ICEBERG

A giant ice island broke off the Petermann Glacier three weeks ago. Seriously worrisome headlines have been appearing ever since.



Four times the size of Manhattan? The island of Manhattan is 13.4 miles long and 2.3 miles wide? FOUR times the size is 53 miles long, 9.2 miles wide.

Nothing that large has broken off from the glaciers in fifty years.

Right now it's threatening the shipping lanes in the North Atlantic and the state of Washington. The melting ice below the surface of this monster is raising the level of the water.

What should we do? What can we do?

Engineers in Washington state want to anchor tow-ropes. They say they can drill holes, attach anchors, attach ropes -- tow ships can exert a 50 ton pull and pull the iceberg off its course.

Canadian engineers say they can release a huge volume of bubbles under the edge of the iceberg until the bubbles lift the edge, and then the iceberg will begin to move.

Gee, golly -- even if it moves, it's still there, melting, threatening the area, and if another slab, another island breaks off another glacier ...?

And some people are still wondering, asking, debating whether or not there's global warming?

What further proof do we need than this iceberg, and the killer heat and smog in Russia, the fires, that have been driving residents from Moscow and destroying Russia's wheat crop -- the fifth of Pakistan that's underwater -- the millions of people devastated by floods in Asia -- the heat wave that's been broiling Mexico and the east coast of the U.S.?

Is the Petermann iceberg a warning from God and Mother Nature that's telling us it's time to build the ark?

The world is our ark. If we want our world to survive we have to stop everything that we've been doing that's warming the globe.

AFRICA

What's been happening in the continent of Africa is a nightmare. I picked this picture of a boy holding an apple because kids are hungry and "Apple" is providing jobs for many Africans. Apple's success is being touted in the media, inspiring questions and comments about why the White House can't do better for our country's unemployed.

Anyhow, in Africa -- oh my -- there's been a blur of unsolved problems, serious troubles, crimes in South Africa and other names and places on the African continent that I've heard of, but haven't been sure where they are -- so here's a map ----->

In Nigeria -- oil spills caused by Shell, Exxon-Mobil, BP, Chevron -- disease, filth, poisoned drinking water -- no one to talk to/write/call for help -- a black tide -- since the fifties -- a thick, gooey oil stain oozing over vast tracts of land and poisoning the air for millions of Africans --13 million barrels of oil --7,000 "spills," between 1970 and 2000 -- locals with sore eyes, breathing problems, skin lesions -- 2,000 oil-polluted sites have never been fixed or cleaned up.

In the Congo --many of the bad guys are the good guys at Apple, AT&T, HP the major electronics companies that manufacture laptops, music players, cameras, phones. Yes, the CEO's of these big companies swear they've got papers to prove that they don't buy "blood diamonds" -- minerals, raw metals that financed civil wars, militia atrocities in the Congo, where miners were coerced, for a pittance ($1 to $5 a day), to dig for metals that component manufacturers converted into capacitors and circuit boards.

"Oh no," say the good guys -- “All of our suppliers certify in writing that they use conflict-free materials. And we pay our employees in Africa, in comfortable clean workshops, with breaks and snacks, what everyone pays — if we didn't, we would be damaging the livelihoods of other businesses."

So is Apple paying employees $1 to $5 a day? Even if they're paying a bit more, with no health care, or social security, no wonder they're doing a lot of hiring in South Africa.

I haven't heard that anyone is pursuing this issue -- other shocking events in Africa have pushed extreme poverty, and possibly greedy employers out of the headlines.

In the Congo last week, there was sheer horror. The perpetrators of Rwandan genocide, and their pals, returned to punish the Hutu. Systematically, in groups of two to six men, they raped two-hundred women and young boys -- a four-year-old, and babies who were one-month, six-months, a year-and-eighteen months old -- gang raped them repeatedly in front of other members of their families.

Chopping off their heads might have been more merciful.

And what's happening in Africa, here, there, in too many places for me to specify, is NOT stopped, NOT noticed, NOT prevented. I want to cover my eyes, and not read what I've read. I want to shout at the electronic kingpins -- don't make any electronic stuff, don't import anything from Africa -- but gee, it's work for unemployed Africans who are trying to feed their kids, like the kid with the apple.

I'm shouting at myself -- stop writing this post -- what can you possibly gain? The oil spills, won't get fixed. The abusive treatment of the farmlands and homes and the lives of these people will continue.

So, I'm passing the details on to you, so you can help me figure out what to do. Does it mean don't buy Apple AT&T, HP, Shell, Mobil-Exxon, Chevron, or anything BP sells? Does it mean while we are seeing BP's constant, beautifully made ads that are telling us how well they are handling our problems, they are obscuring and bending, and re-shaping realty?

