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Operating at reduced speed because of the tight curves and close clearances, Denver & Rio Grande Western K-27 #463 emerges from the west portal of the 366 ft. long, "Rock Tunnel" at Milepost 315.20, with a mixed freight bound for Chama, NM via Cumbres Pass.
This image was captured during an October 2024 photo shoot on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, which was organized by Lerro Photography. This particular location is one of the more spectacular photo spots on the railroad, but also one of the trickiest to photograph with a large group of people. My camera position here is on an outcropping of rock, which is very uneven, and which features steep drop-offs on all but one side. To my right, it is literally 600 feet down to the bottom of the gorge. It is simply not safe for more than about 10 people at a time on these rocks as all it would take is one clumsy person bumping into another to cause a terrible accident. It is also typically quite windy here, making it difficult to find a nice, stable footing. Suffice it to say that I'm almost always relieved when run-bys here are completed.
EDIT 12-9-21: The links included in the description below won't work. I'd recently noticed that Walter's account had been reduced from hundreds of photos to just thirty, and he informed me today that it's because he got hacked.
I'm sure this must be a miserable experience for Walter, and he has my sympathy. I am going to leave the links in place for the time being; if the photos are restored at some point, I will update the links.
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This is the space station I built at Build Day at Walter's House, a Steel City LUG meetup that he hosted on November 23, 2019. I improvised it that afternoon using pieces I pulled from his storage bins.
After we were done building, we went in the basement where he has lights and backdrops for photos, and I wanted to see how my pics would come out with a fancy setup and hifalootin lights. Pretty good, considering this is a phone pic. But I really didn't expect this photo to be of interest to anybody except maybe the people who were there that day, although I did post a few pics to the LUG website.
But tonight I was once again looking through Walter's photostream, and I discovered that his own (inferior :P) photo of this build has been favorited by 26 different people. That's a bigger number than any of my photos currently has (Walter does have way more followers than I do), so I figured if people like it that much, I might as well post it here. You're welcome.
Lakeside Forest
Forests and Lake Biwa
In Shiga Prefecture, forests cover 200,000 hectares, i.e. roughly half the total area of the prefecture, accounting for about 60% of the land area. Most rainwater falling in forests surrounding Lake Biwa flows into the lake, which nurtures rich ecosystems and thereby sustains our lives.
In addition to playing these roles as a water source, forests offer a variety of values such as disaster prevention and timber production.
Currently, an increasing number of forests are ill-managed and devastated due to various changes in socioeconomic conditions and people’s lifestyles. If we allow these forests to continue to deteriorate, the subsequent decline in the multifunctionality of forests will have significant impact on our everyday lives. - Shiga prefecture
Lake Biwa, the largest lake of Japan, is located in central Honshu and fills the bottom of an oblong tectonic basin. The lake was formed some five million years ago and is therefore one of the oldest lakes in the world geologically, though it was originally located some distance south and moved gradually to its present site about 700,000 years ago. The long history of isolation from ther water bodies is suggested by the lake's biota, which is fairly rich for an island lake, containing about 50 species of fish, 40 species of mollusca and a number of indigenous species.
Lake Biwa measures 63.5 km from north to south and is strongly constricted at about 16 km from its southern end reaching a minimum width of only 1.35 km. The deep main basin (average depth 44 m) north of the constriction is called the Northern Lake, while the shallow sub-basin (average depth 3.5 m) to the south is called the Southern Lake. The two basins differ considerably in water quality, physical conditions, flora and fauna.
The lake's catchment area is 4.7 times as wide as the lake itself, and corresponds closely to the administrative limits of Shiga Prefecture. Forest-covered hills and mountains accounts for nearly 60% of the land area of the Prefecture, and farmlands (mostly wet paddy fields) makes up additional 25%. The forest vegetation consists mostly of secondary forests of pine on low hills and of mixed deciduous hardwoods on marginal mountains, and plantations of conifers. There are several cities of moderate size, the largest being Otsu with a population of 240,000.
Lake Biwa is also the biggest water resource in Japan that supplies city and industrial water for some 13 million residents in Osaka/Kyoto/Kobe megalopolis. The quality of lake water was profoundly influenced by economic development since the 1960's through rapid eutrophication. The legal control of waste water discharge from industries implemented by the National Government in 1970 slowed down the rate of eutrophication to a certain extent, but the steady increase of population, ever-rising standard of living, increased fertilizer application, etc. in the catchment area combined to result in a slow but steady march of lake water quality degradation.
The Shiga Prefectural Government enacted in 1980 the Ordinance for the Prevention of Eutrophication of Lake Biwa, which, for the first time in this country, prohibited the use of phosphate-containing synthetic detergents. The phosphorus content of lake water was thereby reduced considerably, but the effect of reduced phosphorus loading on biological processes in the lake is not yet apparent. - World Lake Database (The International Lake Environment Committee Foundation (ILEC))
The church was begun ~1338 by Bp. Grandisson; in many ways it appears to be a reduced model of Exeter cathedral. This vault was cleaned in 2011.
