Clive's Blog

I received my Kindle Fire

2011-11-16T15:30:00.001-06:00

I bought a Kindle Fire to replace my aging Kindle (1st Model). For me it will make a fine book reader, (especially for reading in the dark) with some enhanced functions. Overall, it feels like a prototype - everything works, almost, but not very smoothly. It is based on a fork of Google's Android, but oddly enough, does not have a native Google Maps app - it has Mapquest instead.
Screen scrolling is jerky. I like the size - great for books, not so great for magazines.
It feels heavy - but I expect my muscles will develop with use :-)

For a full review - read any of the reviews popping up all over the web.

Havana Staircase 2009

2011-11-03T12:05:00.000-05:00

My latest watercolor painting. I was struck by this staircase in Havana, Cuba, on my visit in 2009.

Havana Staircase 2009

Its not "Class Warfare." Its Common Sense!

2011-10-26T17:26:00.000-05:00

This morning a report from the Congressional Budget Office entitled "Trends In The Distribution Of Household Income Between 1979 And 2007" appeared in my newsfeed.

Growth in Real After-Tax Income from 1979 to 2007

Interesting, I thought, but I wondered what conclusion could be drawn. The rising gap between the rich and the poor makes me uneasy -- but I could not pin down why - other than that it seems unfair. I wondered how inequality relates to GNP, likelihood of violent revolution, etc.

This afternoon, A TED talk appeared in my newsfeed.

It answered many of my questions! Never underestimate the power of serendipity!
Read both references - and wonder at the disconnect between reality and our political rhetoric.

This blog is back

2011-10-26T17:25:00.000-05:00

The demise of this blog was prematurely announced by myself. Its back!

Shouting in the crowd - A quick guide to social media

2011-10-18T11:34:00.000-05:00

Tweeting is like standing in a large square packed with people, all shouting loudly and hoping that someone will reply to them, or at least hear their message and pass it on. Some of the shouting is advertising.

Blogging is like standing in a large square populated by speakers on soapboxes and shouting your story, hoping to attract a crowd, possibly from a nearby blogger. You make deals with some of your fellow speakers to send some of your crowd over to them. Some of the soapboxes are plastered with ads, for which the speaker gets paid.

Google+ is like much like blogging, but the speakers cluster closer together so that they can hear and respond to each other, and their crowds overlap and chat with each other. The speakers do not get paid for any advertising.

Facebook is like sitting in your living room chatting with friends and family. Most people present are not really interested in what the others say, but listen politely and occasionally respond. You are not sure who some of the people in the room are, or why they are there. You may think the conversations are private, but your friends can take notes and tell their friends. Oddly enough, your walls are plastered with ads, for which you do not get paid.

Email is like leaving a notes in your friends' mailboxes mailboxes. You feel offended if they do not respond.

Texting is like attaching a note to a rock and throwing at your friend's house

Moving on...

2011-10-17T18:32:00.001-05:00

Technology has moved on. Thus, so have I. From now on, you can find what I would have blogged here on Google+, at
this address: gplus.to/chmoss

If this does not work for me, I will be back here soon :-)

In case anyone was wondering -- it is hot in Chicago and getting hotter :-(

2011-07-19T14:47:00.001-05:00

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Senator Shelby - an Economics illiterate - feels that Nobel Prize winners don't understand Economics.

2011-06-07T00:44:00.003-05:00

From The New York Times.
...
The leading opponent to my appointment, Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the ranking Republican on the committee, has questioned the relevance of my expertise. “Does Dr. Diamond have any experience in conducting monetary policy? No,” he said in March. “His academic work has been on pensions and labor market theory.”
...
To the public, the Washington debate is often about more versus less — in both spending and regulation. There is too little public awareness of the real consequences of some of these decisions. In reality, we need more spending on some programs and less spending on others, and we need more good regulations and fewer bad ones.
Analytical expertise is needed to accomplish this, to make government more effective and efficient. Skilled analytical thinking should not be drowned out by mistaken, ideologically driven views that more is always better or less is always better. I had hoped to bring some of my own expertise and experience to the Fed. Now I hope someone else can.
Peter A. Diamond is a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

via nytimes.com

Is it not time we stopped electing demagogues?

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Why I love my Nikon!

2011-06-06T22:40:00.001-05:00

via youtube.com

I would never do this with a cigarette in my mouth, however.

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Is this Blog obsolete?

2011-05-19T16:13:00.000-05:00

New social media seem to be making personal blogs and websites obsolete. For quick thought that one wants to share with the world, Twitter feels more appropriate. It gets pushed to friends, and broadcast to the world for anyone following a specific subject to see. For more private thoughts for friends only, Facebook is the place. For photographs - Flickr, Smugmug, Facebook, or any of dozens of photo sharing sites are more convenient.

Fragmentation across media is a problem - but it is being addressed by platforms like TweetDeck, Seesmic, and the like.

So - why would anyone (including me) other than business or organizations continue to maintain a blog and a website?

IPhone meets Van Gogh

2011-04-24T19:57:00.001-05:00

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View from the cheap seats

2011-04-07T18:48:00.001-05:00

Our view for Muti conducting Verdi's Otello @CSO. We will have a great view of Muti - but little else.

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Glenn Beck always fabricates and lies, sometimes apologizes

2011-02-25T08:04:00.001-06:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/glenn-beck-apologizes-reform-judaism...

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History of revolutions is not encouraging

2011-02-11T12:20:00.001-06:00

While everyone is cheering the fall of Mubarak, one should consider that many earlier revolutions have had disastrous near term results. The mother of all revolutions - the French Revolution (triggered by the Age of Enlightenment) - resulted in the reign of terror and decades of warfare and revolution in Europe. The Russian Revolution resulted in about a hundred years of oppression of the Russian and other people. The Iranian Revolution has resulted in ongoing oppression of the Iranian people. The liberation of African and South American colonies mostly resulted in African Democracy - One Man, One Vote, One Time. Some successes, to be sure, but mostly failures. The American Revolution worked for the people of the original 13 Colonies - maybe the only example that worked for the people concerned.

