IMG_2347, originally uploaded by jessamyn.
Bye Bye Demolition Derby
TUNBRIDGE, Vermont — Another one of those rowdy traditions at the Tunbridge World’s Fair has disappeared. The demolition derby, a longtime Sunday afternoon feature, has been cancelled because of declining interest and increasing costs according to Tunbridge Fair President Euclid Farnham. The four-day fair opens today. Farnham said Wednesday the high costs of liability insurance was a big factor in the decision to eliminate the crash-and-bang ’em event, which was held on the track in front of the grandstand. Farnham said last year the demolition derby could have accommodated 100 cars and drivers, but only 63 cars were entered. He said fewer and fewer cars had been brought to the fair for their final hours in hopes of a prize in recent years. It’s the economy, Farnham said.
Source: The Rutland Herald
Coast Guard Cutter Bibb
Bibb – silhouette, originally uploaded by USCGC_BIBB.
My father Harold served on the Coast Guard Cutter Bibb in the Atlantic and Pacific in World War II. The Coast Guard was part of the Navy in WWII. The Bibb was built in the Charleston Navy Yard, Charleston, South Carolina. Her keel was laid on August 13, 1935, she was launched on January 14, 1937, and commissioned on March 10, 1937 as the George M. Bibb after the Secretary of the Treasury under President Tyler. She was 327 feet long, had a 41-foot beam and displaced 2,658 tons.
Lotus Flower: Symbol of Rebirth
Hurricane Katrina Stabilization and Recovery
Source: Taxpayers for Common Sense Link: http://www.taxpayer.net/
Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) is a 100 year old global engineering, technology, and construction services company working in the hydrocarbon and chemical industries and employing 60,000 people. It is also the engineering and construction arm of the oil services giant Halliburton. The firm is split in two divisions: Government and Infrastructure, which accounts for about three-fourths of sales, and Energy & Chemicals. KBR has a 60 year history of working for the military and governments around the world on a plethora of projects. KBR’s recent work in Iraq has been the focus of scrutiny and investigations, landing two of its employees in prison.
Source: KBR Website and www.hoovers.com
These are details of the Hurricane Katrina related contracts awarded to KBR (as of December 2005 on the TCS website): Continue reading “Hurricane Katrina Stabilization and Recovery”
Habitat for Humanity Builds Musician’s Village in New Orleans
Source: The Habitat for Humanity website
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced many musicians to flee New Orleans. Jazz, blues, and other genres that are the city’s musical score, cannot return until the musicians return, and many have lost their homes.Habitat for Humanity International and New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity, working with Harry Connick Jr., and Branford Marsalis, honorary chairs of Operation Home Delivery, seek to change this. Plans were announced Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2005 for a “Musicians’ Village.” Operation Home Delivery is Habitat for Humanity International’s hurricane rebuilding program and this Musicians’ Village is one of the many projects along the Gulf Coast.
The Musicians’ Village, conceived by Connick and Marsalis, will consist of 81 Habitat-constructed homes for displaced New Orleans musicians. Its centerpiece will be the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, dedicated to the education and development of homeowners and others who will live nearby. On January 9, 2006 we acquired eight acres of land in the Upper 9th Ward where the Musicians’ Village will be located. In addition to the homes in the tract, plans call for building at least 150 other homes in the surrounding neighborhood. Construction may begin as early as March, marking the first large scale rebuilding plans in New Orleans.
History of Humanistic Psychology
From the website of the Association for Humanistic Psychology
Throughout history many individuals and groups have affirmed the inherent value and dignity of human beings. They have spoken out against ideologies, beliefs and practices which held people to be merely the means for accomplishing economic and political ends. They have reminded their contemporaries that the purpose of institutions is to serve and advance the freedom and power of their members. In Western civilization we honor the times and places, such as Classical Greece and Europe of the Renaissance, when such affirmations were expressed.
Humanistic Psychology is a contemporary manifestation of that ongoing commitment. Its message is a response to the denigration of the human spirit that has so often been implied in the image of the person drawn by behavioral and social sciences.
During the first half of the twentieth century, American psychology was dominated by two schools of thought: behaviorism and psychoanalysis. Neither fully acknowledged the possibility of studying values, intentions and meaning as elements in conscious existence. Although various European perspectives such as phenomenology had some limited influence, on the whole mainstream American psychology had been captured by the mechanistic beliefs of behaviorism and by the biological reductionism and determinism of classical psychoanalysis.Continue reading “History of Humanistic Psychology”
EYE ON THE WHITE HOUSE
Rebuilding New Orleans or What?
This is from John McQuaid on the Huffington Post 9/14/06
The other week on his HBO show, Bill Maher commented on the halting pace of the New Orleans recovery, bluntly wondering: “Why can’t America get it up anymore?”
It’s a good question, one nobody has adequately answered. To put it another way: How is it that in an age of interconnectedness, the U.S. political system, and the broader American community, cannot get behind the project of rebuilding and protecting a ruined American city?
(Not to mention that the destruction occurred in large part because of manmade mistakes – engineering errors and policy failures with implications for the entire nation.)Continue reading “Rebuilding New Orleans or What?”
Renaissance 