They found the body of my friend Natalya Estemirova on Wednesday. She had been abducted by unidentified men that morning in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, where she lived and worked as a human rights defender. She was seen being bundled into a sedan and was heard calling out, “I’m being kidnapped!” Calls to her cellphone went unanswered all day; she missed several important meetings, including one at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and she failed to pick up her daughter as scheduled at 2:30 p.m….
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ruled that Georgia must stop withdrawing water within three years from a federal reservoir outside Atlanta that is the city’s main water supply.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Magnuson said Lake Lanier wasn’t built for water supply and the state’s withdrawals are illegal. He acknowledged it would be impossible to immediately stop using the lake because it is metro Atlanta’s main water supply. But he said if the state can’t get permission from Congress within three years, the withdrawals must end.
The card is from Susan Mrosek’s wonderful Pondering Pool collection (http://www.ponderingpool.com), a selection of giclees, cards, posters, inspirational images and thoughts, and creative writings.
Buy someone a card!
Write something clever on the inside, put their address on the envelope, and mail it! **
(** Extended description: This is where you scrawl legibly on the inside of a greeting card with a writing utensil, place the card in an envelope, lick-seal the envelope closed, write someone’s address on it, slap a postage stamp in the up-right corner of the envelope, drop it in a nearby portable postal mailing unit — then wait a couple days for gushing spurts of happiness from the recipient. All without going anywhere NEAR a computer, phone, or electronic pocket-gadget! (People used to do this all the time – I swear, is true!))
I’ve been surprised at how much classical music I can find on YouTube, including some excellent and unique performances. I have several mp3 albums on my iPod featuring an Italian baroque ensemble called Il Giardino Armonico, and earlier today discovered this performance of one of my favorite Vivaldi pieces, often called the Concerto for Four Violins, but more accurately called the Concerto for Four Violins and Violoncello, Strings, and Continuo (RV 580). The concerto is number ten from Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico (“Harmonic Inspiration”) – a set of amazing pieces that, if you’ve never listened to Vivaldi before, would get you hooked if you heard them all (I promise!).
There are quite a few other performance videos featuring the group on YouTube; try this search:
and you will find among the results some very stylized interpretations and video staging that is unusual for classical music videos. In several of the videos, the group combines their performing style with imagery and other video content that I can only describe as MTV meets Bach. I’ll highlight more of their videos here on this site in the future, but if you like Baroque music (or are learning to like it), treat yourself to at least a half hour of their fascinating work.
The video below is the same Vivaldi concerto, from a historic performance that includes violinists Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, Shlomo Mintz, and Ida Haendel. Some might consider it a more standard performance of the piece, which I suppose it’s true at least in the sense that it’s closer to the typical interpretation. It’s very different from the previous performance, yet when I compare the two, they seem equally wonderful to listen to.
beth: you are my favorite photographer… I just love it when Tim tells me that you have some new shots on your website… BEAUTIFUL as always! have a gret day, Beth
Dawn LaPlante Recore: Hi Dale. Was searching Saranac alumni, and quite indirectly, I ended up at your blog. It’s fascinating. Good for you! Although it was a sad time when I saw you in September, it was never-the-less, good to see you. By...
Mary Holm: You’re doing exactly what I long to do–go back to school and get a history degree. I’ve always loved history but my degree’s in Radio/TV. I can’t think of anything better than having an excuse like that to...
Ron Coryer: Dale, I was sorry to hear of your father’s passing. I would like to express my condolences to you and you family. As I read your post on your website, I couldn’t help thinking back to the time I lost my dad and I had the...
Gary Coryer: Dale, So sorry to hear of the loss of your Dad. He was always nice to us as kids. Next time I am in Cadyville I will drop in to see your mom and express my condolences. Hope she is doing okay. I will send a note to my brother Ron with...
A u d e e: A deepest condolence to you Dale. Losing a parent is never easy. May Your Father rest in peace.
A u d e e: Hi Dale, It’s been a while since my last visit . I’m sorry to hear about plumbing problems at your house. I’m pretty sure that it is a quite distraction when you hope to be able to spend times on other interesting...
Daniel J. Pritchett: The Touch is great for surfing from the couch and while walking around indoors. Using mine quickly gave me an appreciation for mobile-optimized web sites. I use and recommend the “MobilePress” plugin for WordPress....
***Dave: The inability / unwillingness to back up external USB drives is what’s kept me from a few other very good products out there (Carbonite, Moby). I am definitely going to try Backblaze.
cooper: I am bad about this and have lost a lot of files, everything on my last computer as it conked out all of a sudden in February and tool most files with it as the only things I backed up were academic files. I’m going to check this out.
Jagad Guru Chris Butler: Hello Dale, thanks a lot for the info. I actually just ordered an external hard drive the other day for back up…but I’ll look into Backblaze as well as Synctoy and see if they’ll work for my needs.
Billy: Cool, Dale! Let us know if you have any more questions.
Dale: Billy, Just letting you know that I tried the restore several times again this evening, and it worked fine — the download had the correct extension. I’ve updated the post to remove references to the error. Thanks! Dale
Dale: Ann, Thank you very much; I’m glad my article was helpful. The new version of WordPress is so much better than 2.0.2 — and once you get beyond that first Yahoo! upgrade, subsequent upgrades go much more smoothly. It would have...
ann wood: Thank you- I needed to upgrade from 2.0.2 on yahoo as well and was terrified of the auto upgrade plugin but your info was great and I did it this morning with little difficulty.
Rod: No problem. That’s the downside of using plugins, I guess – they can interact in unforeseen ways. I don’t really have a take on the security angle at this point – it’s not something I’ve looked into....
Category: 
. I’m sorry to hear about plumbing problems at your house. I’m pretty sure that it is a quite distraction when you hope to be able to spend times on other interesting...