The outcome of the likely wave of revolutions in Muslim North Africa and the Near and Middle East is uncertain. I hope that they will be more peaceful and Democratic than their predecessors in Europe, Africa, and South America. I am not optimistic. ---
Clive - on my iPhone - pardon autocorrect induced typos.

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Sunset on Lido Key

2011-02-09T17:14:00.001-06:00

---
Clive-on my iPhone
Pics: http://Clive.smugmug.com

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The Laundry Room

2011-02-02T15:58:00.001-06:00

This morning we decided to check out the laundry facility in our condo. The sign on the door said "To open -- use recreation room key." We identified three keys with no known use from the bunch were given, and tried to find the keyhole. No luck. No keyhole could be found. We decided to take a walk to St. Armands for breakfast and check the door later when maybe someone was in the laundry room to show us how to open the door. After a great walk and a wonderful breakfast we returned to find the door still closed with nobody in sight. We tried moving all the little signs to see if the keyhole was possibly hidden behind one of them. No luck. As a last resort, I tried turning the doorknob. Wonder of wonders, it opened. It is hard to be literate.

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The first Spaghetti Western at Chicago Lyric Opera?

2011-01-27T17:35:00.001-06:00

See the full review at chicagotheaterblog.com

Was this the first Spaghetti Western? We saw it Wednesday afternoon. Not Puccini's best, but entertaining.

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I have to get to one of the the coasts!

2011-01-24T18:40:00.001-06:00

via congress.org

Green = no health care unless you don't need it! Red = help those who need help. The insurance companies win this round of posturing - but thankfully it will go nowhere.

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DovBear: Google is pretty cool

2011-01-23T19:09:00.001-06:00

via dovbear.blogspot.com

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It is cold in Chicago...

2011-01-20T13:01:00.001-06:00

... And getting colder

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Today's Watercolor - Regent's Canal - London

2011-01-19T13:41:00.001-06:00

Body Goes Here

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In 10 hours this will be BBQ beef dinner

2011-01-19T08:16:00.001-06:00

---
Clive-on my iPhone
Pics: http://Clive.smugmug.com

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Just in case you think you have problems of cosmic proportions...

2011-01-18T11:33:00.001-06:00

via youtube.com

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Dan Zamudio exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center

2011-01-14T16:34:00.001-06:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Everyone is Entitled to Call in Stupid

2011-01-14T10:59:00.001-06:00

via artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

This is my week.

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Who says Chicago weather is bad?

2011-01-13T10:52:00.001-06:00

via wunderground.com

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Good Morning Highland Park

2011-01-12T08:55:00.001-06:00

---
Clive-on my iPhone
Pics: http://Clive.smugmug.com

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Beware Bipartisan Anything

2011-01-09T22:32:00.001-06:00

Print|Email

Beware Bipartisan School Reform

If everybody on the Hill is happy, Americans probably shouldn't be.

Katherine Mangu-Ward | January 7, 2011

As an example of what happens when Democrats and Republicans agree, consider the Reagan-era dismantling of the mental-health system. The conservatives wanted smaller government, the liberals did not want anyone locked up against their will -- and now we have lunatics like Jared Lee Loughner with no ability to stop them until they have wreaked their havoc. He was identified as mentally ill ( http://tinyurl.com/2acg968 ) but nothing could be done until it was too late!

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Pantone Reveals Color of the Year for 2011: PANTONE 18-2120 Honeysuckle

2011-01-07T08:14:00.001-06:00

via pantone.com

In case you wonder why you are seeing so much pink.

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Apropos of nothing, this is worth watching once a year. Who's on first?

2011-01-05T14:43:00.001-06:00

via youtube.com

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Watch Joel Meyerowitz, in “Everybody Street”

2011-01-04T16:39:00.002-06:00

Interesting interview with a great street photographer.

Joel Meyerowitz, in “Everybody Street”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2011/01/video-joel-meyerowitz.html

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An thought-provoking take on Shabbos observance from DovBear

2011-01-03T11:52:00.001-06:00

When you think about it, camping is an odd little ritual. You exert energy pitching a tent and setting up camp, then subsist for the duration on food that is tasty, but hardly gourmet. Real camping enthusiasts drive miles into the woods and do without the conveniences of store bought wood, and indoor plumbing, but even amateur dabblers like me deliberately put ourselves into a situation that, on the face of it, seems uncomfortable. What's the appeal of uncomfortable sleeping arrangements, the pervasive smell of smoke, and limited access to modern conveniences like air conditioning and WiFi?

see the rest of the story at dovbear.blogspot.com

Also applies to Conservative Judaism - or any other ritualistic observance.

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The Sound of Money

2011-01-03T10:09:00.001-06:00

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This CNNMoney.com feature is optimized for Adobe Flash Player version 9 or higher.

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This CNNMoney.com feature is optimized for Adobe Flash Player version 9 or higher.

via money.cnn.com

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Note to self: Place Waterpick in mouth BEFORE operating the "ON" switch.

2011-01-03T09:53:00.001-06:00

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Just testing to see how Posterous treats image files when posting by email.

2011-01-02T22:05:00.001-06:00

Posterous is an interesting service that enables easy uploading of many media types to multiple social sites like Twitter, Flickr, blogs, etc. If you are not interested in seeing if Posterous worked, move on, nothing much of interest here.

This is a test post to see what it does to images sizes directed at several destinations. The original attached image size (the flower) is 3209 × 2848 pixels and 1.5 MB.

I am not sure where the text ends up on the various services, and how it will be formatted.

It is also a test of formatting.

This email should post it once, and only once, to each of Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Flickr, as well as a Posterous blog which I don't really want but it insists on using, as far as I can tell. It could be useful if you don't already have a blog.

My sites can be found at

http://clivemoss.blogspot.com/

http://twitter.com/chmoss

http://www.facebook.com/clive.moss

http://chmoss.tumblr.com/

http://chmoss.posterous.com/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chmoss/

Actually, I am on other places as well, but Posterous can not get to them.

