)

Director Seijun Suzuki's radical departure from his Yakuza themed films such as Pistol Opera and Tokyo Drifter is a flight into fairy-tale land. A thoroughly engaging mixture of live-action, Anime, CGI, cut-out animation ala Terry Gilliam and looniness this film more closely resembles Gaja Gamini or The Happiness of the Katakuris than anything else I can recall. There's even a hint of West Side Story - "Men must not be with Raccoons, Raccoons must not be with Men".

And yes, it says "Operetta", so we have song and dance, rap, tap, show tunes and a samurai Calypso marching band. And Raccoons.

Sometime, probably in the 17th century, (there are Spaniards) the vain and brutal king, Mkijiro Hira, is told by the palace seeress, the (Christian) Virgin Hag that he has been supplanted as "fairest of them all" by his son, Joe Odagiri, thereby vowing to exile the lad and devise his demise. Naturally, the prince comes across a Raccoon Princess in human guise, Zhang Ziyi and the quest for love begins, encountering a number of the expected pitfalls, many odd characters, including the Ostrich Monk, a set of Gibson Girl - like handmaidens ("You girls are weird") and even the "Frog of Paradise".

I can not pretend to give this movie it's due but it is deliriously lovely and loads o' fun so,

(4 Woks)

(Or Not department)

God Of Cookery (1996)

Stephen Chow, Christy Chung, Lam Suet, Tats Lau, Vincent Kok, Karen Mok.

This film, by Hong Kong's favorite funnyman, Stephen Chow, doesn't even achieve the level of humor found in "Hannibal" or even "The Killing Fields". Not simply a waste of time, money and a terrific supporting cast, it is a veritable black hole, sucking up harmony and good will like a cosmic Hoover.

This movie has gathered raves (and lots of money) from viewers, perhaps those with an autonomic response level to familiar stimuli, such as Chow's habit of featuring distorted-looking characters, disfiguring beautiful women and presuming that abuse is funny. It isn't.

I bought, I watched, I snapped the disk in half and threw it out.

(4 spleens with a side of gall and wormwood)

ps. You (the hypothetical reader) may notice that some reviews lack certain referencing links and elaboration. This is not an accident.

The Kids Are Alright

See me, heed me,
Touch me, feed me.*

Adorable? Sure.
On the other hand...

An Op-Ed piece.

* Sorry, Pete.

Another Spring

...another garden.

"Oregold" First effort from one of my cheap bare-root roses.

New Dirt, Old Friend

Rosa "Don Juan"

This lovely and hardy variety has accompanied me for over thirty years. It's usually how I start a new place and I always seem to leave at least one of these and a redwood behind when I move on.

Teamwork

Cycloneda munda Spotless Ladybug

Coccinellidae, the family of beetles known as ladybirds in the UK, ladybugs in North America or lady beetles by entomologists consist of about 5,000 species worldwide and more than 450 native to North America.

Ladybugs feed on aphids and scale insects and lay their eggs near their prey so the larvae can more easily find their prey.

The insect's name has a long history, the Virgin Mary supplanting Freyja, the Norse fertility goddess, so that Freyjuhaena and Frouehenge have evolved to Marienvoglein or, Our Lady's Bird. In various parts of Europe they are known as Our Lady's Cow, God's Cow, (Russia) Mary's Hen, (Denmark) or God's Little Cow in Ireland and are generally thought lucky. They're certainly better at eliminating plant pests than the cat.

If you go out in the woods today...

You won't find this tree.

Self portrait with log

Golden Chinquapin (Chrysolepis chrysophylla) found and utilized on a salvage logging job near Leggett, CA, c. 1980. Like Tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), this tree is a small genus of the beech family Fagaceae, found from western Washington to southern California.

The Golden Chinquapin reaches 50-+120 ft. in the Pacific Coast Ranges from sea level to 1500 ft. elevation with a small population in the Sierra Nevada east of Sacramento. It has rough, fibrous bark and the leaves have golden scales on the underside, hence the genus name from the Greek chryso -, yellow, and lepis, scale.