قالت مادام الهجر ما منه مصلـوح خفف من السرعه شويه و حاسب
فكر قبل ما تنوي البعـد و تـروح هل القرار اللـي خذيتـه مناسـب؟
When my husband and I were planning our Route 66 trip I researched where there were Frank Lloyd Wright buildings along the way.
Westhope, though was one I didn’t want to miss. So, as we headed out of Tulsa we stopped by. It is for sale at a reduced price of $4.5 million. It had previously been listed at $8 million!
I figured if someone was wondering what I was doing wandering around the property with my camera I could tell them I was interested in buying it. (In my dreams!)
1 of 9: Westhope - Frank Lloyd Wright, Tulsa, OK
Golden Lion Tamarin at the New Orleans Zoo
From the New Orleans Audubon Zoo website: Animal's Behavior
Golden Lion Tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia) live in family groups with the father as the primary caregiver. They sleep in tree hollows and vines in a family unit for protection against predators and to conserve body heat.
Eating Habits
They’ll eat almost anything – some fruit, vegetation, eggs, and some small reptiles.
Range
They live in coastal rainforests of southeastern Brazil, which have been reduced to about 2% of their former original size.
Conservation Efforts
Their range is a series of protected rainforests, reserves and preserves. Reintroduction efforts are hampered by disappearing habitat.
Animal Facts
These monkeys are distinguished by a bright orange or red mane around the face that gives them a lion-like appearance. They weigh less than two pounds and can live up to 20 years in zoos – although their life span in the wild is 10 – 12 years.
On Sunday 5/3/2023, an overpowered 1120s (empty Aurizon grain transfer) is seen at Wingfield (Adelaide) with alf23-CLP16-cm3308 in charge.
Solimene Ceramic Factory, by Paolo Soleri (1951-1954). The exterior is covered with 16,000 red and green ceramic vases, produced in situ. The internal inclined pillars, which fork going upwards (the net reduces its visibility in the photo have a height of 16 meters.
Vietri sul Mare (Salerno), Italy.
© Roberto Conte (2021)
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Sounds Rivulet, Murdunna > Tasmania
6 February 2016
4 shot panorama stitched in Lightroom CC
Nikon D7200, ISO 100, f22, 1/8, 50mm, Hoya Circular PL
The soft mist that you can see on the foreground people is due to a light water nebulizer to reduce the heat. Nice (France)
View large.
Special NOTE: On Feb. 8, 2012 I attached a comment, readable & easily discoverable on Page 2 of the comments below, that details the vast corporatist scheme, fronted by Jeb Bush, financed in part with hundreds of millions from Rupert Murdoch (FOX nooze), to privatize American public education & reduce it to 'virtual' schools - not to improve anything (as national & international educational research studies clearly show), but rather to become the final recipients of the taxes people pay so that they can skim huge profits off of the top while providing grotesquely inferior services & lots of lying propaganda to keep the public bamboozled. I beg everyone to read the report.
The McGuffey's Ecclectic Spelling Book was published in 1879.
Raymond Cyrus Hoiles (1878-1970) founded Freedom Communications, a newspaper publishing & broadcasting company that has never hesitated to shape the news to fit right wing ideology. When Hoiles was alive & roaring I lived in Orange County, California, home of the equally right wing Walt Disney & Walter Knott, & was frequently compelled to suffer people who agreed with Hoiles' constantly editorialized insistence that public education was a form of theft & communism that must at once be got rid of. Hoiles was motivated by his fundamentalist Christian persuasions, & quite serious. We should restrain our laughter at the abysmal stupidity of his example, because in many ways he & people like him won & are still winning control of public education. - To introduce the article below, I'll say a little about the Christian strategy.
For many years Orange County's teachers worked under a Draconian ruling that forbade the teaching of values. There is no way around the fact, however, that the statement, "Values may not be taught," is itself a value statement belonging to a class of propositions known as Epimenidean Paradoxes. A comparably illustrative sentence would be, "This is not a sentence." Or, a favorite of the best hypnotists, used when addressing a resistant subject, "Do not obey any instruction which I give you."
What, then, was intended by those who created the paradoxical Orange County law? Well, if any teacher dared to say or imply something that would be disagreeable to any person whose beliefs began & ended with church, flag & free-for-all capitalism, then that teacher could be charged with teaching values & be suspended. One family friend, a young man teaching at an elementary school in Anaheim, was charged, hounded, publicly disgraced, threatened with death & discharged from his post, immediately after which he died from a heart attack. The case was depicted in Life Magazine. His only crime was that he was Jewish. His wife, also a teacher, remained bereft & embittered the rest of her long life.
These people became increasingly invisible over time, largely by devising ever more clever ways for gaining control of both education policy & the public dialogue about education.