I have no good reasons for so many sites, only excuses

My most credible excuse is that I have been doing this sort of thing for many years and as the world changes, I move on, carrying the detritus of a long life in technology and photography
My other excuse is that I am a geek and I enjoy finding out how this stuff works and wondering why anybody in their right mind would want to do it

Oddly enough, Posterous can be found at www.posterous.com

If a rather unexceptional picture of a flower (which is being sent as an attachment) does not appear, then the test was a partial failure.

In addition, I am embedding, rather than attaching, a 2888x2475 pixel 1.7 MB page of images from our last trip to Turkey, to check if Posterous cares how the image is sent from the Gmail client.

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The Right knows they are right. The Left gets left behind.

2011-01-02T09:23:00.001-06:00

There seems to be a certain temperamental difference between conservatives and Republicans on the one hand and liberals and the Democrats on the other. In broad strokes, Republicans, especially of the tea-party stripe, are typically proud, at least unapologetic, and sometimes belligerent about their beliefs. Democrats, in contrast, seem to adopt the defensive position by default. ...
Why are Democrats more anemic? One thought comes from the liberal journalist Thomas Frank. Writing in Harper's, Mr Frank argues that while Republicans respond to their base, Democrats have a misbegotten faith in a "Magic Middle" of centrist ideas that are tolerable, at least, to most Americans:
Democrats, for their part, tend to do the opposite, dreaming of bipartisanship and states neither red nor blue and of some reasonably-arrived-at consensus future in which the culture wars cease and everyone plays nicely forevermore under the smiling, benificent sun of free trade and the knowledge industries.

read the full article at economist.com

The Economist often has an interesting take on American politics.

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I always wonder why people sing songs ...

2011-01-01T12:33:00.002-06:00

... With no clue at all about what they are saying.

The combination of Google Reader and Posterous included the post below when I shared it with no attribution. I did not write it. It is from the excellent blog "Language Log"

Google Reader and Posterous omitted the heading and credit below. I include it here, with apologies to the original authors.

From the auldies but guidies file

by Geoff Nunberg

(This post first appeared on 12/30/2004 under the heading "And a Right Guid Willie Waught to You, Too, Pal.")
We like the incantations we recite on ritual occasions to be linguistically opaque, from the unparsable "Star-Spangled Banner" (not many people can tell you what the object of watch is in the first verse) to the Pledge of Allegiance, with its orotund diction and its vague (and historically misanalyzed) "under God." But for sheer unfathomability, "Auld Lang Syne" is in a class by itself. Not that anybody can sing any of it beyond the first verse and the chorus, before the lyrics descend inscrutably into gowans, pint-stowps, willie-waughts and other items that would already have sounded pretty retro to Burns's contemporaries.

But it's my guess that most people take the first two clauses of the song as the protases of a conditional, rather than as rhetorical questions. True, most versions of the lyrics end the lines with question marks (this is the most familiar version, a little different from Burns's):

Should auld acquaintance be forgot

And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days o' auld lang syne?
But a lot of people leave out the question marks (for example here, here, and here), which suggests that the interrogative force isn't obvious. It may make no sense that way — "if old friends should be forgotten, we'll drink to bygone days anyway." But incomprehensibility only adds to the sense of immemorial tradition, even this happens to be a borrowed one, grafted onto American culture in 1929 by a Canadian of Italian ancestry.
As Eric Hobsbawm has observed, after all, the point of invented traditions like the kilt or the Pledge is to provide "emotionally charged signs of club membership rather than the statutes and objects of the club." And what could be more evocative than a New Year's song that's sodden with quaintly impenetrable phraseology? "Is not the Scotch phrase Auld Lang syne exceedingly expressive?" Burns wrote to a friend in 1793. Well, it works for me, anyway. Have a happy one.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2880

Sent with MobileRSS for iPhone

---

Clive-on my iPhone

Pics: http://Clive.smugmug.com

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Making life easy (for me)

2011-01-01T11:59:00.001-06:00

Download now or watch on posterous

p211.mov (3775 KB)

I am switching to Posterous for all posts to social apps. This post is a test to see what happens. It may result in dual posts somewhere. Sorry. A picture of nothing in particular is attached to see what happens. A boring video for the same reason.
Here goes.

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Fast Track for the Elderly - Help or Hindrance?

2010-11-22T11:45:00.001-06:00

I went to the Illinois Secretary of State office today to get new a license plate sticker. In and out in five minutes! The office has put in place a fast track for seniors (65 and older). Age has its benefits. However, this approach is a reflection of the general view that equates elderly with poor and infirm. Whereas I enjoy the benefits of the elderly I recognize the unfairness of institutionalized preferential treatment for people who have no real right to preference or deference. The negative side of the silly equation is workplace discrimination and chronic underemployment of the aging.

My generation had the good fortune of being born slightly ahead of the baby-boomer wave. The boom provided a steady supply of workers for the pre-boomers to manage who could fund retirement of the pre-boom generation. When the boomer wave breaks as the generation begins to turn 65 this year, the retirement system breaks with it - and the world economy is grappling with how to support the elderly with health and dignity. Preferential treatment in government offices is a symptom of government trying to address the problem with no observable impact on budgets. It lets the legislators and bureaucrats feel they are addressing the problem without really doing anything. I may as well enjoy it while it lasts.

For folk who do not live in the USA - Secretary of State sounds like an impressive title. It is not. It is the administration department of State Government.

Fall in the Botanic Gardens

2010-11-21T11:33:00.000-06:00

Clickenzee on the image to see more from the Botanic Gardens

London Street

2010-11-16T15:32:00.004-06:00

I was trying to do some real street photography in London, but all I came up with was boring pictures of people - so I changed my approach and took boring photographs of streets - but I think they are graphically more interesting.

Image Sensor Implant Restores Partial Sight

2010-11-08T08:33:00.000-06:00

Just add a Compact Flash card and I will not need to carry a camera any more.

Image Sensor Implant Restores Partial Sight:

"Electronics Weekly, BBC News: German firm Retina Implant reported testing results of the chip that has restored limited sight for people blinded by retinitis pigmentosa and similar diseases, destroying only the eye's photoreceptors, and leave its layers of image processing neurons intact."

