Artist Will Barnet dies at 101…

Will Barnet, a titan of the visual art world, died at his home in New York on Tuesday. He was 101.

His family said the cause of death was old age. “He died peacefully in his home,” said Phil Alexandre of New York’s Alexandre Gallery, which represented Barnet.

Barnet, an art educator and a lifelong champion of the arts, inspired generations of artists and lived long enough to enjoy many honors that most artists receive only posthumously. In 2011, President Obama awarded him the National Medal of Arts, the highest honor for an individual artist in the United States.

This year, France recognized him with the insignia of Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Barnet and his wife, Elena, lived in a duplex at the National Arts Club on Gramercy Park in Manhattan. They were without power for a few days because of Superstorm Sandy, and had to move to a warmer apartment.

“Woman Reading” by Will Barnet

Barnet got “a touch of pneumonia” during the power outage, Alexandre said, but had been feeling better in recent days.

His daughter, Ona, said her father visited many art galleries on Saturday, “doing what he loved the most.”

Hard of hearing and unable to walk, Barnet never allowed his physical ailments to limit his love of art, said a longtime friend, Ira Goldberg, executive director of the Arts Students League of New York, where Barnet studied and taught.

He was as committed to his work at 101 as he was when he was a young man making his way in New York, Goldberg said.

Barnett was probably best known for paintings and prints of women with their cats.

[thanks to the Portland (Maine) Press Herald]

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The questions you ask yourself…

I’m discovering as I face brain surgery and it’s unknown consequences that I find myself asking questions about what I have and have not accomplished over the last 66 or so years. It’s not a pleasant experience, btw, only one that makes me realize how many things I REALLY wanted to do which will probably never be realized. I guess, however, that this is common to just about everyone.

(Sorry… this is much longer than I expected and it will not hurt my feelings if you sign out right now,   – Bill)

Starting with the basics:

• I have a wonderful wife who is taking care of me when she also maintains a full time teaching job that keeps us supported and in our mandatory health insurance mode.

• I have three impressive and incredible grown children, Cassandra, Penny and Will (who we call Buddy… I don’t know where “Will” came from), and four wonderful grandsons, 3 in Maryland and one in Connecticut. (Allow me to say while I’m in this particular note about how lucky I am to have my son-in-law Matthew Corrigan in Connecticut who has made sure Cassandra could be down here with me during all of this.)

• I set out many years ago for a life in the Arts, something I really discovered while a prep-school student at Tabor Academy in Marion, MA.  Between painting and sculpture creation under Lou LaVoie, drama and theatre discoveries under Tom Weisshaus, ending as President of the Drama Club where i acted, but didn’t do much in tech theatre, I was poised to take off when I headed for The School Of Speech/Theatre Department at Northwestern University in 1964.

And just what did I do that I remember proudly?:

• After I discovered systems analysis through an amazing engineer, art collector and professor, Dr. Gustave J. Rath, I created my first small theatre company, Systems Theatre, which applied this amazing intellectual technology to performance creation. Our first major production was an adaptation of Frank Zappa’s “Lumpy Gravy” which eventually played Chicago’s Performing Warehouse between sets by the two great bluesmen B.B. King and Albert King (who I got to give a ride home to later… wow!) When I ended up in NYC in 1971 I restarted Systems Theatre with some of the same people who were with me at Northwestern

• There were a couple of plays that we did at Theatre at St. Clement’s, one of the really great off-off Broadway locations in the city. Well reviewed, well attended and most important to me was my adaptation of Thomas Merton’s “Original Child Bomb” which had gothic-y chants composed by a wonderful musician, Ed Roberts, who I had met when teaching for a year at Tabor. Ed and I went on to do several shows together… at St. Clement’s and other places. My greatest pride came in a project we did a little later:

• Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark”, an opera for children, was presented at the Whitney
  

  The Whitney

  Museum of American Art, thanks to a contact I made with one of the most  influential people in my life and someone who I am so proud to call a friend today, Berta Walker. Berta was working as the Administrative Assistant to Steve Weil at the Whitney and was looking for children’s programming. Ed and I suggested doing “Snark” which we had just started working on and now we had a reason for pushing through. We opened to great reception at the Whitney and, a little bit later on, Berta and I produced it for a few weekends at a little theater on the East Side of Manhattan. Following that, it was taken to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, a major museum which had been started by Berta’s grandfather, where it was also successful.

