Macintosh & Miscellaneous Archives,
2006

January 3, 2006 [LINK]

Animal personality quiz

Thanks to Phil Faranda (a "Bear"), I've learned that I have the personality of

What Is Your Animal Personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

I would be surprised if most people found me to be "cynical," though I must admit that more than one student evaluation I've had in the past echoes that last sentence. "He's not that bad, once you get to know him." Really!

I wonder how personality type correlates with peculiar habits or theological beliefs?

January 4, 2006 [LINK]

Deepest agony in West Virginia

It is one thing to lose a dear family member, but quite anothing thing to lose one in a tragic accident. Perhaps the worst thing of all is when it is learned that a loved one has perished after having been told that he or she had been saved. I happened to be up late last night, and was at first delighted to see news reports around midnight that twelve of the miners trapped in a West Virginia coal mine were still alive. The scenes of joyful family members hugging each other over the apparent miraculous rescue seemed almost too good too be true, ... and indeed it was. About three hours later came the awful truth: Only one of the thirteen trapped miners was found alive, and he remains in critical condition, probably suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning. Could any poet or clergyman come up with the right words to console the crestfallen, bitter emptiness that those family members are going through? As we extend our heartfelt sympathy to the victims' families, let us also pray that this terrible twist of events does not undermine those hard-working, long-suffering folks' faith in God. As yet no one seems to know how the false report originated, and one can only feel pity for the unfortunate soul who conveyed the mistaken impression.

January 6, 2006 [LINK]

Holiday cactus

In the old days, this plant used to be called a "Christmas cactus," but we don't want to offend anyone. Actually, it bloomed a week late, so perhaps it should be called a "New Year's cactus."

Roll mouse over the image to see a close up (note the magenta tip of the stamen), and click on it to revert.

January 8, 2006 [LINK]

Amaryllis flower

This stunning scarlet Amaryllis flower grew from a bulb that Jacqueline planted just before Christmas. Now that's fast! The second flower in back bloomed first, about four days ago. It sure is nice that indoor flowering plants brighten up our days and fight "Seasonal Affective Disorder" during these depressing months of scant sunlight.

For the marine life lover in you

The renowned Monterey Bay Aquarium (which I visited in 1987; link via Connie) has a "Seafood Watch" program to encourage healthy living and environmentally conscious shopping. It warns in particular against "farm-raised" shrimp and salmon. The coastal "farms" on which shrimp are raised often destroy precious mangrove trees, and salmon that are raised in extremely crowded "net pens" pollute the water with their feces. In contrast, farm-raised oysters, clams, mussels, tilapia, catfish, and trout are much better for the environment. Most Americans have become aware that improper fishing techniques kill many dolphins, which is why most food manufacturers agreed to market only "dolphin-safe" tuna. During and after the trip Jacqueline and I made to Costa Rica last February, I learned a lot about sea turtles, which often get caught in nets. See my April 14, 2005 post.

More generally, this is a classic case where wise tax policy could promote environmental goals even if many consumers remain apathetic about nature. Instead of hopelessly complex and often unenforceable pollution standards, there should be a uniform Federal gross receipts tax on all business establishments in rough proportion to the pollution that they create. The problem with implementing this, of course, is that it would annoy bargain-conscious American shoppers, who would rather not be burdened with the responsibility for helping the environment. "That's someone else's job -- like the government, or big corporations."

January 16, 2006 [LINK]

MLK: Imagine the possibilities

Most people commemorate Martin Luther King Day by pointing to progress in the field of civil rights since his death, or the lack thereof. That mode of discourse is well and good, but eventually it is going to grow terribly stale, until we finally lose any remaining appreciation for what his struggles meant for this nation. What I would like to emphasize is the astounding transformation he achieved by opening people's minds to previously outlandish possibilities. Like the heroic liberal-minded patriots during the American Revolution, who practically created new rights out of thin air just be declaring them to be "self-evident," King literally created a new social reality in the 1960s by his gift of prophecy and his force of will. Is there any reason why we can't be stirred from our complacent, conformist slumber here in the early 21st Century, and break the bonds of conventional wisdom that keep us trapped in boredom, mediocrity, anxiety, and despair? No, there is not.