Mostly regarded as a "trash tree" in commercial forests, both species are harvested for firewood and chips for fiberboard. Where mature Fir and Redwood have been logged an old tree can be seen for a considerable distance, sometimes mistaken for an outlaw Redwood. Chinquapin has a golden-red wood that is easily worked and makes quite attractive furniture and trim, though it is fairly soft. This log provided some end and side tables, some book-matched cabinet doors and a piece to repair a friend's old mahogany lady rocker.

Sleepers Awake

After a fairly dull year, Savannah explores her youth.

Do not stand on or above...

And a little WWII army wisdom from my dad and his brothers: Don't stand when you can sit; don't sit when you can lie down; never lie awake when you can sleep. Obviously, Savannah is an old campaigner.

Hubba Hubble

NASA Administrator Dr. Michael Griffin has announced that there will be one more servicing and upgrade mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, as of now slated for Spring 2008.

The Snake Cloud

These pictures are a small part of the work of what has been called 'The most important scientific instrument of the twentieth century' and the proposed mission is intended to extend the telescope's life well beyond the existing date of 2013. Read more here

All images courtesy of NASA/JPL

In the Spring...

A young man's fancy may turn, but this summer it's

Naked Ladies

Belladonna Lily (Amaryllis belladonna)

Amaryllis is a monotypic (only one species) genus of plant containing the Belladonna Lily , a native of South Africa. The Belladonna Lily is a bulbous plant, with each bulb being 5-10 cm in diameter. It has several strap-shaped, dull green leaves, 30-50 cm long and 2-3 cm broad, arranged in two rows. The leaves are produced in the autumn and eventually die down by late spring. The bulb is then dormant until late summer.

The Belladonna Lily was introduced into cultivation at the beginning of the 18th century. However, most of the so-called Amaryllis bulbs sold as 'ready to bloom for the holidays' belong to the allied genus Hippeastrum, (below, left) despite being labeled as 'Amaryllis' by sellers and nurseries. Adding to the name confusion, some bulbs of other species with a similar growth and flowering pattern are also sometimes called "naked ladies", even though those species have their own more widely used and accepted common names, such as the Resurrection Lily (Lycoris squamigera).

The scientific name Amaryllis is taken from a shepherdess in one of the Eclogues of Virgil , and means any young rustic maiden

Another meaning of Belladonna, "beautiful lady" in Italian, is from the use of Atropine from the Deadly Nightshade or belladonna (Atropa belladonna) ,right, below, to dilate the pupils. It was thought that this increased a woman's beauty. Optometrists and opthalmologists still use atropine for this purpose and the drug is also used to treat cardiac arrest and poisoning by organophosphate fertilizers and nerve gases.

Picture of the day.

Photo by Markku Hirvenoja on Aug. 19 in Vojakkala, Loppi, Finland. Credit: Markku Hirvenoja

Scientists say that the next solar cycle of activity is close-by; read Backward Sunspot at NASA to check out the sunspot that may be starting the whole process.

In the meantime, this large sunspot, named Active Region 904, has been sputtering on for days on end. After watching it rotate into view on Aug. 9, it finally popped off a modest (C-class) flare and associated coronal mass ejection (CME) on Aug. 17 when it had rotated into a location where it practically faced Earth. Solar flares and CMEs -- associated giant clouds of plasma in space -- are the largest explosions in the solar system and can pack the force of a billion megaton nuclear bombs. They are caused by the buildup and sudden release of magnetic stress in the solar atmosphere above the giant magnetic poles we see as sunspots.

And don't forget; STS 115 Atlantis is scheduled for launch Sunday, August 27.

Work, work, work.

Well, someone has to supervise.

Of course, real cats don't read the directions.

Ahh, Spring.

Zantedeschia aethiopica - giant arum lily or common arum lily

Zantedeschia is a genus native to southern Africa from South Africa to Malawi. It grows continuously when watered and fed continuously and can survive periods of minor frosts. Z. aethiopica is a very strong and sturdy plant, being able to grow in many soils and habitats, multiplying by rhizome-offsets; it is naturalised and regarded as a weed throughout the world. It is also commonly called calla lily, confusing as it is the scientific name of the related genus Calla.

These have been among the few joys of my temporary garden but new fields will be opening soon.