• My friend and former Northwestern student John Driver, who played the original Bellman in “Snark” had been writing a musical based on Samurai warrior Mushami called “Ride The Wind” with pretty much of a rock ‘n roll score and martial arts based choreography. This was during the time that “Kung Fu” was a big television show, and we thought we were really on something here, so Berta and I decided to produce it (the company we created was called Snarkophilus Productions after our big success). We started out aiming for Off-Broadway, but then the Bijou Theater, a little house at the end of Shubert Alley, became available and we booked it. We were now a Broadway show… albeit a very small one. My set design professor, Sam Ball, agreed to do the sets, which were built by Northwestern students and which I brought to New York driving a truck across country. A number of the actors who auditioned were folks I had known from the New Theatre Workshop, a small non-profit group which acted as a try-out location for new plays that writers were working on. I was their stage electrician for a year before they tore the theater down to build the CitiPlace Center on 57th Street.

• Unfortunately, “Ride The Winds” didn’t pass the New York Times test and I was no longer a Broadway producer.

• I had to work, so I took a job as Administrator of the Jamaica Arts Center in Queens, where I structured classes, set up concerts, scheduled movies and ran the books. It was there I met Elly, my current wife, who I hired to teach Photography in the class size darkroom I had built in the Center’s basement (I took up photography, too… something I really loved.)  Eddy came down and we did a little revival of “Snark” in Jamaica for the kids in Queens. When I was hired later on by The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, by their Board President (you can probably see this coming… it was Berta Walker), Elly came with me and we settled in on  lower Cape Cod. I helped the Work Center fund raise, grow and prosper over three years, then spent another three years on it’s Board. Elly and I however, moved down to the mid-Cape where we started a business that would keep us in debt and development for the next decade: Our photo studio, Photography Associates of New England Inc., and U-Design, Inc.

• The appearance of the Apple Macintosh computer, the laser printer, a piece of software called Aldus PageMaker and things like scanners, modems, etc., inspired us to set up a rental-area business where folks would come in, rent space in a booth, and lay out, with our help, their ads and brochures. After a couple of years, we moved it to Hartford, CT… back in my home state. At one point we had U-Designs in three cities in CT (that was a mistake!) and we started doing more jobs for clients ourselves rather than booth rentals. We worked with major and minor companies, lots of non-profits, plus we offered desktop publishing classes. At one time we had a dozen or so employees. During this time I did no theatre, maybe a little painting, but not much (Elly was our painter and her work was wonderful.) While in Marlborough, however, I was recruited to be a Justice of the Peace, where I married several couples (I specialized in non-believers who I thought should have a person of their own.) I did start designing computer fonts at this time… still do it, especially my “picture fonts” which have been used on this blog many times. U-Design Type Foundry has attracted hundreds of buyers, for which I have great appreciation.

More recent years… “Things fall apart, the center does not hold” – TS Eliot.

• We had built a passive solar house in Marlborough, CT, where we moved so Buddy could go to school there and we could lead the suburban life (eventually, we moved the last vestige of U-Design to Marlborough where it finally ended up in our house until it died.) I started going out and getting jobs as an Information Technologist at some larger companies, finally ending up at Computer Sciences Corporation, where I spent five working years. For most of that I was commuting to the Maryland-DC area every week to do a major piece of work for the Internal Revenue Service with a bunch of my colleagues. I made more money here than I ever had before. When my whole department was laid off after three years I even got six months of part-time work for the IRS itself to finish some of the project stuff.

• Elly and I sold the Marlborough house and bought a historic co-op space in Old Greenbelt, MD, where I was still doing CSC work. Eventually, when there was no more work and a guy in his late fifties had a hard time finding IT jobs when the market was stuffed with lower earning young guys. I had to take early retirement which, thanks to CSC’s salary, brought me a higher Social Security than I had expected. Elly took a teaching job in Graphic Design at Hagerstown Community College in Hagerstown, MD, and we eventually moved to
  

  Ride The Winds

  Hagerstown, then Shepherdstown (our favorite) and now Harper’s Ferry. While I was living in Greenbelt, I got involved with two community theatres, the Laurel Mill Playhouse and the Greenbelt Arts Center. Amazingly enough, with the entrance to all of this I made by meeting Linda Bartash, I directed several plays and musicals. The highlight of these was a revival of “Ride The Winds” which I got John Driver to rewrite the second act for. It was well-reviewed in the Washington Post and local papers and I breathed a sight of final relief. I also, amid all the shows I did, had a really good production of that unusual musical “Urinetown” at Greenbelt, also a success.

