The Red Brick Times

On September 11, around 9:15 am, before any of us at school had heard about the news, I ordered a piece for my Chime Ensemble titled "Make Me An Instrument of Thy Peace" by Kevin McChesney, a renowned Handbell composer. (Chimes are a more durable and less expensive alternative to Handbells.) This piece was inspired by the Columbine Shootings, and is dedicated to "The victims of Columbine and other senseless acts of violence."

The music arrived on Thursday. A little more difficult than the music my ensemble can usually handle, with meter changes and running eighth notes. I instructed the students to follow along in the music as we listened to a recording of the piece. They turned the pages at the proper time, and kept track of each measure as we listened. A long second of silence followed. Joe, the class "cut-up" whispered, "We HAVE to do this."

We began rehearsing, and last Friday, there was music. It's a wonderful piece, and we are delighted to be learning it.

On a related note, the Student Council (I am an advisor) decided their public service project this year will be collecting money for the United Way September 11 Fund. We are having dime wars during Spirit Week- October 1-4. Last year we raised money for the Lorain County Mission, and were able to donate over $500.00. (Considering that's more than a dollar per student, that's not too bad.)

Just thought I'd let you know what our little corner of the world is doing. I like to share stories like this so that everyone knows there ARE some good kids out there. And I'm delighted and proud to be teaching them.
Posted 7:58 PM by Sally D. 0 comments

While I was browsing some of the links posted here, I found that a basic building block of Teleportation has been achieved. There is only one catch: the act of scanning the original destroys it in order to recreate another "original" at the second location. Who wants to be first?
Posted 1:50 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

This is from the Stratfor (Strategic Forcasting) website. It's a fascinating read with more parts to come.

Part I: Conceptual Framework of the War
Part 2: The Afghan Theater of Operations
Part 3: North American Theater of Operations

(Note: This site's getting a lot of traffic and has been up and down all day. Patience.)
Posted 12:51 PM by whatley 0 comments

These have been the most overpowering of times, the most daunting, eviscerating and brutal of times... tonight i visited "ground zero," and I must tell you that even to my New York-jaded, 24-hour-news-coverage-cynical, emotionally-overdosed mentality, this was a horrific sight: like a nuclear aftermath, like all the airplane photo reconnaisance shots of wartime London or Berlin rubble, all condensed into a single site, as if all that human suffering were condensed, distilled, into one woebegone, confused and thoroughly hopeless sight before God, Jehovah and Allah, to draw tears even from them.

The television pictures do not do it justice, if that is the correct word. They cannot encompass the breadth and depth of devastation, smoking and smoldering and smelling of burnt human flesh, acrid and stinging to noses accustomed to smoke. And here, at this shrine to such a multitude of innocents, the people come -- some to pay homage, some just to reward their eyes with the reality they could not previously comprehend, others to stare, grinning, as they shoot their video and snap their pictues, chatting ghoulishly to strangers about how their friends are going to love these shots... And suddenly, after all this catharsis, after I thought I was over it all, the anger rises again, and I know what it is to be capable of violence .

The West Side Highway is closed -- they're clearing out the volunteer donation points to pave the berm so that emergency vehicles can get through when the highway is opened to traffic again. Volunteer workers are packing up to move out, when a truck arrives from Delaware, full of supplies, exactly the right supplies -- not the emotionally frivolous, but things that are really needed: hard hats, shovels, heavy-duty rainsuits, etc. The driver of the truck explains that she has been trying to deliver her wares all over town, to no avail. Can you take them? she asks, desperately. Yes, she is told, in spite of the load-out. These supplies are loaded in, and they are greeted enthusiastically by workers heading to "ground zero." One of the volunteers unloading the truck is a woman from Ohio, with three children and a husband, whom she had left to drive to Cincinnati, from whence she took a bus to Cleveland, from whence she took a train to New York, because she "had to be here." She is a licensed construction worker with demolition skills, union card in hand, and willing to do anything, and yet is turned away because so many like her have already arrived to volunteer. Undaunted, she stays on at the site to help out in any way she can, unwilling to be useless in spite of the odds.

New Yorkers are used to the idea that everyone hates them, that everyone is suspicious of them, that they are universally disliked. The outpouring of support from around the country (indeed, from around the world) -- tremendously moving and surprising in a miraculous way -- has shown us that this is no longer true.

We suffer with you as you suffer with us. And we thank you.