January 17, 2006 [LINK]

Photographs & memories *

In today's Staunton News Leader, retired editor Fred Pfisterer talks about how someone in his family dug out their old slides and transferred them onto a computer with a scanner, and then burned them onto DVDs as gifts to help in sharing old memories. I used my iMac and a scanner to do the same thing a couple years ago (onto CDs, that is), though I only scratched the surface of my grandfather's slide archives. For anyone who is lucky enough to possess such a treasury of photographic records, in slides or in print, I highly recommend taking the time to do likewise. Presented for your amusement is the Clem family at Christmas, 1962. That's me in the space helmet. On the floor is the board game "Video Village," based on a TV game show.

* That's the name of an old Jim Croce song.

Taking a cue from some other "photo-bloggers," I have put together a new photo gallery page:
Best photos of 2005. Not surprisingly, many of the 25 visual gems are from our trip to Costa Rica, including several colorful birds. I touched up a few of them by enhancing the sharpness.

January 23, 2006 [LINK]

More photographic chores

One of our household projects is going through old photo albums and tossing out unneeded pictures. I'm doing the same thing for our digital photographs, and to my surprise found a few old gems that I thought should be put back "on display." These images can be seen on the new/old Washington D.C. photo gallery page.

As part of this "massive cleanup" effort, I've added a new "à la carte" feature by which individual photos can be displayed in a more attractive way, including the file name which serves as a rudimentary identifying caption. To see this in action, just click on any of the sections of the adjacent image to see a full-size version. To compare it to the old way, click HERE.

For many of the photo gallery pages listed on the main Photo Gallery page, a camera symbol () now appears. Click on any of those to see the "best of the bunch," without having to wait for all the photos to load; usually it is a panoramic shot with lots of detail.

January 24, 2006 [LINK]

"Book of Daniel" is axed

I've only seen two episodes of NBC's controversial new comedy-drama "The Book of Daniel," so I must confess a little disappointment that it has already been cancelled. Aidan Quinn, who has played a variety of interesting movie roles, usually as a man with strong ethics who perseveres over difficulties, was well cast as the Episcopal priest, and his imagined conversations with Jesus were a clever plot device. (I didn't like the flippant attitude of the Jesus character, however.) The other members of the dysfunctional family struck me as a bizarre caricature of the American WASP mainstream. I was kind of hoping there would be a guest appearance by Dana Carvey, who lampooned stodgy mainstream Christianity as "the Church Lady." The show has its own blog, whose host is the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. I guess they believe in the saying "there is no such thing as bd publicity." For more commentary, see The Waffling Anglican (via Phil Faranda).

January 27, 2006 [LINK]

Photo gallery is totally revamped!

But wait, there's more! As if all that wasn't enough, I have completely reformatted the main Photo gallery page, which now displays several of the montages, including the new "Special Occasions." To speed up loading time for that page, I have moved all of the bird photos from that page to three new pages: Wild birds, Andrew, Wild birds, John (which are professional quality, far better than mine), and Canaries.

Whew!

January 31, 2006 [LINK]

Tom Cruise: Worst Actor? Not!

Tom Cruise has been nominated for Worst Actor in the 26th Annual Razzie ® Award for his role as Ray Ferrier in War of the Worlds. Say what you will about Tom's offbeat religion, views on psychotherapy, his midlife crisis, or his strained matrimony with the cutie Katie Holmes (see June 29), he does not belong in the same category with Rob Schneider and the other low-brow nominees in that category. See razzies.com.

By the way, I got the War of the Worlds DVD for Christmas, and have not yet managed to pick myself out from the crowd in the scene where the Army Humvees charge up the hill. I'm pretty sure I'm in the preceding scene where the tripods are vaporizing the humans running down the hill, but the lighting was too dim to discern any details. Oh, well...