• I got involved with a new Community Theater in Shepherdstown, The Full Circle Theater, where I
  

  The Hunting of the Snark, in Shepherdstown

  became the House Electrician and ran lights on a bunch of shows, And then, can you believe it, I go to to do a revival of “The Hunting of the Snark” and Eddy, who was then living in Pennsylvania, came down from time to time to help my friend and music director, Ruth Raubertas, get our favorite opera for kids off the ground. Everyone seemed to like it, but this was my last chance to direct anything and I sank into an ongoing depression hoping I would get to do it again some day. I don’t think, now, that it will happen. I have to say, though, that I made a great friend of John Case who played the Butcher in that last production. John had a weekday morning radio show on WSCH 89.7FM on Shepherd University’s radio station and originally he invited me on for an interview and eventually I was on every Friday, which John started promoting as “The Bill and John Show.” I guess I did OK, since a few months later the station manager, Todd Cottgreave, gave me a show of my own on Saturday mornings which I called “Talk To Me” and which I made into a call-in production. I think the radio shows really saved my intelligence and ability to carry on while under depression.

So those are things I’ve been thinking about. What I haven’t discussed here is this blog, which is the major occupation of an old, retired guy’s day. I hope I can keep it going for years (as you can see, I love to talk)… if it has to cease, however, someone will put up a final post.

Time to feed the dogs.

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• My daughter, Cassandra, has come down from Connecticut and is helping my wife coordinate all the brain surgery problems… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Looks like I’m on a revised schedule and a doctor change for brain surgery… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
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We’ve had a lovely afternoon and evening at the American Conservation Film Festival.

We are in the four day period of the ACFF, now celebrating it’s 10th Anniversary of presenting conservation and nature support films here in Shepherdstown.

We saw two films this afternoon, but tonight we saw two films accompanied by live discussions and question periods with the filmmakers.

The most interesting to me was Marion Stoddart whose life and career spent saving the Nashua River was so well presented in the short film “The Work of 1000.”

Filmmaker Susan Edwards broached the subject Can one person truly make a difference? This film tells the inspiring story of how a remarkable woman saved a dying river–for herself, for the community and for future generations–and became an environmental hero honored by the United Nations.

Mrs Stoddart, now in her 80s spent decades getting a very polluted river clean… petitioning, demonstrating, approaching manufacturers and politicians directly, and getting her husband and children involved. Her live presentation with the audience was very involving.

Our Nation’s River: A System on Edge  was the second film we saw this evening. Ten minutes long and made by Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of historic natural filmmaker Jaques Costeau. This piece was particularly meaningful for us, since it is about the Potomac River, the water body that forms our northern border and flows from us down to Washington DC.

Ms, Cousteau answered questions but also presented a discussion panel of professionals from the Nature Conservancy and the Potomac River Foundation.

The House was pretty full at Reynolds Hall, Shepherd University, with a number of standers who wanted to catch everything as well. Among the folks there tonight were most of the officers of Sustainable Shepherdstown (My wife is in that bunch, of course), our current State Delegate John Dolan whose work for us has been spectacular and who is leaving office at the end of the session. Steve Skinner, the Democratic candidate for Delegate who, hopefully, will take John’s place, was there as well. Both men realize the importance the Potomac is to our community. Of course, Republican Candidate Elliot Spitzer was NOT there this evening. Preserving our environment is just not a Republican issue… after all, don’t they all think that Climate Change is a joke?

We’re going to some more films tomorrow.

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Cartoon(s) of the Week – Election is crawling toward it’s end. I am sooo thankful.

I’ll be so glad when all this election brouhaha is over. I’ll be so depressed if Romney captures a majority of American votes… in other words, I will think so much is wrong with this country’s education policies.

Bob Englehart in the The Hartford Courant:

So how likely is it that doing tax favors for the top 1% will raise the job totals?

– and –

Kevin Siers in The Charlotte Observer:

At least Romney makes it clear who his support base won’t be…

– and –

Joel Pett in The Lexington Herald-Leader:

One day women might disable the positions of Romney and his buddies…

– and –

David Fitzsimmons in The Arizona Daily Star:

Some time accusations reverse themselves to define the accuser.