"And each one hath a goal toward which he turneth;
so vie with one another in good works. Wheresoever ye
may be, Allah will bring you all together. Lo! Allah is
able to do all things."
Surah II, Vs. 148, The Koran

Russ




Posted 12:20 AM by Russ Stevens 0 comments

The Sept. 11 attacks have sparked an outpouring of amateur artwork which is being circulated widely on the Internet. One of the most popular images -- showing a gun-toting Liberty -- was drawn by a 17-year-old high school student (click "Enlarge" to view the whole image).
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The ongoing PBS documentary "Evolution" is also being presented, though in a very different way, on their website. This is one of the most content rich and beautifully crafted web efforts I've ever seen. Those limited to dialup connections might have to be patient while everything loads but it's worth it. (note: they're timing each segment of the site to correspond with the airing of each tv episode, so only the first few are completely functional)
Posted 8:13 AM by whatley 0 comments

I think I figured it out, this "how to post" thing. Just checking.
Posted 5:48 PM by Sally D. 0 comments

x
Posted 9:44 AM by Russ Stevens 0 comments

I somehow managed to miss the Miss America pageant again this year but I did learn that for the first time each contestant had to answer eight history and civics based multiple choice questions. The winner (Miss Oregon) got six out of the eight right. Are You Smarter Than Miss America?
Posted 8:38 AM by whatley 0 comments

An extraordinary poem for our times and others...



September 1, 1939


by W.H. Auden


I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analyzed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In a euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow,
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Posted 9:17 AM by Russ Stevens 0 comments

This is an interesting summary of what Microsoft has in store for you in its new operating system and other software products. An example from the license for FrontPage 2002 (a program for writing web pages, Ray likes to use it for his school and for FOWL): "You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services ... ", and that's just the tip of the iceberg mookie. Here's some background on UCITA , also mentioned in the article.

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting) is a national media watch group that publishes "Extra!", a magazine of media criticism, and produces the weekly radio program "CounterSpin" which, as far as I can tell, is aired mostly by college stations. I've never read the mag or heard the program but I have seen their web site. If you go there check out the column titled "Remembering the Last U.S. Retaliation Against Terror".

Finally, on a lighter note, here's the latest fad page on the internet. Toddler on a string is basically just a cartoon image of a laughing toddler that you can move around your screen. Turn on your sound and call it up in Internet Explorer.


Posted 9:20 AM by whatley 0 comments

Did you know that Hunter Thompson is published weekly on the ESPN web site? It's a sports column (duh) but, like every other columnist, not this week.
Posted 9:48 AM by whatley 0 comments

Russ posted a link in the comments on the last post that I feel deserves broader dissemination. It is an on-line petition urging caution and deliberation on the President and his advisers. Shared Voice
Posted 9:44 AM by A. O. Gutierrez 0 comments

We've seen a lot of shocking images lately. This site has a dozen or so not so shocking ones of reactions around the world. I was touched by them and now don't feel so alone somehow. Click on each picture to move through the gallery.

P.S. (1:30pm) I do some work with a company in Pakistan. The owner and I have become friendly over time through the work related emails we send each other. This is part of a message I just received from him: "The incidents of New York are extremely unfortunate and all of us are deeply saddened by the whole event."
Posted 10:27 AM by whatley 0 comments

I wanted to post a Hello and see if this was finally working right for me. AOL keeps cutting out on me.
Thank-you Russ you were a big help.

Annetta (Haught) Baumiller
Posted 12:05 PM by Annetta Baumiller 0 comments

Three articles about what happened yesterday. Their views are very different and I don't particularly endorse any of them. I just thought they were worth sharing.

An article written in March 1997 about the February 26, 1993 bombing of The World Trade Center: Prosecuting the Sheikh

An interview with Michele Zanini, a graduate fellow at the RAND Corporation and a contributor to the book "Countering the New Terrorism" and the forthcoming "Networks and Netwars,".

Michael Moore of "Roger and Me" fame: Mike's Message
Posted 1:48 PM by whatley 0 comments

The events in New York and Washington today have chilled me to the bone. Horrific as those tragedies are I fear the response will be even more so. Unfortunately heartfelt cries for peace and reason will be lost in the deafening replays of the collapse of the World Trade Towers. Rightly or wrongly, this will be avenged and just as in today's catastrophe the peaceful and the just will be swept away with the belligerent and intolerant. If there is a God,pray. If there isn't invent one, then pray.
Posted 3:33 PM by A. O. Gutierrez 0 comments

Russ, I have a document with some small sound files that I would like to post. How do I go about doing that?
Posted 5:38 PM by A. O. Gutierrez 0 comments

Well, everything seems to be going pretty nicely here if I say so myself. Now that Reblogger's gone and we're running our own comment utility the page is loading as fast as it should. That really bothered me. The domain records have propagated too, so I don't think anyone has to connect through the IP# anymore. (You may need to delete all references to tRBT in your browser "Favorites" folder(s) then reboot before the URL will work.) 7393.org lives again, which means my email (whatley@7393.org) is live again. Wheeee doggies!