A Quiet Place

Irrigation pond, Hopland, c. 1975

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

Happy New Year to all.!

And Happy Birthday to

Gong Li (Li Gong or Lei Gung)
December 31, 1965, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, PRC

This powerful actress has starred in some two dozen films such as Red Sorghum, Raise the Red Lantern,, To Live and 2046 and has been the principal muse of the "Fifth Wave" of Chinese directors like Yimou Zhang, Kaige Chen and Kar Wei Wong. And yes, she's 40.

On the move

The new neighbors serenade the area at noon and 17:00 every day (10:00 on Sundays) with a pre-recorded carillion tune. Otherwise, they're pretty quiet. This must be November since I think it has rained every day this month.

"I'm always making a comeback, but nobody ever tells me where I've been" - Billy Holliday

Support Our Troops

Savannah has been doing her part to secure vital materiel on the home front

Friday

Savannah Says:

Support Our Troops - Wear Red on Fridays

Detente

Don't you believe it. Appearances are deceiving and this is not a safe configuration. To quote the Mythbusters : We are what you call "experts" Do not try this at home.

And remember to support our troops. Wear red on Fridays

Savannah Smiles

And sleeps, unaware of the experiences of an early cat and my then fondness for the 1812 Festival Overture - with a carillion and real cannons. - Antal Dorati and the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra c. 1956

GFCB X/XXI/MMV

Savannah takes a break from unpacking and discards a whisker. I would check to see if that slowed her trip to the food bowl, but my watch only reads to .001 sec.

An Idea Whose Time is Come - 4 of a Series

Not properly a part of this series, but I had to find an excuse for posting it. I drove this car for 60,000 miles in four years and sold it for what I paid for it. Now why do I still believe I was the loser?
Note on the plate: OdToJoy was taken, so I went with Wagner.
If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets. - Gurney Halleck

An Idea Whose Time is Come - 3 of a Series

And Soon

Pascagoula - Courtesy Chevron

An Idea Whose Time is Come - 2 of a Series

Please sir, May we have some more?

An Idea Whose Time is Come - 1 of a Series

North, to Alaska

Loffland # 25 Spring, '81

Work, work, work

While I continue the sorting, tossing, packing and hauling, Savannah tidies up.

Remember to support our troops. Wear red on Fridays.

Bad versus evil.

A great storm is not evil any more than is disease. It is bad, yes. But it is a simple manifestation of natural law. Get used to it, get through it, get over it. And we will. In the current Gulf Coast catastrophe, however, we do see evil. Not in every case of the despicable rape, looting and parasitism that has risen in the area. Many of those acts are the product of weak, aimless minds without a basis in rational life. Just shoot them and move on. Real evil is the result of intent and design. Real evil is encouraging and excusing the perpetrators of these acts.

I might add that at this moment, 14:30 PDT, Friday, real evil is justifying the snipers in the BellSouth building who are firing on firefighters and Sherrif's deputies.

Where we see true evil is in the forces that feed upon and nurture the fear and misery of the storm victims. The parasites of the media who seek out and encourage every available victim with a grudge that can be directed against the President and by extension, the United States and the American People. These are the sycophants wearing out their knees worshipping the monstrous idols of hatred in our time - Stalin, Mao, Castro and Hussein - and their would-be successors, the Kennedys, Clintons, Kleagles and Kerrys.

because of the perverse, hostile, and malignent state of the opposition, with their facility, of imposing on the public mind, & producing excitements, every measure originating with the executive will be attacked with a virulence. - Attorney General Levi Lincoln to President Jefferson on the establishment of the Corps of Discovery, 1803.

These are the minions of the Collectivist Nuts Network - like Wolfie and the Weasels (an insult to the Mustilidae), and the unspeakably oily Ball-less Matthews and Brain-dead Williams of Misery Sellers Needing Bad Cess still mooning over his spineless coup of 09/11/01, pining for another "underground bunker" meme. These are the persons who can label the President cynical (a lie) for showing up immediately and callous (a lie) if he does not. Now, who is cynical? Who is callous? Who lies while people die?