– and –

Mike Luckovich in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Foreign policy requires a lot of basic knowledge. Romney doesn’t seem to have any.

 

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Educator and Cultural Critic Jacques Barzun Dies at 104;

 

Historian, essayist, cultural gadfly and educator Jacques Barzun, who helped establish the modern discipline of cultural history, was probably best known for viewing the West as sliding toward decadence. He died Thursday night at his home in San Antonio.  He was 104.

His remarkable curiosity and manifold interests and accomplishments, encompassed both Berlioz and baseball (and many other subjects.) He stood with Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell and Lionel Trilling as one of  the mid-20th century’s most wide-ranging scholars. He tried to reconcile the achievements of European philosophy and culture with the very different American intellect and culture.

He wrote dozens of books across many decades, demonstrating that old age did not necessarily mean intellectual decline. He published his most ambitious and encyclopedic book at the age of 92 (and credited his productivity in part to chronic insomnia). That work, “From Dawn to Decadence,” is an 877-page survey of 500 years of Western culture in which he argued that Western civilization itself had entered a period of decline.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Barzun showed little interest in taking political positions. This was partly because he became a university administrator and had to stand above the fray, and partly because he approached the world with a detached civility and a sardonic skepticism about intellectual life.

He traced periods of rise and fall in the Western saga, and contended that another fall was near — one that could cause “the liquidation of 500 years of civilization.” It looks like he won’t be around to see it.

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A quote for the day… from 68 Nobel Prize Winners

68 former Nobel Prize winning scientists have endorsed Barack Obama for the Presidency. Their feelings were published in “An Open Letter to the American People.” Here is a quote from that letter:

“America’s economic future, the quality of our health, and the quality of our environment depend on our ability to continue America’s proud legacy of discovery and invention. As winners of the Nobel Prizes in science, we are proud of our contribution to the extraordinary advances American science has made in recent years. But we’re deeply concerned that without leadership and continued commitment to scientific research the next generation of Americans will not make and benefit from future discoveries.

“President Obama understands the key role science has played in building a prosperous America, has delivered on his promise to renew our faith in science-based decision making and has championed investment in science and technology research that is the engine of our economy. He has built strong programs to educate young Americans in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and programs to provide Americans the training they need to keep pace with a technology-driven economy.

“If you believe, as we do, that America’s future is bound in essential ways to science and innovation, we urge you to join us in working to ensure the reelection of President Obama.”

You can find the entire letter here. I would urge you to read it… and pass it around.

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An Architectural Marvel is up for trashing in Chicago…

I am deeply upset with my alma mater, Northwestern University, as they attempt to tear down a particularly special architectural classic from the 70s. This  preservation battle has been building for months in Chicago on the fate of the old Prentice Women’s Hospital, a concrete, cloverleaf structure from 1975 by Chicago architect Bertrand Goldberg.  Famous architects and designers like Frank Gehry, Jeanne Gang, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien have signed petitions entreating Northwestern, who owns the building, not to tear it down, pleading for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to give it landmark status.

The university says it needs new biomedical research facilities and that Prentice is too small, old and quirky to adapt. A new building would bring to the city millions of investment dollars, create jobs and save lives – that’s Northwestern’s argument.

So here is a suggestion: Build a research tower on top of Prentice. The architect Jeanne Gang has a proposal for a new research tower on top of the hospital:

Why save Prentice? There are  Chicagoans that hate it. Concrete buildings from the ’70s are becoming  unpopular outside architectural circles, although it’s spreading, and rightly so. Great late-Modernist buildings, innovative and ruggedly beautiful, deserve respect and careful custody. Prentice is a good example.

Architect Goldberg, who died in 1997, used a pioneering form of computer modeling to engineer a tour de force: an open, seven-story maternity ward inside the cloverleaf shell, cantilevered 45 feet from the supporting core.

Great buildings have often survived the wrecking ball by being added to, incorporated into larger structures or updated for a new era — in Rome and Istanbul, New York and Chicago.

 

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Ever wonder how some people get elected to Congress?

I know I do. The fact that there are Republicans who appear to be uneducated, anti-intellectual and just plain outrageous makes me have a very poor impression of the people who vote for them.

