This is neither a nod for nor against; it is simply a link to what to me is a sensible review of Tony Hoagland's latest volume of poems. ..... Rho00083
Friday, May 30, 2008
sensible review
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
green city in Abu Dhabi
A $22 billion hopefully viable clean energy city is being built near the city of Abu Dhabi. Five links to articles on Masdar City: ..... Introduction - 5 pdf pages presenting details ..... - Arab Environment ..... - carbon neutral ..... - Technology Review printable article ..... constructing the future Rho00082
Monday, May 26, 2008
silver nanoparticles pro and con
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
World Without Oil
At www.worldwithoutoil.org a grassroots effort to find ways to live as well as is possible in a world with less and less oil is underway. The organizers there are seeking ideas from anyone. Here is a link to their Manifesto in 10 parts ...... --------------------- Yesterday I read that this puffed-up USA nation uses 24% of the world's oil, and that is just the beginning of the story. See J. H. Kunstler article and comments beneath it in this blog. New reserves of oil are generally difficult to find, and extraction costly. The nations with the largest pools of oil have for some years been reorganizing their societies because they too are running out of oil. And nations that want more oil are hastening the end of oil. The prices of most commodities from steel to seeds have been rising and likely will con- tinue to rise, and unless researchers can find ways to make ethanol from sources other than food plants/ along with ways to make ethanol clean and less expensive, ethanol is not the answer. Some think hydrogen is the ultimate answer, but it too has not been researched sufficiently. Solar power could be maybe, if the cost of panels comes down enough. In any case, we humans need to help each other. There are many articles about oil, but read this experts one at Rigzone: ..... Peace - - - Love - - - Community Rho00078
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Kunstler-post-and-comments
Am providing this link not only for what is in the post but also for what is in the the first group of available comments. - "Far From Normal" ..... bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble - humanity's in a bleep of trouble . Rho00077
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
things found
Earlier today while searching for a something I never did find, I found three math papers I had written in March of 1966 while at The University of Iowa striving to complete my MFA. One is dated March 8, 1966 and the others March 5, 1966. What moved me to haunt the university's math library was a magazine article about a certain genius in Michigan. Think he was 12 at the time. Topics of the 3 papers were Fermat's Last Theorem (which I was certain could be proved geometrically), a way of calculating the 90 degree arc of a circle without using Pi (which upon inspecting today I think I messed up); and due to Cantor, several axioms on infinity. Also re-found my copy of Mouth of the Dragon: 6, a publication I have because a poem of mine is in it. I have its location marked by the by the cover of the Guild Guide 1973 USA & INTERNATIONAL. You can imagine, if you care to, why I kept that cover. It wasn't to bookmark where my poem is. In paging through MofD 6 I came upon six poems written by Jonathan Williams: "Plain, Unrefined", "Country Matters", "Newcastle", "Notting Hill", "Resolute" and "Gunsmoke". He has a sense of humor that just won't quit. Found some other items I needed to find, but now my bed is a jumble of junk. I am a strange concoction. Rho00076
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Postmodernism
No thoughts of mine here. "The political form of postmodernism, if there ever is any, will have as its vocation the invention and projection of a global cognitive mapping, on a social as well as a spacial scale." Fredric Jameson See Contemporary Philosophy, Critical Theory, and Postmodern Thought University of Colorado at Denver --- Martin Ryder for connections to selections from the works of 41 other philosphers. - In this art-oriented essay from 2000 by Christopher L. C. E. Whitcombe Part 4 provides simple definitions of modernism and two forms of postmodernism. - A project which apparently ended in May of 2006 with the issue 12 publication of Dear Habermas opens with a Welcome! message on a page which also has links to issues 11 and 12. I didn't go beyond the introductory page. - Wikipedia article on postmodern philosophy with numerous links. < ^ > Rho00075
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Aesthetics
