Now that my current degree is complete, it’s time to go back to this blog. I’ll be moving it shortly to a new home, but for now I’ll keep posting here.
This video crossed my feed yesterday, on the 72nd anniversary of D-Day. I think it’s right and proper to recall all the costs that we paid for “the “War to End All Wars” that wasn’t.
I’ll let the video speak for itself. It has plenty to say, and as they say, a picture’s worth a thousand words.
Occasionally, the videos I post here are mine. I’ve been waiting to use my camera’s interval timer since I acquired the Nikon almost two years ago, but I didn’t have a reason, until Friday.
Feel free to share and enjoy!
Credit where credit is due, thanks.
Blizzard2016 (aka Snowzilla, SnOMG and assorted others), taken in the DC metro area.
Credit: Betsy Marks Delaney / Hawkeswood Productions: http://www.hawkeswood.com. All rights reserved.
Time lapse video shot with my Nikon D5100 over the course of the storm.
Got a slightly late start, had a couple of instances where the battery ran out and I needed to replace it, and had to move the camera about 3/4 of the way through because of moisture outside the window.
The ghost at the left of the frame is me, working on my computer while the camera went off.
Total accumulation here: 19″ as measured by me off my back deck.
A few months ago, while exploring Time-Based Media options for class, I came across these videos produced by DeFrees Productions. generated with a couple of [Sound and Video warning] GoPro cameras and a LOT of time on the road, Brian DeFrees created these videos from around 200,000 images.
I’ve wanted to do something like this for years, but from inside the car. Been pricing out GoPro cameras, thinking that might be the way to go. I dunno, but these are awesome, particularly since Brian hit a lot of the highlights I’ve seen.
Roadtrips were a staple of my family life from the time I was around 8 years old until I settled in my current area. I’ve started taking them again because I miss travel and because for me it’s much more about the journey than the destination. I like the concept of camper travel (never did it as a kid – we were all about car camping then) but the cost of gas makes me think it’s not practical. Maybe if I could get someone to back me for it…
Well, while not precisely history, there’s a lot of history behind the sights and sites Brian visited.
So, normally this space is reserved for embedding YouTube video, but today I’m highlighting a show that you can watch on broadcast, cable, and streaming online.
When Carl Sagan’s original series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage originally aired on PBS, I was hooked. I already thought of the Strasenburgh Planetarium as my favorite place in the city, growing up in Rochester, but here was a trip to places unseen and science made so clear and easy to understand, I didn’t miss an episode, rewatched the series every time it aired, and eventually bought the DVDs.
Neil deGrasse Tyson returns to Sagan’s exploration of our universe, but adds dimension and knowledge gained since the original aired almost 35 years ago. His series should serve as inspiration for learning more about our world.
Sadly, there are places where the concepts he talks about are considered sacrilegious, and not everyone sees the broadcast.
If you’re in a place where censorship has taken away the free broadcast, there are other options. I watch the show on both Fox and on Hulu. You can also find it on National Geographic Channel.
This video began to make the rounds in my feed shortly after the 2012 elections. I’m sorry it didn’t start to circulate before the election, but now that 2014 is on us, it’s time to revisit the subject, especially in light of Robert Reich’s new feature, Inequality for All.
If you don’t have the time or the patience to sit through a full-length documentary, here’s a summary (not directly related to the movie) that should spell it out for you.
I encourage you to watch the full-length movie, though. It’s available online through a variety of sources, including Netflix streaming, which is how I watched.
I’ve been howling about Trickle Down economic policies for decades. Here’s why.
In 1994, Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland wrote a book called, simply, How We Die.
On March 3rd, Dr. Nuland died of prostate cancer. This week, Krista Tippett featured an earlier talk with Dr. Nuland about his various books and his views on spirituality in her weekly NPR show, On Being.
Until this week, I didn’t know of the book’s existence. I still haven’t read it, because I’m presently swamped (as you may have noticed from the erratic way in which this blog is being populated at the moment). Based on the radio show, which I listened to this morning while trying to adjust my internal clock to the new Daylight Savings normal, I’ve decided the book needs to rocket to the top of my reading list. And, I think, perhaps for my friends as well, as this has been a bad week for a number of them.