Here are 4 samples of what I’m referring to:

Science and Space Committee? Intelligence Committee? How do these mini-brains get put on committees they don’t seem to have any intellectual connection with?

If statements like these keep them from being re-elected to the House, then I’ll have a much better vision of the voting public. I don’t count on it, however.

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Why Obama Now…

An animation by Simpsons/Family Guy animator Lucas Gray:

Pass it around. It sums up the issues very well…very understandably. Entertaining, too.

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Romney says he’ll eliminate PBS to cut the debt… Not a good move!

He shouldn’t have let us know that Sesame Street was on the line for cancellation if he was elected. Big Bird is going to get even by exposing the Mittster’s lies:

Environmental Scientist Barry Commoner Dies at 95

One of the men I admired most in the early environmental movement, Dr. Barry Commoner, has died at 95 at his home in Brooklyn Heights, and I think the world experiences a great loss. He was an early champion of recycling, organic food and reducing fossil fuel use… and, of course, he took a firm stand against nuclear testing.

Commoner was trained as a biologist at Columbia and Harvard and combined scientific expertise and leftist zeal. His work on the global effects of radioactive fallout, which included documenting concentrations of strontium 90 in the baby teeth of thousands of children, contributed materially to the adoption of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963.

He was a popular speaker and author 1n the 1960s and ’70s, and even campaigned for president in 1980.

Time Magazine called Commoner the Paul Revere of Ecology on the first Earth Day in 1970.

His four informal rules of ecology were:

1. Everything Is Connected to Everything Else

2. Everything Must Go Somewhere

3. Nature Knows Best

4. There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch.

Dr. Commoner’s was both concerned with ecology  and an ideal of social justice in which everything was indeed connected to everything else. Like some other leftist dissenters of his time, he believed that environmental pollution, war, and racial and sexual inequality needed to be addressed as related issues of a central problem.

Commoner insisted that the future of the planet depended on industry’s learning not to make messes in the first place, rather than on trying to clean them up after they were made. He thought scientists in the service of industry could not just create some new process or product and then remove themselves from a moral responsibility for the potential results. He was a lifelong opponent of nuclear power because of its radioactive waste and scorned the idea of pollution credit swaps because an industry would have to be fouling the environment in the first place to be rewarded by such a program.

He saw that social needs were tied up with environmental ones… for instance:

“I don’t believe in environmentalism as the solution to anything. What I believe is that environmentalism illuminates the things that need to be done to solve all of the problems together. For example, if you’re going to revise the productive system to make cars or anything else in such a way as to suit the environmental necessities, at the same time why not see to it that women earn as much as men for the same work?”

Harvard paleontologist Steven J. Gould’s summary of Barry Commoner’s work and achievements is clear:

“Although he has been branded by many as a maverick, I regard him as right and compassionate on nearly every major issue.”

Arthur Ochs (Punch) Sulzberger, former NY Times publisher, dead at 86.

 

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger in 1973

Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, known to his colleagues as “Punch“, the fourth publisher of the New York Times, is famous for his decision to publish the Pentagon Papers and to promote a radical redesign that set a new standard for newspapers in the last quarter of the 20th century, has died at age 86, after a long illness.

Sulzberger was publisher of the Times from 1963 to 1992 and chairman and chief executive of the parent company from 1973 to 1997. These titles were passed on to his son, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the fourth generation of his family to head the paper.

Publishing the Pentagon Papers were the defining moment of three decades of transformation at the Times under Sulzberger. He also automated the Times’ production, unified the Sunday and daily news operations under one editor and  divided the paper into four brightly written sections.

Hampered by dyslexia, he was an indifferent student who daydreamed in class. His grades were so poor that he repeated the first year of high school. In 1943, the 17-year-old joined the Marines. His desire to prove himself on the battlefield was thwarted by his father, who arranged a transfer to Gen. Douglas MacArthur‘s staff as driver and jack of all trades. After World War II, Sulzberger earned a degree at Columbia University in 1951. He served in the Korean War as a public information officer.

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When Romney criticizes Obama on education, ask what he did as Massachusetts’ Governor…

 

Want to know what Massachusetts educators learned from Mitt Romney‘s single term as Massachusetts governor? He forced them into increased classroom sizes, school budget cuts, higher fees and less out-of-school services for students.