These are the persons who spread the impression that "global warming" (caused by Bush) is increasing tropical cyclone frequency (a lie). These are the feeders on human life that will do everything in their power to retard and prevent a mighty nation from healing and repairing itself and attempt to assign guilt to every effort to create life from the ruins. And life is what they truly hate. Make no mistake; this is not just another passing political contretemps in the normal, messy course of the life of the nation. This is war against not only a man and a party; it is war against life.

These are the vampires of the soul and the eaters of conciousness. They wish for death, for us and for themselves. Without the productive individuals who feed them they would not exist. Get a clue folks. It is not they who are ultimately guilty, since none of them have ability to sustain their own lives without our support. They are irremedial parasites - from choice - and they must not be fed any longer.

Update As I close this, 15:00 PDT, CNN's Lou "Clueless" Dobbs, introducing the President's remarks, is attempting to foment racial discord by suggesting that more of New Orleans' black population is suffering because they are being deliberately neglected.

Note There are no links in this post. You know how to find the President already and I will not link to the other persons and cells mentioned.

ps The sorry bastards at MSNBC actually have a fucking clock measuring the time elapsed since the administration began ignoring the storm victims!!!

Busy, busy, busy.

A local worker plies his trade on a Buddleia - Butterfly Bush. My work proceeds less smoothly. In the process of rebuilding the engine in my pickup and starting a new site on which to peddle photographs, it seems I must move, a somewhat halting operation due to various creaks in the personal infrastructure and a financial situation resembling one of those "tab B must go into slot Y2 prior to folding wing C" Christmas morning projects.

I am also finding it difficult to manage the rage engendered by much of the past two month's news on various topics. I have drafted posts that surely would bring the FBI down on my head (and hard drives) if posted. These can mostly be summed up by my banner text. No matter. I shall return.

Meanwhile, many thanks to those few, those happy few, in particular Sissy Willis and Rosemary who have deigned to visit whilst I have been AWOL.

More immediately, Hossanahs and relief at the safe return of Beth and Sydney the soul of the South, and kudos to Mad Dog Vinnie and all of those good folks who kept Beth's site afloat and current. And, unlike a certain tennis hero, Beth definitely has her mojo working.

Good Morning, America

06:30 Saturday - A rare summer cloud.

Welcome Home, Discovery

Space Shuttle Discovery lands at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Credit: NASA

There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right notes at the right time and the instrument plays itself. - Bach

Space Shuttle Discovery touched down this morning at Edwards Air Force Base in California to successfully conclude NASA's Return to Flight Mission. STS-114 was the first Shuttle mission to fly since the loss of Space Shuttle Columbia and the STS-107 crew on Feb. 1, 2003.

Discovery spent two weeks in space, where the crew demonstrated new methods to inspect and repair the Shuttle in orbit. The crew also delivered supplies, outfitted and performed maintenance on the International Space Station. A number of these tasks were conducted during three spacewalks.

In an unprecedented event, spacewalkers were called upon to remove protruding gap fillers from the heat shield on Discovery's underbelly. In other spacewalk activities, astronauts installed an external platform onto the Station’s Quest Airlock and replaced one of the orbital outpost’s Control Moment Gyroscopes.

Inside the Station, the STS-114 crew conducted joint operations with the Expedition 11 crew. They unloaded fresh supplies from the Shuttle and the Raffaello Multi-Purpose Logistics Module. Before Discovery undocked, the crews filled Raffeallo with unneeded items and returned to Shuttle payload bay.

An Old Leaf

Pruning season - 1975

Dancin' Feet

It's Tuesday and time for another Cotillion Ball, this week hosted by:

Ilyka

Kellipundit

Sisu

Portia Rediscovered

Read the best.

Southern Comfort

Magnolia Grandiflora - Southern Magnolia, also known as Bull Bay

Magnolia is a genus of about 150 species of the family Magnoliaceae, found mainly in the eastern North America, Central America and southeast Asia.

The genus was named for Pierre Magnol (1638 - 1715) of Montpellier, France; a doctor and botanist who was one of the innovators of the current botanical scheme of classification.