SOFA So Good

2010-11-07T16:08:00.000-06:00

We arrived at SOFA, checked our coats, bought tickets, and had our tickets checked by the ticket checker at the door. I noticed that he scanned preprinted tickets, tore bought tickets in half, but just looked at my tickets taking no action.
When we left I pulled out the coat check tags and noticed that they looked remarkably like tickets to SOFA and not at all like coat check tags.
Turns out we had entered the show by displaying our coat check tag, and we now have two unused tickets for SOFA. They would be worth $24 - if the show did not end in 55 minutes.

Living real life in London

2010-10-21T11:17:00.002-05:00

We have been in London for three weeks. We have been here long enough to feel that we do not have to run around and "tour" every moment. Instead, we can live almost normally, not like locals, but almost like expats.

We are in Hampstead. This suburb has been an intellectual center of London for many years. All around us houses display the little blue plaques that mark the home of a prominent person or family. Gracie Fields home is a little way up the hill. The Huxleys lived around the corner. Sigmund Freud lived a few blocks away.

Shopping malls are few and far between. High Streets are lined with interesting little shops with much more diversity than can be found in malls. The restaurants are reasonably priced (generally) and serve fresher and tastier food than similarly priced US restaurants.

Last weekend we visited our family in The Netherlands, with a brief stopover in Brussels, courtesy of Eurostar, the train under the tunnel. We missed a strike of Belgian rail workers by two hours. Yesterday we took a train to Oxford to spend the day with Hilda's cousin. Last night Julia and Abigail slept at our apartment. Tomorrow we are off to a coastal resort in Devon for the weekend. And so it goes.

Life is good.

Golders Green Shopping

2010-10-13T10:59:00.001-05:00

See and download the full gallery on posterous

We went shopping for groceries in Golder's Green this morning.

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I don't often see miracles, but...

2010-08-26T01:18:00.001-05:00

Hilda's old G5 iMac was misbehaving -- badly. It often died when sleeping. (We can only do it once, but computers can be re-booted after death.) It could not connect to the web over a wired Ethernet connection, but worked (sometimes) over WiFi.

So, I decided to start from scratch. Easy decision, given enough time.

I updated the SuperDuper back-up. All of our data files are also up on Dropbox (somewhere in the cloud) so we have at least three copies of everything. I ran an install from the DVD that was shipped with the system, which wiped the internal hard drive. No problem ...

...until it tried to use the 2nd disk. It was unreadable. Install stopped after 30 minutes, with a high-falutin version of "OOPS" as its message. I tried some later versions of OS X - no go - the machine is the last of the G5s - not an Intel processor. So, being of unsound mind, I decided that I could make a copy of Disk 2 on my other iMac. I have an external DVD drive in addition to the one that is built in.

First try -- not enough space on target drive. OK -- what's on the source? Almost nothing except OS 9, says Finder. Do this magic using Terminal :

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

Find all the stuff that is not OS 9 (9 is X-1) and copy it to a new DVD disc. Worked! Used the new DVD to complete the install on the iMac. Worked.

Tried to get on the 'Net. No go. Putzed around with the settings on the 2Wire modem supplied by my ISP - ATT U-verse. No way to get on the 'Net - neither Ethernet not WiFi.

Reset some stuff on the 2Wire modem that was designated as "Don't do this unless you are asked to by tech support." I spoke to myself (what I tend to do at this stage) and asked myself to do it (I am my own tech support). Got online. Went through several update cycles to get current versions of everything. Installed the stuff we really need - Dropbox, Skype, NeoOffice. etc.

Fired up iTunes.

Here is the miracle:

Jacob (my grandchild) is approaching his bar mitzvah. iTunes had his barmitzvah portion and Rabbi Frankel's rendition of the related brachas already set up. Where the @##$$% did it find it? Easy answer - on Dropbox - but who told iTunes it was there? Not me!

More miracles may be reported here.

Unemployment is contagious. Great graphic.

2010-08-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

Someone found my iPhone and connected it to the Internet!

2010-07-14T14:04:00.001-05:00

I received this e-mail:

"The remote wipe of Clive Moss’s iPhone requested at 11:19 PM
on June 24, 2010 began at 11:46 AM on July 12, 2010.

All media, data, and settings are being permanently erased from
Clive Moss’s iPhone. This process may take up to two hours,
depending on your device.
Please note this process cannot be cancelled."

Let us hope that the wipe works!

RIP old iPhone buddy. My new one should arrive next week.

We are all in Jerusalem

2010-06-16T11:28:00.001-05:00

Dinner @ tmol shilshom

2010-06-15T10:51:00.001-05:00

Great food and wifi outdoors in Jerusalem.

Highly recommended.

Monday - In YYZ

2010-06-14T14:19:00.000-05:00

Great Airport. Many power outlets. No free wifi.
An oddity. We had to complete a customs form and go through customs and immigration to connect from an international flight to an international flight without leaving the transit lounge.

Just boarded the Air Canada 767 to Tel Aviv. The seats have power outlets! In coach!

Waiting to leave for Israel

2010-06-14T10:30:00.001-05:00

Will the weather hold or will we miss our connection?

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At A Streetcar Named Desire at Writer's Theater

2010-06-06T18:02:00.001-05:00

Edited with Photogene

---

Clive

Pics: http://Clive.smugmug.com

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Good Morning Chicago

2010-06-06T08:19:00.001-05:00

---
Clive
Pics: http://Clive.smugmug.com

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From the City of Chicago

2010-06-04T18:40:00.002-05:00

We are downtown for a while. Some iPhonetography.

Good times.

Just in case you are tired of watching re-runs...

2010-06-04T17:44:00.000-05:00

Challah

2010-05-28T18:01:00.000-05:00

Before

After

Spring Soup from Cook's Illustrated.

A walk with an iPhone

2010-05-28T14:43:00.001-05:00

Today I went out in the glorious spring weather with nothing but an iPhone. Also, I am posting this entry from the phone - just because. Today's style is old time B&W.