On page 169 of The Mathematical Experience by Philip J. Davis and Reuben Hersh, the authors write: Aesthetic judgments tend to be personal, they tend to vary with cultures and with the generations, and philosophical dis- cussions of aesthetics have in recent years tended less toward the dogmatic prescription of what is beautiful than toward discussion of how aesthetic judg- ments operate and function. This book, which I am jaggedly reading, was published by Houghton Mifflin Company Boston and copyrighted in 1981 by Birkhäuser Boston. Back in the early 1960's, when he and I were Jesuit novices at a facility near St. Bonifacius, Minnesota, the late Lawrence Deysach told me: "Math is the greatest art." It may well be this is true; and if it is, it is because beauty can be more easily seen and affirmed in mathematics than in any other art, though music is a close second, or architecture is. Poetry? From my perspective, each poem's about its own aesthetic or interactions of aesthetics. A poem succeeds when it adheres to/radiates what is at the heart of it. So, the strength of its core does matter; but one could argue till time's demise about what constitutes aesthetic strength. Every poetic school is like every school of unlike fish, and what attracts one maker of poems may not attract some other maker of poems. No manner of using words is patently better than any other, but certain manners may be more appropriate for their culture. The culture we in The United States are passing through, and have in one form or another been passing through since this nation's founding? Slippery and slimy. But this is the land of the free, the home of the brave, the melting pot of the world. Exactly. Let the myriads of attention be: indeterminate, determinate; sign, signified; I erased, I raised. And to those who think it is really possible to obliterate ego and authorship, change your names to some number anonymous. When I was old enough to understand, I accepted I am Brian Salchert. That is my label. My passage on this planet requires it. I, however, do not require it for myself, however it may seem I do. I question it. Most of what I've written is old school stuff, one might conclude. Perhaps I'm a carp among rainbow trout; but old school or not, most of what I've written reveals a man at odds with himself. That is my indeterminacy. As to beauty, it seems to have lost whatever relevance. In an empire in decline, a planet inhabited by a sentient species in decline--oh, specific amazing discoveries might yet arise and reverse what is, a hard-edged purposefully ugly poetry could be a saving tonic for (rather than another symptom of) what ails. I make no judgment here. Nescio (I do not know) defines me well. Beauty--also truth--are concepts each human perceives differently at different times. On April 24, 2008 I posted the first entry of a math project I placed the final touch on today/ over at my S H blog. 13 entries. It needed to be, and I am satisfied it is, and how it is. Still, I did not abandon my other interests, and have searched my way to poetry posts helpful to me. One addresses procedural poetry, and another concerns the University of Arizona's Conceptual Poetry Symposium. Nathan Austin's A defense of (procedural) poetry is on his This Cruellest Month blog. The second is an enewsletter from the Poetry Center at the University of Arizona. Both of these-- and of course there are numerous others-- engage poetry aesthetics not to my taste, but of which I feel I should acquire more knowledge. Adrift in/ a drift adrift. Rho00074
Sunday, May 11, 2008
blind man bowls 300
This is a story for those who bowl or (like me) have ever bowled, and for anyone who enjoys pursuing a goal. The link to this story may change or disappear. This is also a story about love and friendship and learning. Dale Davis bowls perfect game. Rho00073
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
read my blogs if but
you are also welcome to use this blog and my journals.aol.com/thinkinglizard/sh/ blog as gateways to other web blogs. This one has links to more writers (mostly poets). Sprintedon Hollow has more links to other sites of interest such as NASA's Astronomy site, which is one I visit frequently. A site I find useful when I need to know the code for a special character is the HTML ASCII site www.lookuptables.com--see under E-Whip Oases here. Brian Salchert Rho00072
Monday, May 5, 2008
Ideology Note
However based in empathy and love, any ideology its adherents insist is superior, is the one which must be followed, and yet which promotes the extermination of those who prefer to believe otherwise, is not an ideology that will lead to a heaven or any other goodly place. It is, rather, an ideology which is itself already in a hell; and is, as such, a danger to humanity. Warning: Do not generalize what I have written. As you know, there are ideologies within ideol- ogies; and it is usually the least embracing of these which are the most dangerous. We humans being as we are: too tight, too loose, certain one moment, uncertain the next: it's not likely we will anytime soon attain a state of joyance with each other. Wish I had better news. Rho00071
Friday, May 2, 2008
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