Magnolia is an ancient genus. Having evolved before bees appeared, the flowers developed to encourage pollination by beetles. As a result, the carpels, or female reproductive organs of Magnolia flowers are tough to avoid damage. Fossilised specimens of M. acuminata have been found dating to 20 million years ago, and of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnoliaceae back to 95 million years ago. Another primitive aspect of Magnolias are their lack of distinct sepals or petals. The term tepal has been coined to refer to the intermediate element that Magnolia has instead.

The leaves are evergreen, simple and broadly ovate, 12-20 cm long and 6-12 cm broad, with smooth margins. They are dark green, stiff and leathery, and often scurfy underneath. They will bronze, blotch, and burn in severe winters at the northern limits of cultivation, but most still cling until they are replaced by new foliage in the spring. Two extremes are known, with leaves white underneath and with leaves brown underneath. The brown variety is claimed to be more cold-hardy than the white variety, but this does not appear to be proven as yet.

My tree is a strong reminder of the part of my childhood spent in South Carolina, as is the occaisional and unmistakeable scent of honeysuckle sometimes found here. It is quite messy, the leaves dropping in summer followed by the seed pods, spiny grenades 1 1/2" - 3" long, that litter the lawn. The lemon scented flowers are lovely, but too intense indoors. Its wide, shallow root-mat makes the tree a serious water stealer and the lawn and drain pipe suffer accordingly.

Magnolia 1974 - 1980

A true Southern Belle, the world revolved entirely around this cat and she took it as simply her due. She semed to epitomize Cat in her courtships, her affections and stunning, entirely unconscious arrogance.

Congratulations and Thank You!

Mr. Ambassador and Mr. President

Just a thought, but maybe Kofi and certain Senators will show their mettle by joining a certain White House "Reporter" in demonstrating their outrage..

Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

Whether or not he said it, this statement, attributed to Henry II of England spoke more than he could know, for turbulence is with us always.

Beach on Vancouver I., B.C. 1974

Just a picture of a pattern in the sand made by the runoff of the tide water; it nevertheless leads in many directions - among them Chaos,
the weather, turbulence and that horror under the stairs of science, non-linear systems.

It starts, more or less, with Lewis Fry Richardson (October 11, 1881 - September 30, 1953), British mathematician, physicist and psychologist.

A Quaker, Richardson attempted to apply his pacifist principles to the causes of war, including a theory that the likelyhood of war between two countries was a function of the length of their common border. In researching his books Arms and Insecurity (1949) and Statistics of Deadly Quarrels (1950) he realized that various gazeteers listed different values for international borders. This led to work on how the length of a border changed as the unit of measurement is changed. "Research on the Length of Coastlines and Borders.

This work, and others by Richardson were cited by the mathematician Benoit Mandeldrot in a 1967 paper How Long is the Coast of Britain? in which he speculated that if the unit of measurement was small enough, a figure of infinite length (the coastline) could enclose a finite area, although, as Mandelbrot was aware, this would violate Quantum Theory. Mandelbrot was also famous for some of the most popularly known manifestations of Chaos Theory, Fractal Geometry and The Mandelbrot Set.

The Mandelbrot Set at increasing magnification, showing similarity at different scales.

In "The Fractal Geometry of Nature", he noted that; Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

Fractal geometry has been extremely useful for describing such phenomena as the shape of coastlines and river basins; the structure of plants, blood vessels and lungs; the clustering of galaxies; Brownian motion; and stock market prices. (And the patterns made by water running off a beach)

High Voltage breakdown within a 4″ block of acrylic creates a fractal Lichtenberg figure.

Richardson's study of atmospheric turbulence and attempts to predict the weather using differential equations led to the publication of Weather Prediction by Numerical Process in 1922. However, fast computing was not available at the time and the process was inevitably frustrated. This may have produced the following parody:

Big whorls have little whorls that feed on their velocity,
and little whorls have smaller whorls and so on to viscosity.

The work of Richardson and Mandelbrot was taken up by the American mathematician and meteorologist,
Edward Norton Lorenz.