Blogged from my iPhone.

Dog-food is to Dogs as Formula is to Babies

2010-05-23T20:48:00.003-05:00

At about 4:45pm our two dog boarders began to harass me. I call them Mutt and Jeff. According to Wikipedia, Mutt is "a tall, dimwitted ... character." Jeff is "an inmate of an insane asylum." Works for me. Their rightful owners call them Sheba and Bernie.
Anyway, they began to harass me. In total unison. Two months ago these two dogs never agreed on anything. I thought they wanted to go outside and poo or pee or whatever, so I harnessed them up and took them out. One peed, the other did not. Yes, these are details, but kingdoms are lost on details - as in "my kingdom for a horse"
Back inside, they were still restless. I gave them their rations of dog-food, which they downed in seconds. About 180 of them.
They were sated, and stopped harassing me, but were clearly not satisfied.
It occurred to me that dog-food is to dogs as formula is to babies. It will keep them alive, but not living.
I know nothing about this subject, so I took the course of the ignorant. Google.
The first article looked promising. It said:

The best food for your dog is . . .

Fresh food. Fresh chicken, turkey, beef, bison, venison, and fish. Fresh raw vegetables and occasional fruit. Fresh brown rice and oatmeal. Fresh yogurt, eggs, and cottage cheese.

This is not "people food." Calling real food "people food" makes it sound as though people are the only living creatures who are entitled to eat fresh foods, and that simply isn't true.

Virtually all living creatures thrive on real, fresh food.

Just sayin'

Walking with Camera, iPhone and Dogs

2010-05-23T11:26:00.001-05:00

I usually walk alone, with a camera and iPhone (or iPod or other MP3 player).

We are taking care of a small white Havanese and a large apricot Standard Poodle,

I almost always listen to a podcast and take pictures of whatever attracts my interest. I happily get exercise and learn something while observing the real world - or at least what passes for the real world in the suburbs. Body, mind and soul are all maintained.

Adding dogs to the group complicates the activity. Two dogs and a human result in three different opinions of which direction to go and where to stop and roll in the grass or do whatever else needs to be done. The dogs rarely want to stop to take a picture; I rarely want to stop and poop. The dogs move my hand whenever I want to take a picture; I stop them from rolling in whatever dogs want to roil in. Doggy-bag activity is not one of the higher callings of human endeavor. (I think this could help.)

My blogs entries are mostly pictures with few words - to the point that I often omit captions. Todays podcast ( a discussion of "Creative Nonfiction"} made me re-think. More words may communicate better - and force me to develop a new skill. I have always been an awkward and slow writer. My thoughts rush in parallel - writing demand a linear sequence. It is hard to make parallel lines of thought flow in the logical line that writing demands. Thinking linearly is hard.

Maybe a class in writing could help. Maybe parallel columns could help.

Or not.

This Week's walk

2010-05-22T13:58:00.001-05:00

Not much walking this week - Shavuot and Showers intruded.A few from the Botanic Garden:

A walk in the woods

This statue of Linnaeus always looks ugly to me

A beaver collecting nest material

Japanese Garden

Shavuot, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Wikis

2010-05-18T17:59:00.000-05:00

Shavuot is the most unobserved of Jewish Holidays except by the fully observant Orthodox communities.

For an overview of the holiday, read this

Shavuot in its modern form commemorates the giving of the law to the Jewish people at Sinai. It occurs to me that the form of the "giving' fits very well with the social media of today.

The Ten Commandments (or really, utterances) were given out over Twitter. Concise, clear, no BS.

For forty days, Moses heard the law from G-d, and and put it on Facebook, hoping that the Jewish people would friend him.

Moses started a blog which was ultimately redacted as the Torah - the five books of Moses.

The Tannaim started their own blogs (bloggim?). They blogged a lot but some smart guy decided that something like a Wiki was needed, so the Tannaim built their version of Wikipedia called the Mishnah.

Unfortunately, their discussion pages were lost, so we are stuck with the Mishnah.

But the bloggers of the day were not content. For several centuries they blogged about the Mishnah and people commented on the blogs until a huge body of unorganized halachah and midrash floated around the blogosphere.

Around 500 CE the folk in Babylon and Jerusalem decided that yet another Wikipedia was needed and they each did their own - the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud.

So we now have two Wikipedias (Talmuds, Talmudim) - Babylonian and Jerusalem.

Since then we have had multiple cycles of blogging, commenting, and redaction. The process carries on.

We analyze, comment, complain, contradict. We try to make sense of life, but we give up and live anyway.

The social media of today are new in technology - not in fundamentals. We, the Jewish people, have always lived that way.

I am back from London

2010-05-18T00:04:00.006-05:00

We had a great week in London. Lisa and the family have a wonderful temporary home in Hampstead -- we really enjoyed being with the family and living a London suburban life for a week. Very different from our past visits to London which were either frenetic touring to see all the "sights" or business trips of days and nights in offices and meetings.
The need to "see things" has passed - we can now simply be there and enjoy the life of a great city.
My favorite images of the week (non family snaps) are these:

Black Hat at Lunch in Golder's Green

Couple on Finchley Road

Shoes found on Sidewalk

Underground

Monday London Walk

2010-05-10T14:32:00.000-05:00

After a stroll through Regent's Park we bussed and walked around London with Lisa as she shopped for food for the week.

We had lunch at a Kosher Indian Restaurant in Golders Green.

Friday Walk

2010-05-07T16:05:00.000-05:00

Cloudy, overcast, distant thunder, lots of packing, etc, so it was a short walk around town to two banks and the library with my iPhone.

Thursday. No walk. Art.

2010-05-07T10:35:00.000-05:00

I attended my water painting class, with the following result

No walk -- it was cold.

Wednesday Walk

2010-05-07T10:34:00.000-05:00

We drove to the city for the afternoon. Even downtown looks Springy.
This is my favorite shot of the day:

Others:

Tuesday Walk

2010-05-05T10:20:00.000-05:00

Another warm day. I headed West to US-41, followed the bike path down to Deerfield Road, across the pedestrian bridge back to Central Ave, and then home. Odd mix of pretty spring views and ugly power lines.