Speaking of email; now you too can walk tall with your very own 7393.org email address. Amaze your friends - be the talk of your neighborhood! No more bullies kicking digital sand in your face mookie. This is Web based mail, meaning you can access it from anywhere in the world that you can get on the web, and it's client based too, meaning you can configure your Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, whatever, on your home computer to upload/download as well. Damn I'm good. Let me know if you want one by sending me a desired username/password (it's free but I will plead for donations eventually so be warned). I'll write an Email FAQ with full info when I get time.
Posted 12:38 PM by whatley 0 comments

You have seen the tiny horses that people show at the County Fairs. They were bred in Europe to pull carts in the mines since the low spaces did not allow for regular-sized horses to work there. I read that researchers are working on miniaturizing dairy cattle in order to be able to provide milk and dairy products using less land and resources, and perhaps, eventually, providing space-based farmers the same benefits. The first Space Station trip for a group of small Holsteins is proposed for orbital trials next year. It is being called "The Herd Shot 'Round the World."
Posted 6:55 AM by Andy Allan 0 comments

One day a Pakistani dock worker in London goes to the foreman with a complaint. He is annoyed that the other workers call him "Wog" which he feels is a racial slur.
The foreman tries to allay his fears and convince him that its all just friendly joking.
He says "Now look, Liam is Irish and everybody calls him Mick. See Angus over there, he's Scots, but everybody calls him Mac. They all call Paddy. . .well Paddy and that new Welsh fella, David, is known as Whack. Its all just in fun."
The Pakistani is unmoved, "I still don't like this Wog name, so please to be making them stop", he says.
So foreman yells out, "Mick, Mac, Paddy, Whack leave the Wog alone."

I bet you're glad you waited all these years for that, Ray.

Posted 8:40 PM by A. O. Gutierrez 0 comments

For those of you who think that I have dropped out of the hip and joined the establishment, just take a long look at the WVIZ web page for teacher development. Yours truly is featured in all his Buckminster Fullerish/Bahgavad Gita faroutness, surrounded by post grad vision seekers. Check out The WVIZ page. Look for the rotating picture on the left just under the schoolnet logo.
Posted 6:34 PM by Ray Stewart 0 comments

Two Gen Xers were on vacation and happened on a bungee jumping concession. They dared each other to try it, liked it a lot and decided that it would be a pretty good business to get into. One said: "Say, I bet that we could go to Mexico and make a lot of money with this. I never heard of any bungee jumping in Mexico." So they obtained financing, equipment, a portable tower, bungees, safety gear, permits, insurance, the whole bit. On site for the first time in Mexico, they started setting up the tower, and soon attracted a pretty good crowd of spectators. With each tower section, the crowd grew larger and more festive. By the time the two had reached the top, there was a huge party around them on the ground below. "Wow," said one. "We are going to clean up with this gig. Well, let's try it out to show everyone how much fun it is." "OK," said the second. "Are you sure we got everything right?" "Absolutely," said the first. "We double and triple checked everything and went over all the checklists twice." "Right," said the second. "I'll jump." Climbing to the top and positioning himself at the edge of the platform, he meticulously checked the harnesses and gear. Then, with a blood-curdling yell of complete abandon, he flung himself into space. He dropped to the end of the tether, slowed, and began returning as the cord retracted. As he neared the top, his partner could see that he appeared to have a couple of bruises about his head and face. Startled and fearing for the jumper's safety, the partner struggled to grab him and pull him onto the retrieval platform, but missed. On the second bounce, the jumper apparently had some cuts, for blood was running down his face. Missing again, his partner anxiously peered over the edge. On the third cycle, the watcher was able to grab his buddy and pull him to safety. There were numerous cuts, blood flowed, and he was battered and semiconcious. Near panic, the first asked his friend: "What happend? What went wrong? Did something break? Was the cord too long? Talk to me!" Dazed, the jumper replied, "Nothing broke. The cord was perfect. But what the hell is a Pinata?"
Posted 2:53 PM by Andy Allan 0 comments

There was a joke I heard a long time ago. I think it maybe one that Kenny told. It had to do with a construction crew in England. One of the new crew members was getting ticked because no one would use his real name. They referred to him only by some derogatory ethnic appelation. Was it a 'Wog'? Does anyone remember how this goes? All I remember is the punch line. I don't want to include that just in case somebody knows how to tell a joke around here.