As Ronald, a former superintendent from Attleboro, MA explains:

“Governor Romney said that he was not going to cut education. And then the next thing we knew those cuts were made.”

So take a look at this, then tell the Romney supporters you know with school children what they can expect if he gets elected.

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This will be a mobbed weekend in our general area…

Tomorrow and Sunday is the reenactment of the Battle of Antietam over the river from us in Sharpsburg. It is the 150th anniversary of the battle and this is drawing reenactors from all over the country, judging by the large amount of out-of-state license plates showing up here and over in Washington County.

Elly and I are going over to her friend Joan’s at some point to sit in front of her house on Main St. and watch the downtown activities.

Getting from our place to Hagerstown is going to be a mess tomorrow, since many of the main roads will be closed around the Battlefield National Park. Anyone trying to get from Shepherdstown to Hagerstown is advised to go a little out of your way and take Interstate 81.

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Geez… I go to flea markets all the time. Why don’t I find Renoirs?

 

Take a look at this WaPo article:

“A ‘lost’ landscape thought to have been painted by Pierre-Auguste Renoir will go on the auction block Sept. 29 on behalf of the Baltimore-born woman who purchased the artwork at a West Virginia flea market for $7. ‘Paysage Bords de Seine,’ a 6-inch by 10-inch canvas dating from about 1879, is expected to fetch $75,000 to $100,000, according to … the Alexandria, Va., auction house overseeing the sale. She said that it’s one of several depictions of the river Seine that the French Impressionist master created near the towns of Bougival and Chatou.

“The Virginia-based buyer, who prefers to remain anonymous, purchased a box of odds and ends at a flea market just across the West Virginia state line and near her home in the Shenandoah Valley in late 2010 or early 2011. She didn’t much care for the painting and said she would never have bid on it if the other stuff in the box hadn’t caught her eye.

“There was a plastic cow that grabbed me, and a Paul Bunyan doll,” said the woman, who lived in Baltimore until she was 4 years old. “And I liked the frame. It was gold and ornate. I thought I could use it for something else if I cut out the painting.”

– Mary McCauley of the Washington Post

And here’s the assumed Renoir:

I don’t think I would even have bought it FOR the frame. But a PLASTIC COW! That should have been worth something!

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• Renoir painting found at Shenandoah Valley flea market (wjla.com)

 

Bill Nye the Science Guy is a true hero…

… but he did not, as a mischievously placed article put out by the Daily Currant stated, use foul language and push science versus creationism arguments challenging Todd Akin to a debate.

This happened after a video was released on You Tube saying evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. According to Bill Nye, aka “the science guy,” if grownups want to “deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we observe in the universe, that’s fine, but don’t make your kids do it because we need them.”

Here’s the video:

See. Pretty damned specific.

Just for your entertainment, however, here is Bill Nye on Seattle’s “Almost Live” in his superhero guise as Speed Walker:

Thanks, thanks, thanks to Bill Nye. It’s good having him around.

Related articles

• Bill Nye the Science Guy says don’t teach your kids Creationism. (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
• Ken Ham Wants To Debate Bill Nye (sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com)
• Creation Museum’s Ken Ham: ‘Bill Nye Really Doesn’t Understand Science’ (patheos.com)
• Bill Nye is a science guy who knows what he is talking about (kbrooksjournalist.wordpress.com)
• Bill Nye: Americans who believe in Creationism hold the rest of us back (dangerousminds.net)
• Bill Nye the Humanist Guy vs. Ken Ham the Creationist Man (marccortez.com)
• Bill Nye Blasts Todd Akin, Challenges ‘Fucking Idiot’ to Debate | The Daily Currant (2012indyinfo.com)

Intro to Solar Class Offered at No Cost to WV Residents

 

 Thanks to a state grant, Mountain View Solar, in partnership with Blue Ridge Community and Technical College, will be offering “Introduction to Solar Energy Systems” in Berkeley Springs, WV and in Martinsburg, WV. The class is available at no cost to WV residents and can be taken for college credit and as a requirement toward a NABCEP certification.

The class will be held on Tuesdays from 6-8:30 PM from September 11 through November 13, 2012. There are still spots available for students who are interested in a career in solar energy or simply interested in how solar works.