An older house in our neighbourhood. Odd lack of windows - an added bathroom?

Sunset Woods

This door has not been opened in a while

Power, Telephone, Highway, and Cell Phone Tower - 100 years of progress

Over the Highway

The end!

Monday walk

2010-05-03T17:08:00.000-05:00

Saturday - no walk - just a snooze:-)
Sunday - Walk for Israel - too many people - no pictures :-(

Monday - beautiful spring day, so Hilda and I took off along the Greenbay Trail.

I love these trees - but I have no idea what they are called. There are many of them around us.

These pretty yellow flowers will soon become dandelions with fluff all over the place.

The Greenbay Trail is always pretty...

...the train lines - not so much

Botanic Gardens - Friday Walk

2010-04-30T15:52:00.003-05:00

Today I went to the Botanic Gardens for my walk. Lots of good stuff in bloom.

Natural prairie around Chicago is hard to find. When found, it usually looks like an unkempt mess of weeds. I guess that is why it is hard to find.

The gardens were full of people enjoying the heat. April in Chicago has been unusual - it started and ended with temperatures near the 80s.

This bridge is one of my favorites. The view from it is best captured by a wide angle lens - today, I could not go wide enough.

Who needs a garden at home?

Little lost flower.

This picture is for Julia.

Grass with a bad case of eruptions.

A walk in the Chicago spring

2010-04-29T22:45:00.001-05:00

Spring in the mid-west is very strange - unless you grew up here, in which case it is what you always thought it was. Yesterday it was cold and breezy (at least it felt cold).
Today it was breezy, but in the high 70s. That's mid 20s in the rest of the world.
I crossed the street and found these flowers.

These would be called weeds in some parts of the world, and maybe tea in others. They are dandelions.

Our local city hall in Highland Park, Illinois - the place where the government intrudes on the freedom of the individual, according to the tea-party movement. Some of them probably drink or smoke dandelions.

I went for a stroll on the beach. I found myself between here

and here

wondering why a person of my age is jumping across rocks holding a camera.

I guess it is because I like seeing my footsteps in the sand.

At the end of my beach walk, I came to the scene that I can never believe is in a suburb in the mid-west.
It is always worth the sweat, and rock jumping. Of course I could always come at it from the other direction - but that would break the drama.

Alzheimer's, Memories, the Afterlife, and the Internet

2010-04-23T14:51:00.000-05:00

This week our Melton class discussed Jewish concepts of the afterlife. On my walk today, I listened to a discussion of Ahlzeimer's disease. Part of the discussion covered a group of Alzheimers's patients who were encouraged to write down their memories - which would subsequently be forgotten.

This coincidence led me to think about the meaning of being alive, and what an afterlife is or could be. The concept of what life is is critical to understanding of an afterlife. In order to talk about living on after death, we should be clear on what we mean by living.

There are two aspects to living - an inner-life, and a life as experienced by others. Regarding the inner-life - I have no expectation that it will continue after death any more than the physical body will remain intact. It will be gone.

The echoes that a life leaves in the world, however, continue forever.

There is a trite sense in which this is true - the mere act of living and eating changes the universe an irreversibly. Having children multiplies theses changes, but not in any fundamentally way.

Living is more than the inner life of thought and feeling. To the extent that one does not communicate thought and feeling to others - to interact with and change others and be changed in response - there is no life in the highest sense of the word. We call microbes and plants "living" - but only in a cold, biological sense. We reserve the term "living" in the higher sense for entities that communicate with us - that share their inner lives with us. We revere the life of those entities that most communicate with us and give the semblance of understanding us - dogs, cats, and primates for example. We squash insects underfoot with barely a second thought.

So, by "living" I mean "exchanging thought and feelings with others."

A thought or feeling or memory that is not communicated dies instantly. It is as though it was never thought. If a person does not communicate any thoughts or feelings at all, that person is as good as dead for all practical purposes. As an aside, it is around this idea that the controversy both about the "Right to Life" and the point at which life ends revolves. When an infant in the womb kicks its mother, life has begun. When near the end of life, the mere fluttering of an eyelid is taken as communication, and terminating the life is called murder. When no communication is possible - the controversy begins.

One's life continues as long as thoughts and feelings that create a response in the person receiving the communication continue. It does not matter that one's body has long since decayed.

Blogs, Tweets, and the like live on after the death of the Blogger or Tweeter. To the extent that people read the posts, respond to them and are moved by them, it is as if the original poster is still alive. To the extent that they engender new conversations, it is as if the originator of the thought is still living.

I blog, therefore I am immortal.

I tweet, therefore I am immortal.

Comment on my blogs, Retweet my Tweets, and you keep me alive.

Start your own blog, start tweeting, and start your afterlife.

I don't believe these thoughts are necessarily original - but this is not an academic thesis, nor a peer reviewed paper. I don't even know if anyone else will read them. It does not matter.

This is the start of my conversation with my own afterlife.

Fox News is News?

2010-04-20T22:22:00.000-05:00

If you watch Fox News and you think you are getting news, not propaganda, you are a little confused.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

A Farewell to Arms

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Last night we saw "Moses in Egypt" - an opera by Rossini produced by the Chicago Opera Theater

2010-04-18T17:20:00.001-05:00

Spoiler Alert - if you don't want to know the real reason Pharaoh kept changing his mid, stop reading here.
Otherwise, I will spill the beans. The reason is
FANFARE
The Pharaoh's son was romantically entangled with a young Hebrew girl. Every time Pharaoh decided to let the Hebrews leave, the Prince intervened and made Pharaoh change his mind so he could keep his affair going.
So now you know.

The whole shady deal was discovered when Moses and the Pharaoh's wife stumbled on the loving couple in a hide-away. What is left undiscussed is the question of what Moses and the Queen of Eqypt were doing together in a hidden place!

The set was in the usual minimalist style of the COT. The set and did not work very well, and the staging was a little stilted - set pieces of the chorus, mostly. Overall, not one of Rossini's best, but the COT does a valuable job in producing less well known works.