The majority of my friends are older (in the vicinity of, or over, 50), and most are dealing with the aging and illness of parents and their siblings, but one of my friends just lost a battle with H1N1 and pneumonia at only 43. It’s not clear to me from this obituary whether I will agree with all that he writes, as I believe quite firmly in speeding up the process if the person is ready to go and wants to exercise the option, but I found his words this morning to be worth further investigation.
Here’s a TED talk featuring Dr. Nuland on the subject of hope rather than death. I recommend listening to both this and the On Being show as well. Expect more of these over the coming months. I’ve found many of the TED talks intriguing springboards for further conversation. I don’t think I’m alone.
This video is for all my family and friends, past, present and future, for whom cancer is personal. In fact, I suspect the video is for everyone. I don’t think I know anyone…ANYONE…who hasn’t been touched by cancer, either because they have had it themselves, or because they know or knew someone who did.
It’s all about control, in a place where we have none. For all the talk of cures and prevention, there is still the simple truth that there’s a great deal we still don’t know about how our bodies change and degrade. But there are some things we can still do, to defy the changes, to take us out of ourselves. If only for a second. And that’s precisely what this project is all about.
We reveal our spirituality in our ability to rise above it all. At over 15 million hits, it’s clear that this viral video, a neat embodiment of that spiritual essence, has struck a chord.
I featured Smarter Every Day last week, and I’ll do it again throughout this year, because I think their stuff is really nifty. This piece just happens to be cogent, considering the Winter Olympics.
So how does this stuff actually work, with ice? Haven’t you wondered? I know I have.
I wanted to include something to recognize my connection to Shirley Temple Black, in light of her death on February 10th of this year. This is the first chance I’ve had to include a few links to her life and work.
You can certainly go search YouTube for more, but I’ll tell you I’ve had a thing for Shirley Temple’s work ever since my sitter first wrapped my curly hair in vertical ringlets at a very tender age. I wanted dance lessons like crazy, I thought I could sing just like Shirley. I’m certain I wasn’t alone. Long, long after she stopped making movies, I was a staunch fan. I knew this song by heart, but it wasn’t the only one I could sing (in my own, off-key way):
In later years, after she ended her movie career at the top of her game, Shirley Temple Black became a diplomat, serving in a variety of locations. She also became one of the first public figures to highlight breast cancer, when she was diagnosed with the disease in 1972. She received lifetime recognition through both the Screen Actors Guild and the Kennedy Center Honors.
In the long, long list of child stars, Shirley Temple’s early works remain a sweet, sunny reminder of childhood’s best moments, even if her own life wasn’t among the fairy tales with which she became associated later in life. This biopic from 2001 tells a lot of her story. In a lot of ways, she led the way through a minefield for child stars, and she did it with poise and grace. I’m glad to have experienced her work.
Today is President’s Day in the United States. Based on George Washington’s birthday, it’s a holiday for many, and now celebrates our presidents in general, though it falls between Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays on the calendar each year.
There’s a lot of myth and mystery surrounding our first official president. This biography does some work to separate fact from fiction.
We depart slightly from Black History month, though in reality, it’s impossible to separate the two, as the president was also a slave holder. Take the time to learn a little more about George Washington.
Here are three clips that show what love looks like, though they’re not what you might think that at first. Oh, sure, there’s chocolates and hearts and stuff, but when the chocolates are gone and the cards disappear, it’s the thought that really counts.
First, a tip of the hat to the Seattle Seahawks for what sounded like a well-deserved rout, comes this fan-tastic clip that shows how connected we are to our favorite people, and how awesome some of them can be in return.
Second, a clip that shows our hearts can connect across species just as easily, as long as we remember that respect is a gift we can share with everyone, whether on two legs or four.
Finally, yes, there was a Coke commercial in the news. This isn’t it. Not because it’s not appropriate, but because I already featured it elsewhere. This one is more about the levels and depth of love. Yeah, it’s a commercial. That’s not the point.
This video caught my attention right after I assembled the last Sunday post, but I have been dealing with an extended internet outage – the latest in a series – that took my access down to a roller coaster of ups and downs that finally quit for good on Sunday, and I couldn’t post this entry.
So, these entries are going to be a little more irregular than they have been, at least until my new provider’s install package arrives.
But I digress.