For more information, email John@mtvsolar.com or to register contact Blue Ridge College at 304.260.4380 ext. 2411

Related articles

• SolarWorld solar panels power largest solar installation in West Virginia (solarworld-usa.com)
• Riverside passes 5-megawatt mark in solar power generation (swrnn.com)
• Solar Delivers When Grid Needs It Most (cleantechies.com)
• Federal Tax Credit for Solar Energy (turbotax.intuit.com)

 

Quote of the Day – Women, please listen closely…

 

On Wednesday night, I spoke on the floor at the Democratic Convention about what a Romney-Ryan America would mean for women.

An America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never use it. In which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over again. In which someone decides which victims of domestic violence deserve help, and which don’t.

And six months from now, we could all be living in that America.

– Sandra Fluke, Georgetown Law School Graduate

Fluke expands on the speech she made at the Democratic convention… a speech that was extremely well received.

Related articles

• WATCH: Sandra Fluke Explains The Republican War On Women (smd12364.newsvine.com)
• A ‘Conservative’ vision for America : ‘WATCH: Sandra Fluke Explains The Republican War On Women In 144 Seconds’ (thelastofthemillenniums.wordpress.com)
• Sandra Fluke Warns of Romney-led America in DNC Speech [VIDEO] (bostinno.com)
• Sandra Fluke Slams GOP War On Women, GOP Demeans Her Over It (lezgetreal.com)

 

Where’s the Controversy in Saving Lives?

Women should control their own health care, have access to contraceptives and safe abortions. Here is a nice animation from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:

So when the Republicans want to step in and control women’s personal health and contraceptive solutions, show them this.

I really need your support to keep this blog up to date and functional…

 

…and I will give you a free gift if you make a donation of $5.00 or more…

…you get my absolutely most popular picture font:“Bill’s Broadway DECOrations” These images created from many traditional and period sources are very usable at any size in designs and publications. The font comes for Mac and PC, and I usually sell it for $29.95. It’s my way of saying “Thank You” to offer it to $5 or more donors.

So many of you have been following this blog since 2004 that I feel like a member of a huge web community.

I have enjoyed bringing you the Cartoon(s) of the Week, the Quotes, the Political and Arts News, the Blogrolls of the best sites in America and beyond… They are all a joy to put together. Often we get the breaking political stories before you see them anywhere else. And our wide open communication channels with readers can’t be beat. I offer your participation at all times and appreciate the hundreds of subscribers who sign up every year.

I really need YOUR help to keep it going. I’m hoping you will make a small contribution, by PayPal or credit/debit card, in support of Under The LobsterScope. You’d be amazed at how much $5.00 can do to help me bring more and more to these pages. And it is probably the LOWEST annual subscription fee you will make to any publication… interactive or not. I often receive larger contributions and I certainly appreciate those.

Remember, for a contribution of $5.00 (or MORE) you will receive a copy of my Picture Font, Bill’s Broadway DECOrations and the knowledge that this blog will continue onward.

(I send you font versions for both Macs and PCs by email, and include a typeface keyboard directory.

See the Sample Below.)

I should note that even a donation of $1.00 gets my thanks and helps to keep this blog going. By clicking on the DONATE button below, you tell me that Under The LobsterScope makes a difference in your time on the web.

Thanks,

– Bill T.

 

New Antietam Museum Room to open on Friday.

 

Antietam National Battlefield announces the opening of a new museum exhibit room in the park visitor center. A ribbon cutting will take place on Friday, September 7 at 10:00 a.m.

The new exhibits highlight the impact of the battle on the nation that occurred 150 years ago… and the families that lived on the battlefield. The exhibit includes wartifacts and photographs of veterans returning for reunions and the creation of the park by the U.S. War Department.

According to Park Superintendent Susan Trail:

“Sharpsburg was a farming community for one hundred years before the battle was fought. Now we are able to tell a broader story through the artifacts and images of those who lived here. We are extremely pleased to have our new exhibit opening just in time for the 150th Commemoration.”

Some of the artifacts that highlight the new exhibit include a gold watch owned by the Mumma family whose farm was destroyed in the battle; furniture from the Roulette farm; a hand carved headstone that marked a soldiers grave just after the battle; and numerous reunion medals and ribbons.

For more information call 301-432-5124.