For an informed review of the performance, see Lawrence Johnson's review

Prodigy->Gopher->Mosaic->Netscape->IE->Opera->Firefox->Safari->Chrome->Firefox

2010-04-15T21:35:00.000-05:00

Being a masochist, I recently started switching over to Google's Chrome browser. I switch often.
Why? I tried new browsers out of curiosity and if something grabs me, I switch for a while.

I noticed that it only had one "box" which replaces the two boxes on other browsers. Gimmick, I thought.
Turns out it is very useful. It is an all purpose search box. As I start typing, it drops down suggestions from several sources:

A Google search for whatever you enter
URLs containing your string
Common searches starting with whatever you have just entered
Your bookmarks containing that string
An offer to search the pages in your history containing that string

This is amazingly useful.

However, I Have just switched back to Firefox.
Why? Firstly - my password manager does not yet work with Chrome. It's a pain.
Secondly, the ecology of add-ons for Chrome is much less well develped.
And turdly, some websites do not play nicely with Chrome.

Poor Chrome - its tough being the new kid on the block.

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing - George Orwell - 1946

2010-04-14T01:56:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, nothing has changed since 1946, when Orwell thunk this thought and wrote these words.

In 2010, replace the word "writing" with "speechifying", we have:

Palin and the lunatics of Fox radio and TV for whom writing is anathema, and literacy is a signifier of the liberal elite.
Moslem fundamentalists who want to impose shariah law on civil society
Christian fundamentalists who interpret the Torah literally (but only in the often inaccurate but elegant King James Version), except when they want to eat pork, or a cheeseburger, or when it is otherwise inconvenient, and want to impose their inconsistent vision on American society

This motley collection of lunatics and their Republican fellow travelers in the USA and their allies or opponents in other countries, have managed to make both "liberal" and "elite" negative terms.

Liberal:

S: (adj) liberal (having political or social views favoring reform and progress)
S: (adj) liberal (tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition)

Elite:

S: (adj) elect, elite (selected as the best)

For all of them, "liberal elite" appears to be a bad thing - they are against reform and progress, intolerant of change, and bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, and tradition, and not do not wish to become one of the best. This is the mantra of the self-styled "Libertarian" and "Conservative" movements - American, Christian, and Muslim.

As an American by choice, I hope that the spirit of America can prevail against all of these lunacies.

To break into political writing - GMAFB.

Julia in London over Skype

2010-04-13T13:25:00.001-05:00

From MacBook to MacBook to iPhone to Blogger.

Welcome Back, Jura

2010-04-13T10:22:00.000-05:00

After over 5000 cups of coffee our coffee maker ground to a halt. Off it went to the manufacturer for refurbishment, and it came back today - just eight days after we UPSed it to them in NJ.

Spring at the Botanic Gardens

2010-04-11T22:11:00.000-05:00

Abigail (on left) contemplates the move to London

2010-04-11T22:07:00.000-05:00

Test from blogpress

2010-04-11T16:24:00.000-05:00

Spring

Julia says goodbye to Sheba

2010-04-11T15:29:00.000-05:00

I lost some images this morning...

2010-04-11T12:31:00.002-05:00

... But fortunately I had backups. All is well again.

Blog and Counterblog

2010-04-10T08:31:00.001-05:00

Lisa, Andy, Jacob, Julia and Abigail are leaving for London tonight. We expect that they will live there until the end of this year. Lisa is an outstanding writer (she should be, after a journalism degree and a stint as a crime reporter in Rockport.) She has started a blog of her journey. This has shamed me into restarting my blog in earnest. Recently I have neglected my blog in favor of short Facebook status updates and even shorter Tweets.

Tonight we take Lisa et al to the airport.

I well remember the mix of excited anticipation and fear that we experienced when we first brought the family to the Poughkeepsie from South Africa almost forty years ago, when we moved to Chicago three years later, when we moved to Japan two years later for a year, when Hilda and I moved to Boston in 1990, and when we retired back to Chicago on 2003.

With each move, the level of excitement went down, and the level of fear went up - but the excitement always outweighed the fear.

Lisa's blog can be found at http://bokorelo.blogspot.com/

Challah for tonight - my first six-braid

2010-03-05T17:30:00.001-06:00

Dinner at Gaylord India

2010-03-03T21:29:00.001-06:00

Great Indian food, now on Walton St. just West of Michigan Ave. Highly recommended.

- Posted from my iPhone

I have not blogged much lately...

2010-03-03T17:50:00.001-06:00

...because I have been posting on Facebook.

- Posted from my iPhone

Why our Health Care Ssystem needs to be fixed

2010-01-16T18:25:00.002-06:00

We spend more more money than any other nation on healthcare and do not get what we pay for. The health care system needs major reform. The current bill does not go far enough, but it is better than nothing. Click on the chart below to see the details.

The Republican effort to block the bill is tantamount to treason in the name of political expediency.

They want to F the country in order to gain political advantage. Shame on them.

If they mange to win the Mass senate seat, and try to filibuster the bill to death, we should just let them do it. No business will occur in the Senate until they stop, which will be a good thing, anyway.
From Wikipedia:
"A filibuster can be defeated by the governing party if they leave the debated issue on the agenda indefinitely, without adding anything else. Indeed, Strom Thurmond's own attempt to filibuster the Civil Rights Act was defeated when Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield refused to refer any further business to the Senate, which required the filibuster to be kept up indefinitely. Instead, the opponents were all given a chance to speak, and the matter eventually was forced to a vote."

It is notable that that major filibusters were mostly trying to block civil rights legislation.

Motto for Republicans:
I've got mine - up yours!

Rush Limbaugh and Pat Robertson being called out for their BS

2010-01-14T12:14:00.000-06:00

A snow day in the city

2010-01-08T16:59:00.034-06:00

Thursday night we were scheduled to go to a concert the the CSO - Pierre Boulez conducting. The weather forecast was for double digits of snow. We did not want to miss the concert, so we decided to go downtown the night before the snow started to avoid the long commute and the possibility of getting stuck or sliding off the road. Whimpy, I know.