We think of mannequins as body ideals. They are, in someone’s mind, a representation of an ideal that rarely fits with reality, but when bodies change because of muscular issues, accidents or genetics, we tend to think about the people who carry those shapes differently. No two people are identical. Even the identical twins I’ve known still have their own unique personalities, no matter how much they may look alike. Witness the differences even in conjoined twins and you can see what I mean.
Here, through the wonders of reconstruction, five people who don’t share the traits of the ideal can see themselves in a new way, and we can catch a glimpse of the ideal from the other side of the line.
As a child growing up in Rochester, NY, my favorite place in the world was the Strasenburgh Planetarium in Rochester, NY. I loved the place so much, it’s where I chose to go on my first date. So it should come as no surprise that when I tuned into PBS in 1980, for the first episode of Carl Sagan’s 13-part series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, my perspective on science and our place in the universe shifted radically. I watched the entire series, then watched it again when they repeated the episodes. Finally got a copy of the DVDs so I can go back and watch again whenever I feel like it.
When I heard that Neil deGrasse Tyson would be producing an updated version of Sagan’s show, I was thrilled. Cosmos: A Space-Time Odysseyairs beginning March 9, 2014 on Fox. (I’m trying not to let that scare me.)
I’m psyched beyond all reason, because I hope the new show will bring in a whole new audience, and we’ll see an update that will carry us beyond Sagan’s original series, into places we couldn’t imagine when the original series aired.
Tyson talks about the new series and science with Bill Moyers on PBS. Seriously. Can. NOT. Wait.
On February 9, 1964, the Beatles appeared for the first time on the Ed Sullivan Show, and the world changed.
This “shaky cam” video of the three appearances by the Fab Four over three consecutive Sundays that year shines some light on the craze that became Beatlemania. Fifty years later, radio stations still have all Beatles highlights. That’s the timelessness of their music and the devotion of their fan base, in action.
(No, it’s not you. And it’s not the way the original aired, either. Apparently when the video was uploaded to YouTube, the user enabled the “image stabilization” feature, which made The Beatles’ bouncing heads stay in one place and the scenery dance around. While it’s an interesting effect, you might want to listen more than watch.)
The Beatles paved the way for The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and other members of the British Invasion over the years that followed.
But how did the shows happen in the first place? Here’s Walter Cronkite to explain.
Before I post the following three videos, I’m going to say something that stands a chance of making me unpopular. Shocking, I know.
Morgan Freeman, in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in December, 2005, said “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.” I agree. I’m not confining my exploration of history to a single month. I chose Monday to highlight the subject entirely at random. But it’s clear after Google celebrated Harriet Tubman’s life with a Google Doodle, folks aren’t so keen on American History that they know who Harriet Tubman was or what she did to earn her place in history.
Sojourner Truth has a similar place in American history, and equally hazy recognition. She is best known for her “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, given at the Women’s Convention in 1851. Tubman and Truth, Cady Stanton and Anthony.They helped lay the foundations on which we stand and continue to fight for equality.
I owe a great deal to all four of these women, who fought for equality at a time when we were considered property, not free to pursue our own destinies. So do all the women in this country who enjoy the freedom to vote, to work, to own property and to live independently.
Here are two interpretations of Sojourner Truth’s famous speech:
Time for some science-y stuff, as I contemplate what I’m going to do with two different classes in media production.
As info: 24 frames per second (FPS) is the normal film rate. You must string together 24 still shots (the number of images that must flow together), each of which contains miniscule changes between each frame or pair of frames, to represent a single second of motion film or video or what we think of as moving pictures.
To produce slow motion, you have to increase the fps ratio, and you can achieve this effect in a variety of ways, as described in Wikipedia’s relatively simple terms.
If you want to explore how something works, one way to do it is to slow the motion down, so you can study the effects. That’s what Earth Unplugged does in its Slo Mo videos. Watch for more of these over the course of the year.
This week my Facebook feed included a reminder for a friend’s birthday. Normally, that wouldn’t be too terribly odd. I have over 650 “friends” on FB, and I get almost daily reminders that it’s someone’s birthday. But last year, Craig died suddenly, unexpectedly, just a few days after we saw him and his wife at the local planetarium. He was hosting a family science event on “Fibs” (the Fibonacci Sequence, to be specific) and was truly excited about leading the event. His enthusiasm for science and teaching was boundless.