Posted 8:51 AM by Ray Stewart 0 comments

Hellooooooo RBT'ers! If you're seeing this post then you've made it to the new spot! I'll be doing various things here for the next few hours. If any of you happen to stumble on in during that time you can watch what's going on by closing/reopening/refreshing your browser every once in a while. Send me some email if you're watching, I'll get a kick out of that.

Update: It's almost noon now and I'm pooped. So, how do you like the new design? I wanted to surprise you plus I was getting mighty tired of the old one. Too dark. As far as I can tell all the basic functions are working, even the new comment feature, which I had one hell of a time with. The hardest problem, one that took me over an hour to figure out, was of course a stupid mistake on my part to begin with. Argh. I have a bit of work to do on the archive system yet. They're all there, I just have to repoint to them. Not today though.
Posted 8:58 AM by whatley 0 comments

The Red Brick Times is moving!
I've sent everyone an email (to your registered Blogger addresses) with information about the move, the bulk of which I'm planning on doing tomorrow morning (9/8). The two posts below more or less list why we're doing this and what benefits we can hope to expect. See ya in the new spot!
Posted 2:45 PM by whatley 0 comments

FYI: It looks like Reblogger is having problems today. Previously posted comments are not showing up even though the count appears correct. I've notified them but that's about all I can do.

Update: Brand new comments (from 11:45am EDST) do appear, just not the old ones. He mentions something on his page about a major Reblogger upgrade. Oh dear.

Further Update (3:30pm): I received an email from Jesse Malone, the creator of Reblogger:

It seems there is another bout of August 29th syndrome going around. What I mean is that on August 29th about 3 or 4 blogs lost the contents of their comment files (not the comment count). It seems to have happened again on September 5th. I'm not sure what's happening. I suspect it's something on the server that I cannot control. Unfortunately I cannot recover the lost comments. I'm terribly sorry for the inconvenience.

Bummer. New comments seem to be saving, at least for now. This (along with something else that happened today, more about that later) has finalized my decision to move to a paid/hosting environment. It'll take me a few days to set that up. I'll send each of you an email in addition to posting the move information here. Yow, I never expected tRBT to be this much trouble.
Posted 11:50 AM by whatley 0 comments

You probably haven't noticed (at least no one's mentioned it) but there's a new link icon at the very bottom of the page called "Ad Free Stats". They provide an easy to use web page statistic interface that records all hits, IP numbers, network names if available, and other useful site info. I have to put the icon there as part of the agreement to use their services for free. I did a screen capture of one of their tables about tRBT and saved it as a .gif if you're interested. It shows who's been here from late Friday afternoon until this morning. 64.208.156.106 is me, elyria.lib.oh.us is Ralph (duh), one of the aol.com's must be Sally, providence1 must be Tony, etc. (I haven't a clue who that .ca from Montreal, Canada might be, or a couple of others.)

Why bother to track usage? Well, it started by my wanting to fix a couple of things. Our page loads slowly, sometimes real slowly, first because it has to be redirected from a remote nameserver to my server here, and second because it has to contact and load info from the Reblogger server somewhere in Germany. I can fix those problems only by having the whole site hosted somewhere else. I've identified that somewhere else and it will only cost a $8 or so a month. Once that's done I can make a lot of improvements, way beyond just fixing the slowness problems. I started getting kind of jazzed up about the whole idea but then thought: "Hey, why bother? For all I know no one comes here much anyway." So that's why I started tracking usage.

The usage statistics haven't been a lot of help. If they were higher than expected I'd just go ahead, and if they were real low I'd forget about it. Nope, they're right in the middle, which leaves me undecided about whether to make these improvements or not. My time investment is no problem (this stuff's kind of fun for me) and the monthly cost is no big deal either if it would result in your increased use and enjoyment of the site. I'm not interested in spending the time and money otherwise. What I need is some feedback. Would you use tRBT more if it was faster and offered other things (our own comment utility, site and global searching, private email, etc.) or are you already using it as much as you care to?
Posted 3:13 PM by whatley 0 comments