Lorenz's interest in Chaos theory came through an accident in his work on weather prediction. In 1961. Lorenz was using a basic computer, a Royal McBee LPG-30, to run his weather simulation. He wanted to see a sequence of data again and to save time he started the simulation in the middle of its course. He was able to do this by entering a printout of the data corresponding to conditions in the middle of his simulation which he had calculated last time. To his surprise, the printouts began showing wildly varying points instead of a steady resumption of the previous pattern.

He first analyzed the effect in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences. According to the paper, "One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull's wings would be enough to alter the course of the weather forever." Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly, possibly inspired by the diagram generated by the Lorenz attractor, which looks like a butterfly

The Lorenz Attractor

The Butterfly Effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. The idea is that small variations in the initial conditions of a dynamical system produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system.

The practical consequence of the butterfly effect is that complex systems such as the weather or the stock market are difficult to predict over any useful time range. This is because any finite model that attempts to simulate a system must necessarily truncate some information about the initial conditions—for example, when simulating the weather, one would not be able to include the wind coming from every butterfly's wings. In a chaotic system, these errors are magnified as each unit of time is simulated until the bound on the percent error of the result exceeds one hundred percent. Thus the predictions of the simulation are useless after a certain finite amount of time.

As far as non-linearity and turbulence are concerned, perhaps this possibly apocryphal quote attributed to Werner Heisenberg is apropos.

"When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first."

On the other hand...

Pacific Rim National Park, Vancouver I., B.C. 1974

This is just a stick on the sand.

Writer's block? I ain't got to show you no stinking writer's block.

As he sat, wearily disdainful, slouched like a grimy bag of gym socks found behind a locker in South Philly's crumbling, leprous, superannuated pug's palace, he stirred hopelessly through the seething remnants of the maelstrom of his mind-that same mind, once so keen, that had earned him the youthful sobriquet "The Ginzu Dick". The moniter, that hell-spawned witness to failure iluminated his sallow, stubbled cheeks, leering at his impotence like one of the two-dollar whores who sat, wearily disdainful and mocked him from the end of the bar. He had no opening paragraph.

But I do.

We have a winner!

Yes, folks, Mr. Dan McKay of Fargo, North Dakota, is the 2005 winner of the Bulwer-Lyton Fiction Contest. A 43-year-old quantitative analyst for Microsoft Great Plains, McKay is the winner of the 23rd running of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Mr. McKay is currently visiting China, perhaps to escape notoriety for his dubious literary achievement.

Read the winning entry and submissions in all categories here and let's have no more snivelling about "Ebonics" or why Teddy can't read.

Return To Flight STS-114, Day 2

STS-114 Commander Eileen Collins waves while she and Mission Specialist Steve Robinson work on Discovery's flight deck hours after launch. Image credit: NASA TV

The crew of Space Shuttle Discovery was awakened this morning at 12:39 a.m EDT to start its first full day in space. As the orbiter spends the day chasing the International Space Station, the crew will use Discovery's robot arm to inspect the vehicle's exterior.

Unprecedented imagery captured during Tuesday’s ascent to orbit enabled engineers to see two so-called "debris events." A camera mounted on the external tank caught what appeared to be a small fragment of tile coming from Discovery's underside on or near the nose gear doors.

A later image about the time of Solid Rocket Booster separation showed an unidentified piece departing from the tank and exiting away, apparently not striking the orbiter. The crew was notified of these observations and told that imaging experts would be analyzing the pictures.

Mission managers will review the information gathered yesterday and today to help determine the health of Discovery's thermal protection system over the next four days before it is cleared for landing later in the flight.

nspections of Discovery's heat shield that began this morning were completed early afternoon. Crewmembers used cameras and a special boom on the robot arm to inspect Discovery's wings, nose cap, and crew cabin. Also, crewmembers used handheld cameras to inspect tiles on the Orbital Maneuvering System pods.

Discovery is slated to dock with the ISS at 7:18 a.m. EDT Thursday.

Update As of 15:00 (PDT) NASA has announced that the Space Shuttle fleet is grounded until further engineering reviews of debris strikes and damage are assessed. At this time there are no announced alterations in the current mission. Space Shuttle Atlantis is currently on Pad 39A preparing for a September launch or a possible crew rescue mission for the Discovery crew if necessary. If an Atlantis launch is not feasible, returning the Disvovery crew would fall to Soyuz.