I am saying -- don't believe the ads -- believe the nightmare! And keep your wits about you as you're thinking about what's wrong with our country and what you can do to help fix it.

SHAKESPEARE ( video)

Emily Frankel surprises John Cullum -- out of the blue, she asks him to talk about the "writer guy" who also lives in their house -- William Shakespeare.

Aside from the "Beethoven" John, who writes music and lyrics, there's another John Cullum who knows and collects different versions of everything Shakespeare wrote -- scripts, different adaptations, a couple of editions of the Complete Works of Shakespeare, editions of Shakespeare Variorum -- they're on shelves in every room in their house, upstairs and downstairs.

That John loves Shakespeare delights Emily, as she gets her husband onto one of his most favorite subjects.

EM' S GALLERY

You've had a look at my home, but you haven't seen the hallways.

The hallways, between our third floor offices and studio theater are where I've hung some of my paintings.

A Boston gallery owner who came to dinner here looked at them and said, "Hmm" un-enthusiastically, but he raved about my cooking.

Brace yourself -- have a look at my "Art Gallery."

SUMMER SONGS

Popular summer songs --
have you heard them?


I didn't plan to write about summer songs. but this picture in Time Magazine kept catching my eye -- the colors -- the cartoonish style. The credit says it's by "Love Dust." I found myself wondering what makes a pop hit worth turning the volume up, and driving along with the windows rolled down? According to movies I've seen, that's what people do, though it's not something I've ever done or will ever do, even with classical music that I love -- I don't like to inflict my music on passersby the way people with boom boxes did for years.

So here I am -- I've borrowed opinions and photos about the summer's top hits from Time Magazine's Website.
(#1) "Alejandro" -- Lady Gaga.
The review said, "If you like the spoken-word intros performed in terrible European accents, then this is the tune for you. But as catchy as this Ace of Base-esque radio hit is, it's also pretty depressing ... about broken hearts and forbidden love -- hardly the stuff of beach trips and suntans. And the bleak video, in which a pallid Gaga storms around in underwear and a PVC nun's habit, would be more appropriate in the dead of winter. Who's Alejandro, anyway?"

I agree -- I didn't love it -- I tried to like it but didn't enjoy it at all.

#2 California Gurls -- Katy Perry,
plus Snoop Dogg,
singing
"The girl's a freak/she drives a jeep ..."


The most outstanding moment was Katy Perry in a bra.
Yes, she was
definitely '
outstanding
while squirting
whipped cream
from her boobs.

The lyrics -- freak/jeep -- are not thrilling. The choreography was good. The dancers were raunchy. The costumes punctuated private parts in a Gaga gimmicky way, but not as innovatively. Even so, it was fun to watch.

Airplanes B.O.B -- plus Haley Williams.
It was described as "Southern Hip Hop, a tune
that could be the angstiest hit of the summer ...
the chorus about watching for shooting stars,
makes it an ideal excuse for
stargazing make-outs."

It made me sleepy.

"I like it" -- Enrique Iglesias
"He is good-looking, and ridiculously peppy,
in the kind of tune that gets played
at baseball games, as people
watch themselves dance
on the Jumbotron. It promotes
infidelity and its chorus is
just repetitive enough to get stuck
in your head for weeks."

It was okay. I don't remember the tune.

The other summer hits were by Drunk Girls, Tangerine, Waka Waka, Sprawl II, Rill Kill. If you've got a favorite, please let me know -- I'm trying to get educated, while ... um ... keeping my blog readers, young and old, more or less up-to-date with what's going on in our world.

I have to say, the summer songs were rather interesting, exciting, but it's not music that makes me feel like dancing. But that picture by "Love Dust" -- that's interesting and exciting and makes me feel like choreographing.

DIGITAL DIRT

Do you have any secret, private stuff in your background that you don't want revealed? A police report? Were you ever arrested?

What about your credit report? Were you ever fired from a job? Have you ever fudged your birth date? Was it on your Facebook profile? Was there a different date on another social networking Website?

Well, it's "Digital Dirt." There are ways you can fix it!

Can really bad stuff be fixed -- like a resume that mentions stuff you never did, jobs you didn't really have, courses you didn't take?

Don't worry. You can hire someone to erase, kill -- lies, ugly pictures, fake college credits, even personal measurements -- you posted.

"Reputation Management" is a booming business. Check it out online. You'll find different types of fixers.

"Personal branding strategists" are the most expensive -- a strategist might charge $2,000 to $10,000 for services. They are specially trained as well as certified. They guarantee you, "Your digital footprints can be fixed."