Next morning we were greeted with some snow - but not a lot. We decided to go to the Art Institute to spend the day, and go to the concert across the road in the evening.
Click to see the AIC pictures.
The concert was marvelous - Pierre Boulez at 85 was spry and active, and conducted a strong performance of "Bluebeard's Castle" by Bartok. Michelle DeYoung, mezzo-soprano and
Falk Struckmann, bass-baritone take their bows.

We had a great day.

Julia dances at the United Center

2010-01-03T21:12:00.001-06:00

Julia danced at the United Center, and we watched a basketball game.

Up in the Air

2010-01-03T17:53:00.000-06:00

We just watched "Up in the Air" - a result of my New Years Resolution not to resist going to movies. Quite a well made film - I enjoyed it. An accurate depiction of the road warrior lifestyle. Made me nostalgic for my life in the '80s as a management consultant. I did not have his job of delivering the message - but I was often in the position of helping draw up the lists of who was to go. Not always fun.

The protagonist had a target of 10 million miles on American. I only made 1 million (permanent Gold status), but I spread my miles over several airlines. I have over million across the rest :-(

Disclaimer:
I never had a fling - ever - I had reports to write. He could do his job, and then be free at night. I had co-workers and clients who were with me - almost always. Poor me :-(

More snow headed this way; arctic blast to hit New Year's Eve

2009-12-30T19:45:00.001-06:00

From our local weather forecaster:
More snow headed this way; arctic blast to hit New Year's Eve: "Tuesday's brief respite from the clouds and snow, dominate meteorological features of December 2009, is coming to an end. Area residents reveled in Chicago's sunniest weather of the past 13 days Tuesday. The day hosted 88 percent of its possible sunshine and managed a 24-degree high. But the thickening, wintry-gray cloud deck under development as Wednesday gets underway is to begin producing snow by late morning or early afternoon--snow which is likely to continue in periods through Wednesday night. Computer snowfall estimates for the Chicago come in at half an inch to an inch and a half. But another technique employed by forecasters to estimate possible snowfall is less conservative, generating amounts by daybreak Thursday (New Year's Day) closer to 4 to 5 inches.

This method---the B.J. Cook Technique---looks at the degree to which temperatures warm high in atmosphere at 39,000 ft. and relates that warming to snowfall. Studies have found that peak snowfall at ground level often ends up equaling half the temperature increase more than 7 miles above the ground. That rising temperatures aloft can be related to snowfall intensity makes sense when you think about. Disturbances in the atmosphere produce precipitation by encouraging moist air to rise and saturate, producing rain or snow and clouds. Rising air transports warmer temperatures aloft. Therefore, the AMOUNT of warming aloft offer a means of gauging just how vigorously air is rising which, in turn affect the intensity with which precipitation falls. The stronger the updrafts, the greater the amount of moisture which rushes into an area and, therefore, the higher the amount of that moisture which precipitates out as rain or snow.

A 'wall' of frigid arctic air hits toward News years Eve (Thursday evening)

A blast of frigid arctic air is the next weather challenge facing Chicagoans this week. While high temperatures are likely to hover around 30-degrees Thursday afternoon, the leading edge of bitterly cold air is to ride gusty northwest winds into the area toward New Year's Eve. From that point forward, temperatures are expected to dive. Single digits are likely Friday (New Year's Day) with the day's temperature recovery only resulting in highs in the teens. Nighttime lows in single digits or sub-zero are predicted Friday and Saturday nights. Days of northwest winds across Lake Michigan are likely to ignite waves of lake snow which may---between Friday and night and next Tuesday---produce heavy accumulations in excess of a foot in a number of locations.

The chill is Florida-bound

The frigid outbreak is to plunge into the Southeast and out over the Gulf of Mexico and into the Caribbean. Freezing nighttime readings are likely to reach sections of north and central Florida this weekend. The cold's intensity is likely to wane once in contact with the warm ocean waters to the south of Florida--but it is likely to shift winds as far south as Cuba, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and even Jamaica to the northeast over the weekend and into next week.
"

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

2009-12-16T17:13:00.000-06:00

I fell behind in posting my watercolors. Here are the recent ones.

My home setup for watercolor

2009-12-16T14:38:00.000-06:00

The current semester of my watercolor class ended on Monday. I had an unfinished painting, and the next class does not start until January, so I got my home setup fixed and ready to go, and finished the work. I am happy.

It's finally up

2009-12-15T14:36:00.001-06:00

After months, we have our old chandelier fixed.

- Posted from my iPhone

Hanging our fixed chandelier

2009-12-15T13:27:00.001-06:00

Our chandelier broke loose a few months ago. We have had it fixed, and it is being hung.

Posted via web from chmoss's posterous

American Buffalo

2009-12-13T09:38:00.000-06:00

We went to see "American Buffalo" at Steppenwolf Theater last night. Wonderful cast, tense, hyperactive performance. Highly recommended.

A Couple of Days in the City

2009-12-11T16:02:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday we went downtown to see the operetta "The Merry Widow". What makes it operetta, not opera? I guess its because nobody dies at the end.

We slept downdown, and were awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of sirens and helicopters. Not unusual in Streeterville - Northwestern Medical School Hospital is there, and ambulances come and go all the time.
This time, it was a fire in the building across the street!

A dozen people were injured, and one person died, I learned from the newspaper the next day.

After sleeping late, we went to Symphony twice - a rehearsal in the morning followed by the performance in the evening. An odd mix of music - the conductor was Nicholas Kraemer, who also played the harpsichord. The first three works were very enjoyable:

Mozart - Divertimento in D Major
Haydn - Symphony No. 88
Telemann - Selections from Tafelmusik
Strauss - Metamorphosen

The final work was Strauss’ elegiac Metamorphosen, an intimate work for 23 solo strings. Very somber, sad music.

Winter in Chicago

2009-12-09T13:17:00.001-06:00

It's here. It's cold. It's dreary. It's winter.