More to follow tomorrow.

Oh, That...

It's a shame to strike a sour note into this glorious morning, but the bottom feeders are with us always. In contrast to the quiet professionalism of the NASA personel and their narrative, MSNBC mounts a campaign of if, if, if, and but, but, but. Led by their carrion-eater-in-chief, Brian Williams, the station can hardly wait for another cataclysm.

It is reminiscent of the general wish for failure and destruction among the press. As Sissy Willis covered yesterday and this post on Sunday on the BBC program "The Power of Nightmares", positing that Al Queada and terrorism are a figment of our (read Bush/Blair) imaginations, these organizations have a positive death-wish. That would be just fine if they kept it to themselves; they should get what they want. It would certainly clear the air - and lots of nice co-ops.

Return to Flight

Talk about stereo separation; I can hear a Mockingbird outside my window in NorCal, and another one over the mike on the live broadcast from NASA TV

Discovery crew is currently (04:03 PDT - 07:03 EDT) in the Airstream on the way to the pad.

Countdown is - 02:37:00

Tourists

Just prior to entering the elevator, the Discovery crew stops to rubberneck and take pictures of one another. "What I did on summer vacation - my friend at the launch pad."

Sensor re-check completed and optimal.

T - 02:24 Led by Commander Eileen Collins, the astronauts are entering the Orbiter.

T - 02:00 3 hours to launch. Even the weather appears to sense it. Clouds and winds are receding from the 20 mile weather perimeter.

2 hours, 30 minutes to launch. All seven crew members are in the orbiter and secured.

The Morning Commute

As final strap-in and comm checks are completed before closing the Orbiter, Mission Specialist Charlie Camarda uses his assist strap to take a little weight off. The crew may spend as much as three hours lying on their backs in their pressure suits - only one reason for a rapid de-suiting after main engine shutdown.

Amother purpose is for one of the mid-deck Mission Specialists to photograph the External Tank upon separation.

At 01:55:00, The Orbiter cabin is being sealed and the Launch director has said that the original launch time, 10:39 EDT is selected and is the center of the 9 minute launch window.

And Liftoff, of Space Shuttle Discovery

Exactly on time, 10:39 EDT July, 26, 2005

Return To Flight T- 08:00:00

Image courtesy NASA/KSC

The Rotating Service Structure (RSS) was rolled away from Discovery at 3:38 p.m. on Monday. The giant enveloping appendage is used to install payloads into an orbiter's cargo bay and provide protection from inclement weather. With the RSS now out of the way, propellant loading is set to begin after midnight Tuesday morning with the pumping of more than 500,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and hydrogen into the vehicle's orange External Tank.

Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on NASA's Return to Flight mission is still on track for Tuesday at 10:39 a.m., NASA Test Director Pete Nickolenko announced during a morning briefing at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

According to International Space Station Mission Manager Scott Higginbotham, the hardware in Discovery's payload bay is ready for mission STS-114.

"We are still concerned that right around the launch time, the sea breeze will be developing, and some off-shore activity could bring in some anvil clouds and some showers or cumulous clouds in the area of the launch pad or the [Shuttle Landing Facility]," said Shuttle Weather Officer Kathy Winters. The chance of Kennedy weather cooperating for the launch remains at 60 percent.

Wayne Hale gave a show-and-tell presentation of a fuel sensor and described how they're used in the External Tank. "We have completed all of our ambient temperature checks. We have run every test we could think of and so far no repeat."

Hale went on to say "If the problem recurs and under very closely defined circumstances in sensor #2 or sensor #4 then we will do some more tests and if we are comfortable that we have a good understanding then we can go fly...We are ready to go launch Tuesday morning."

Senior NASA managers met Sunday at Kennedy Space Center for a launch readiness meeting. Discussions focused on recent problems related to a liquid hydrogen low-level fuel sensor inside the external fuel tank, which prompted postponement of the Shuttle’s launch on July 13. Since then, engineers have been working around-the-clock on troubleshooting the sensor system issue.