Another fixer is ReputationDefender. com. It was founded four years ago by Michael Fertik, thirty-one, a Harvard Law School graduate, who didn’t like the way young people’s online behavior could be permanently recorded on the Internet, and haunt them later.

The cost for Reputation Defender is much more reasonable -- between $10 a month and $1,000 a year.

Fertik's company (staff of 110), stuffs positive "factual’’ or “neutral news" into various search engines. They stuff in multiple profile pages, so that when your name is searched, the searcher will find a lot more information and different details.

When different details are repeated a few times, the person checking on you will go with the more frequently mentioned information. The stuffing strategy gets your newest, current "good" information onto the first page of the search engine, like Google, and according Fertik, most people "don't look beyond the first or second page."

Ferik said, “Good stuff pushes the negative stuff to the bottom."

Reputation Defender, with clients in 100 countries, says most of its clients are everyday professionals -- from teachers and lawyers to business executives and journalists. Fertik sets his own standards and won’t accept clients who have been convicted of a sexual crime against a child or a violent felony.

Fertig suggested if you're job hunting, raising money for a project, or applying for a grant -- Google yourself. If you find anything negative -- it could be something you posted years ago, or was put into cyberspace by someone who doesn't like you, even a perfect stranger -- pay attention.

"Fix it, do it right away!" is what Fertik advised.

It's what Reputation Defender or a personal branding specialist can handle for you, quickly and thoroughly, so that it won't come back and haunt you later.

If, on the other hand, you are hiring -- well, you can "do unto others what you'd don't want done unto you" -- check them out. Follow up on the references they've given you, and learn from what the head of Reputation Defenders said: Look at page one and two, and then thoroughly study the third, and forth pages, even a fifth page if you find it.

Do what the Pilgrim lady
is doing in this picture.
Pick up the shovel,
and dig for the dirt.

VIAGRA

I came across a Viagra centerfold, in Time Magazine -- yes a centerfold -- a handsome, extra thick, double-page, full-color advertisement.

I tore it out, annoyed by it. I don't want to see it every time I open my magazine.

And I'm offended by those erectile dysfunction ads that start in the morning, and continue throughout every day, every evening -- the tender quietly smiling couple, not young, but not old, and the nice guy with a nice voice selling us the usual promises with the usual IF's and WHEN's to call your doctor.

C'mon, I tell myself -- ads are the price you pay for watching television -- you can turn off the volume, turn off the set, change the channel.

Actually, I think "erectile dysfunction" is brain-washing us.

Kids, (boys and girls), grow up thinking the lovey-dovey business that everyone whispers-chuckles-snickers about, and DOES -- it can't happen, won't happen if you don't take a pill.

Also, what about bad things -- the side effects from using these pills -- how many failures, how many dangerous uses/abuses, how many teens, pre-teens, sexually active kids are addicted to them? And has anyone died from using them?

Are they addictive? If you're using Sildenafil Citrate (that's the ingredient in all of them), do you have to keep taking the pills?

Clinical trials of Sildenafil Citrate were begun in 1992. They involved 3000 men 18 to 87. The drug was patented in 1996, approved for use for erectile dysfunction by the US Food and Drug Administration on March 27, 1998, becoming the first oral treatment approved to treat erectile dysfunction in the United States. (That's when it was offered for sale here as "Viagra.")

A similar drug, Cialis, "Tadalafil," a few years later, was evaluated in clinical trials of 4,000 patients, 27 to 87 years old.

Levitra, "Vardenafil" had clinical trials involving 6,000 men with impotence problems, but no dates or ages were mentioned.

Since Viagra has been used by men since 1998, obviously some guys have been using it for twelve years.

What about side effects? Sleepiness, sleeplessness, and food/sex appetites? What happens to the tissues, to other organs that are affected by using this sort of drug daily?

Remember cigarettes? They were safe. And then slowly, as millions and more millions all over the world took up smoking, very gradually, too late we learned that cigarettes caused cancer.

Aside from the psychological dependency on these potency pills, what about physiological dependency? I looked this up on the Internet, and looked some more -- rephrased my searches and searched some more. The only further clinical trial of Sildenafil Citrate was as a pain reliever for women with Dysmenorrhea, (painful monthly cramps), and that study was never finished.

I couldn't find a sentence, paragraph, or any reference to what happens to you and your potency problem, if you use one of these pills for a while, and thenquit using them.

Am I adding to your worries? I don't want to. There are too many things going on that are scary, unhealthy, life-threatening. (If you've wondered about potency, this link compares various treatments -- http://www.impotence-guide.com/comparison-table.html.)

I'm not planning a Viagra protest. I write posts on subjects that I find myself wondering about, so. if you've ever wondered about it, I'd love to know!