When this video wandered past my feed a few months back, I added it to the list, but I wasn’t sure when I’d get to it. Between Craig Levin’s birthday and the local supernova, I think I found my answer. If you don’t know who Carl Sagan was, or why this video is important, now’s a great time to gain a little perspective about Earth in relation to the rest of the universe.
Whenever I look up these days, I think of Craig. He had a magic gift for seeing the importance in things, and it saddens me to know he was gone too soon. And then I think about the cool stuff he shared and I know he’d have loved this clip. So, on his behalf, a rare dedication to someone I knew and remember fondly.
Citizen Kingis a two-hour biography of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Produced by WGBH for the PBS series American Experience in honor of Dr. King’s 75th birthday, the original movie aired January 19, 2004. Clicking the link above will bring you to the web page devoted to the movie, including a timeline, teaching materials and more.
The fact is, Citizen King centers around Dr. King, and on what he achieved in just 39 short years. I think it’s a good but incomplete picture. Before you watch the movie, though, I strongly suggest reading this Blog entry from the Daily Kos.
My birth year, 1963, was a turning point in the Civil Rights movement. I grew up in Rochester, NY and had little experience with the southern states until I moved to Maryland in 1986, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have experience with racism. The question is the degree.
I have tried to honor Dr. King’s messages and am glad to have a platform for sharing these important words, so that those who might learn more can remember that we are not done with the search for justice and equality for everyone, but need to work every day to achieve Dr. King’s goal:
We are not so far removed from those days in the 1960s. Not all of us are ready to join hands, though we are much closer than we were.
… when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
I believe we aren’t done with the work and we aren’t all free. Not yet.
On this rare occasion, I’m providing a link to the entire YouTube playlist, so you can watch all 13 parts in sequence if you wish. Each part is roughly nine minutes long. Click the link below to go straight to YouTube to watch.
On some Sunday mornings, I forget (sort of on purpose) to turn off my alarm so I can tune in to Krista Tippett’s morning meditation. The show, which used to be called Speaking of Faith and is now On Being, has made my Unitarian Universalist exploration of life a lot more interesting over time.
I was wondering whether to post one of the video links I have stored up for Sunday, but I thought I’d wander off for a little inspiration and it didn’t take me long to discover this blog post. I remembered seeing the commercial when it made the rounds a few years ago, but apparently that predated my blog because it’s not included in last year’s entries, though I can’t imagine why.
So, with that hat tip, here’s some stunning beauty for your Sunday.
To see a little of what went into the production of this commercial, watch this:
Yeah, it’s Feel Good Friday, but I’m getting serious, considering the weather we just suffered this week. And yes, you should feel good at the end of the video.
I first saw this hit my Facebook feed on my birthday last year, and it hit me hard when I took the time to watch. So let me tell my own story:
Back when I still had a full-time job, one of my tasks was to provide opportunities for the homeless to see a show. One day, I encountered a woman who wanted to see the show but managed to miss it because she didn’t understand the calendar very well. The shelter was located right in the same building where we were temporarily housed, and I was on my way to work on the show.
I brought the woman with me, and comped her in. Sure, she sat with the other folks who paid for their tickets, but we weren’t sold out and I thought the meaning of the show was important enough to share with her, even though she was unable to cover the cost of the ticket. And when the show was over, I took her back to her shelter, so she could be indoors for the night (it being December and all).
It wasn’t much. I couldn’t provide her with a permanent fix for her situation, but it was something.
We have so very many people, poorest of the poor, in this country. Most of us avoid looking at their faces or wondering about their stories. Perhaps if we spent a little more time understanding how they got where they were and a little less judging their choices, we’d be better off as a whole in the US.
I know it seems overwhelming to try and help everyone but there are success stories out there. The expression on Jim’s face when he sees himself in the mirror at the end of the process says so much more than words ever could about where he’s been and what his life could be.
If you can’t convince yourself to hand over a dollar for someone who needs help, look for places like Dégagé Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI, that give back to those who need it most.
Watch the video. There but for the grace of…whatever you look to for support. If you have family, if you have the proper meds, if you’re in a financial position that makes it possible for you to afford to be generous, be thankful. There are a lot of folks who aren’t or can’t. Many of them are too ill to save themselves.
Life in a Minor Key 
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