During the countdown, managers will monitor for recurrence of the problem. If any new sensor-related issues occur, engineers would stop the countdown to reassess the situation.

During their 12-day mission to the International Space Station, Commander Eileen Collins and her six fellow astronauts will test new techniques and equipment designed to make Space Shuttles safer. They also will deliver supplies and make repairs to the Space Station.

Godspeed, Discovery

From Foreign Shores

Related in a twisted way, from CBS 5 Headline News

SF SUPERVISORS VOTE DOWN RESOLUTION SUPPORTING USS IOWA

SAN FRANCISCO Bay City News Wire

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors today voted 3-8 against a resolution urging the San Francisco Congressional Delegation to support the permanent berthing of the USS Iowa as a museum at the Port of San Francisco.

The congressional delegation secured $3 million in 2000 to move the USS Iowa, which was present at the signing of the treaty between Japan and the U.S. in 1945, from Rhode Island to the Bay Area, the proposed resolution says.

A study commissioned by the Port of San Francisco concluded that the ship would attract more than 500,000 people during its first year at the waterfront, according to the proposed resolution.

But Tom Ammiano said today he didn't want the ship berthed in San Francisco because of the military's treatment of gays and lesbians and its "don't ask, don't tell'' policy.

"It's dehumanizing,'' Ammiano said. "You are not allowed to be a gay or lesbian in the military except when there is a war and then when the war ends, you are kicked out.''

Supervisors Ross Mirkarimi and Chris Daly also spoke out against the resolution, citing their opposition to the US occupation in Iraq.

"I am sad to say I am not proud of the history of the United States of America since the 1940s,'' Daly said.

Supervisors Sean Elsbernd, Fiona Ma and Michela Alioto-Pier voted in favor of the resolution.

I wonder if the folks on the map below could be persuaded to shop in Oakland, San Jose, Sacramento and other cities inside the United States.

3. Alameda Naval Air Station, USN
4. Alameda Naval Aviation Depot, USN
19. Beale AFB, USAF
37. Camp Perry AGS, USAF
45. Castle AFB, USAF
62. Concord Naval Weapons Station, USN
137. Fort Ord, USA
227. Mare Island Naval Shipyard, USN
228. Mare Island Naval Station, USN
234. Mather AFB, USAF
239. McClellan AFB, USAF
255. Moffet Field Naval Air Station, USN
266. Naval Communications Station, USN
275. Naval Postgraduate School, USN
299. North Highlands AGS, USAF
306. Oakland Army Base, USA
307. Oakland Naval Supply Center, USN
311. Onizuka AFB, USAF
338. Presidio of San Francisco, USA
356. Sacramento Army Depot, USA
398. Tracy Defense Depot, USDOD
401. Treasure Island Naval Station, USN

Map courtesy of US Nationall Park Service Department of the Interior

Liberty, Equality, Oh, Never Mind

Reported in the Washington Post.

Chicago Judge Will Not Seat All-White Juries
The Associated Press
Tuesday, July 26, 2005; 12:31 AM

CHICAGO -- A Cook County judge who said in recent months that she would not seat all-white juries said she regretted being blunt, but believed attorneys did not have good reasons for failing to choose black jurors, according to a published report.

Circuit Judge Evelyn Clay, who is black, made the remarks while meeting with attorneys in chambers, the Chicago Tribune reported in Monday's editions after reviewing court transcripts.
"Folks, you all know I have a rule. I don't seat all white jurors," Clay said as jurors were being selected for a murder trial last month.

Clay said her remarks were "indelicately stated" but she believed qualified blacks were being left off juries.

"I try to preside over jury trials in a fair and impartial way _ that is always my goal," Clay said.

Just Google "Chicago Jury", and by morning there ought to be a lot of references.

The Ball Begins Again

Wow! Its not only that time of the week again, but courtesy of Tammy, of A Mom and Her Blog for a spanking new design, and Shano, with more of her dynamite illustrations, The Cotillion Ball has a stunning new look.

Spreading the wealth, this week features four hostesses:

Beth, of MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy,

Claire, of e-Claire,

Sadie at A Fistful of Fortnights

and Denita, of Who Tends the Fires.

You will not find better.