Related articles

• Antietam National Battlefield Park Gears Up To Commemorate Civil War’s Bloodiest Day (gadling.com)
• Remembering Battle of Antietam in 1937 (times-news.com)
• “Gods and Generals” Related Magazine Available For Sale in Antietam Visitor’s Center (gcaggiano.wordpress.com)
• Dawn at Antietam, 1862 (rendezvouswithrenee.com)

 

Convention Video: The stories of our platform

 

This makes the Democratic platform have more understandable content.

Related articles

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• Democratic Convention Begins in N.C. (huffingtonpost.com)
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• Democrat Platform Backs Tax-funded, Partial-birth Abortions (thenewamerican.com)
• Democrats Unveil Platform Endorsing Marriage Equality (advocate.com)
• Kennedy Family Still A Part Of Democratic National Convention (dekerivers.wordpress.com)
• Watch the Democratic Convention live online – Live Streaming (imns.wordpress.com)

 

Why do we take medications that can kill us?

Have you noticed on more and more TV commercials for prescription medications that something upsetting appears?  According to law, prescription meds have to state their side effects in advertising, and since I take a lot of prescription meds I monitor these commercials with scrutiny.

A great number of these side effect revelations include such things as depression, sleeplessness, stomach problems or DEATH! So in taking these sleeping pills or pain killers or diabetes medications, the side effect could be that you die.

Does this cause any problems for the medications industry? It looks like doctors have very little trouble prescribing these potential killers… and the TV ads convince many patients to request these from their physicians.

I see no one on the news or in other source material debating this issue, so I wonder if it is important to Americans (it is becoming important to me because I take at least one of these pills.)

Let me hear from you if you have any thoughts on this issue.

Related articles

• Prescription Medication Side Effects (bluemoonpersonaltraining.com)
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• Guidelines Released For Prescribing Narcotics In Emergency Rooms (pittsburgh.cbslocal.com)
• Fort Lee sets 4th drug take-back event (dvidshub.net)
• Stay Away from Doctors and Watch What You Eat (lewrockwell.com)
• Know the Drugs You Take Before it Harms You (sajerosablog.wordpress.com)

The Republican Guide to Female Anatomy:

 

Hey there folks… ever wonder how the Akins and Ryans and Tom Smiths come to their considered conclusions on rape and incest and the general needs of women?

Why, they have precise technical information like this:

Of course, the statements of “experts” are much appreciated.

My thanks to Rosie Fenton at pic.twitter.com/sReVt96H.

Related articles

• A Simple Anatomy Lesson (cheezburger.com)
• Why it’s so important for rape to be ‘legitimate’ (dailykos.com)
• Todd Akin : Female Anatomy (madhatters.me.uk)
• Female Democrats fire back at Rep. Akin over ‘legitimate rape’ remark (thehill.com)
• Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith: Sex out of wedlock ‘similar to’ rape (dailykos.com)
• Michael B. Keegan: Why Is Mitt Romney Outraged at Todd Akin and Not at Paul Ryan? (huffingtonpost.com)
• Republican Senate Nominee Explains That Women Don’t Really Get Pregnant From ‘Legitimate Rape’ [Video] (gawker.com)

 

Bill Nye the Science Guy says don’t teach your kids Creationism.

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Scientist and children’s television personality Bill Nye, in a newly released online video, panned biblical creationism and implored American parents who reject the scientific theory of evolution not to teach their beliefs to their youngsters.

“I say to the grownups, ‘If you want to deny evolution and live in your world that’s completely inconsistent with everything we’ve observed in the universe that’s fine. But don’t make your kids do it,'” said Nye, best known as host of the educational TV series “Bill Nye the Science Guy.”

If I were a professional educator, I would give Bill Nye my thanks for coming out with this video:

Evolution is the fundamental idea in all of life science, in all of biology. Creationism is not.

Related articles

• Bill Nye: Please don’t teach your kids creationism, because it is crazy (rawstory.com)
• Bill Nye Believes One Day the Creationism Theory Won’t Exist (fox4kc.com)
• Bill Nye: Americans who believe in Creationism hold the rest of us back (dangerousminds.net)
• Bill Nye “The Science Guy” Slams Creationism (wreg.com)
• Bill Nye the Science Guy says creationism not good for kids (vancouverdesi.com)
• Bill Nye to Creationists: Save Your Children! (thehollywoodgossip.com)
• Bill Nye Blasts Creationism (sensuouscurmudgeon.wordpress.com)