Watch this space
Please cover the waterfront for me for a few days while we enjoy our first actual vacation in more than 3 years. To keep things moving while we're away, here's a little do-it-yourself animation for you. You'll have to save the photos to your own computer (which is allowed under our Creative Commons license), and either do a quick slideshow or print them out and make a flipbook. Either way, you can watch your ship come in (in this case, the Carnival Legend) over and over to pass the time until we return. I'd appreciate your keeping an eye on things here for us by using the handy Towercam.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @10:23 AM
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9.8.03  |
Morning mist, evening sunbeams
They say it's darkest just before dawn, but this morning it was so cloudy that it got dark after dawn as well. Fortunately the clouds thinned out as the day went on, so now we can see the Manhattan skyline again, and it can see us:
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @7:05 PM
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8.8.03 |
No, it wasn't put there to hold the Towercam
Nor was the pointy thing on top of the Empire State Building meant to hold radio, television, and cellphone transmitters, as it does now. As expected, the answer showed up in the comments area for my day-before-yesterday post featuring the Empire State Building partially obscured by clouds. Thanks to Buddy Don for guessing, and thanks to Mala for posting the answer: yes, it's a dirigible mast.
And on a completely different subject, did you see the live coverage of Al Gore's speech today? I tried to watch, but only MSNBC carried it, and only for a few minutes before they started talking over him. Since the television networks couldn't bring themselves to cover it, we will.
You can watch it here (and click on "watch the speech") or read it here.
Can you find anything in that speech that is not factual? If so, please use the comments field for this post to enlighten us.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:47 PM
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7.8.03 |
'Shikata ga nai'
Please join me in an asynchronous moment of silence commemorating the 58th anniversary of the use of the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.
Nobody knows how many people were killed by that bomb. Whole families, and all records of them, were wiped out. Some people were vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing behind but their shadows on the sidewalks. At the epicenter, where temperatures reached 7000 degrees Fahrenheit, the sidewalks just melted along with everything else. At least 70,000 died that day, and an equal number had obvious injuries. Hundreds of thousands more died later from radiation, and subsequent generations suffered leukemia and other problems as well.
Those who survived the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were called the hibakusha, and many years ago, one of them taught me an important lesson. The Rev. Kiyoshi Tanimoto, pastor of the Hiroshima Methodist Church, was helping a parishioner move some furniture that morning when there was a tremendously bright flash and then the house in front of him collapsed as dust and debris rose everywhere. Mr. Tanimoto ran into the street, then immediately began helping the injured. From that point on, he dedicated his life to helping the hibakusha, telling his (and their) story, and working for peace so that there would be "no more Hiroshimas." He and his wife, also a hibakusha, told me their story when I interviewed them more than 20 years ago, and they taught me an important Japanese phrase: shikata ga nai. "That's how we feel about it," he said: "Shikata ga nai. It means, 'it couldn't be helped' or 'unfortunate thing happened; we must go on' or even 'we can't go back in time.' "
Mr. Tanimoto's story is featured in John Hersey's book, Hiroshima. If you haven't read it, you should:
Mr. Tanimoto died in 1986, and today there are very, very few hibakusha left. Those still alive commemorated the occasion today by issuing a special invitation, via Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba. Here's an excerpt:
"The world without nuclear weapons and beyond war that our hibakusha (atomic bomb victims) have sought for so long appears to be slipping deeper into a thick cover of dark clouds that they fear at any minute could become mushroom clouds spilling black rain.
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the central international agreement guiding the elimination of nuclear weapons, is on the verge of collapse. The chief cause is U.S. nuclear policy that, by openly declaring the possibility of a preemptive nuclear first strike and calling for resumed research into mini nuclear weapons and other so-called "usable nuclear weapons," appears to worship nuclear weapons as God...."
and another excerpt:
"As the U.S.-British led war on Iraq made clear, the assertion that war is peace is being trumpeted as truth. Conducted with disregard for the multitudes around the world demanding a peaceful solution through continued U.N. inspections, this war slaughtered innocent women, children, and the elderly. It destroyed the environment, most notably through radioactive contamination that will be with us for billions of years. And the weapons of mass destruction that served as the excuse for the war have yet to be found.
However, as President Abraham Lincoln once said, 'You can't fool all the people all the time.' Now is the time for us to focus once again on the truth that 'Darkness can never be dispelled by darkness, only by light.' The rule of power is darkness. The rule of law is light. In the darkness of retaliation, the proper path for human civilization is illumined by the spirit of reconciliation born of the hibakusha's determination that "no one else should ever suffer as we did."
Lifting up that light, the aging hibakusha are calling for U.S. President George W. Bush to visit Hiroshima. We all support that call and hereby demand that President Bush, Chairman Kim Jong Il of North Korea, and the leaders of all nuclear-weapon states come to Hiroshima and confront the reality of nuclear war. We must somehow convey to them that nuclear weapons are utterly evil, inhumane and illegal under international law."
Years earlier, another Hiroshima mayor, Shizo Hamai, marked the day with a prayer, now inscribed on the Hiroshima memorial: "We pray in sincerity that there may never be another Hiroshima in any part of the world."
Amen.
(I wrote a better, longer version of this post, but stupidly forgot to make a backup and it disappeared when I tried to post it. Shikata ga nai.)
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:30 PM
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6.8.03 |
Head in the clouds
Same weather as yesterday, different view.
Do you know what the pointy thing on top of the Empire State Building was meant to be? If you do, you also know why it hasn't been used for that purpose since shortly after the building was constructed, so tell us all about it via the comments field for this post. If you don't know the answer, you can either try to find out, or just watch for it to show up below.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:53 PM
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5.8.03 |
Stormy weather
If you've tried using the Towercam lately but couldn't see anything but gray, clouds like this may be the reason. We've had a storm front stalled over the New York City area for the past few days, so the weather has been alternating from cloudy to stormy and back. While the gray skies may not make for interesting Towercam photos, the rain can:
I got caught outside in a storm the other day, waited out the worst of it in the courtyard by the Hoboken Historical Museum, where I was able, for the very first time in my life, to watch lightning striking the Empire State Building.
The results are in on our survey question about photos: looks like they're fairly popular, but wide ones are a problem for some readers. Now on to our next question: Do you find the news media biased? If so, in what direction? Click HERE to express your views.
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @4:36 PM
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4.8.03 |
A pair o' ducks
Today is the last day to answer our survey question about photos, so if you haven't answered yet, please do, and if you have, thanks!
Since the most popular photo feature this week, by far, was "Things with Wings," let's finish with a couple more winged things, a pair of ducks out for an evening paddle on the Hudson. This photo might even be useful, that is if you believe in (or want to experiment with) Feng Shui, the Chinese art of object placement. I don't know much about feng shui, couldn't tell you the difference between the Black Hat sect and the Flying Star school, but from what I can tell, all feng shui practitioners recommend placing a pair of ducks (not real ones) in the southwest corner (the 'relationship' corner of your home) or perhaps your bedroom (but never, ever in your bathroom), to make your life more romantic, whether you're in a long-term relationship or not. So if you want to give it a try, here's a pair of ducks for you to print out.
To find out more about Feng Shui, try one of these books:
Remember, if you buy ANYTHING at Amazon.com via one of the links on this page, The Dagley Dagley Daily gets a piece of the action. So why buy from Amazon any other way?
posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:42 PM
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3.8.03 |
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