Ralph Reed, working for Pat Robertson & the Christian Coalition, devised the "stealth agenda" to place fundamentalists in every local school board in America. The plan helped select & fund candidates, who in accord with Reed's instructions never mentioned their religion or religious connections when campaigning for office. In 1983 Reed rigged an election at his university - he got started early, in other words. Recently we learned that Mr. Reed & Jack Abramoff were associate crooks. The revelation forced Reed to abandon his run to become the lieutenant governor of Georgia. Mr. Reed will not disappear, however. He remains a darling of the far Christian right, & owns Century Strategies, a dirty-tricks political consulting & lobbying organization. In 1999 Karl Rove got reed a nice contract with Enron, which was paying Reed $30,000 per month. And guess who recently went to Georgia to try to save poor Reed? Rudy Giuliani, who has the hots to be the next U.S. president & is pandering to the Christians so he can be their new burning Bush.
Stealthiness did not go away when the Christian Coalition folded & Reed went off on his own to rig elections for big bucks. Rather, the stealth moved into policy matters. For instance, all the phony propaganda claiming religious & private education is more successful, creating the excuse to promote vouchers (for which the motives are both religious & racist). Or, most recently, Bush's No Child Left Behind Act, which was sought by the Christians not because they believed all the testing of students would lead to improved education, but rather because they wanted teachers to be made too busy preparing students for endless tests about facts to find time to do the great evil thing, which is the teaching of concepts. Teaching concepts leads to teaching logic, scientific & other academic methodologies which by their nature instill respect for critical - read, skeptical - thinking. Dogmatists, advertisers & con men have equal cause to fear skepticism.
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From: Truthdig.com
Taking Back Our Schools--and Fixing Them
Full text with links: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060425_taking_back_our_sch...
Posted on Apr. 25, 2006
By Wellford Wilms
The recent news reported in The New York Times that schools are throwing out science, social studies and art to make time for drilling students in remedial math and reading is a sign of things gone terribly wrong. Former New York State Commissioner of Education Thomas Sobol told the Times that narrowing education to just math and reading would be akin to restricting violin students to playing scales day after day. “They’d lose their zest for music.” But most schools that serve poor populations, like those in Cuero, Texas, are squeezed to meet federal math and reading standards. Cuero Superintendent Henry Lind told the paper, “When you have so many hours per day and you’re behind in some area that’s being hammered on, you have to work on that.”
But by the looks of things, hammering students for higher test scores isn’t making much of a difference. Most students have already lost their zest for learning. How do we know? In Los Angeles, upwards of 50% of Latino and African American students never finish high school. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’ve been a professor of education at UCLA for more than 25 years and am convinced that despite the fads that come and go, nothing has put a dent in the public schools’ failure to educate inner-city children. In fact, things are getting worse. But I am also convinced that we’ve been looking in the wrong places for solutions. My own research across a wide array of organizations—corporations, trade unions, public schools, colleges, teacher unions and police agencies—suggests another way of looking at the problem and that solutions will come from a new direction.
This essay is a proposition—one that I hope will spark a lively debate among Truthdig readers and inform policy leaders. Future essays will examine Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign to take over the public schools, analyze whether teacher unions can be a force for productive change, and expose promising ways to rebuild public investment in the schools.
Let’s start with Jonathan Kozol’s new book, “The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America.” It is a scathing indictment of American social policy that banned racial segregation in public schools in 1955 and then turned a blind eye to its implementation. Today, Kozol says, schools are more segregated than ever. But he fails to explain why resegregation has occurred. Because Kozol overlooks the root causes of the problem, his solutions—spending more money on dysfunctional schools and wishing for a social mandate to desegregate the schools—miss the point.
To be sure the problems are undeniable. Kozol examines the appalling condition of big-city schools. In school after school we see children who are brimming with potential but who are walled off from the larger society and abandoned by the schools. Most middle-class white Americans simply cannot comprehend the horrid schools that Kozol describes. Ceilings fall in, toilets are filthy, libraries, music and arts have been stripped away. Teachers in these schools, who are paid 40% less than teachers in the suburbs, are forced to teach “scripted” lessons that are written for children who are deemed incapable of learning.
It is all part of the latest reform pushed by the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind initiative, a reform aimed at the singular pursuit of increasing test scores. Learning has been stripped of its intrinsic meaning and reduced to simplistic steps—“Authentic Writing,” “Active Listening,” “Accountable Talk”—that hamper teachers in teaching anything but how to take a test. Behind it all is an attempt to impose control, much as mass production techniques were used a century ago, to standardize instruction to fit new immigrants to the system.
Meanwhile, millions of children are failing. In nearly half of the high schools in America’s 100 largest districts, fewer than 50% of students graduate in four years. Most of these students are from poor Latino and African-American families. And from 1993 to 2000 the number of failing schools has mushroomed by 75%. Mayor Villaraigosa calls Los Angeles’ high dropout rates “numbers that should put a chill down your spine.”
The reasons, Kozol argues, are lack of money and racial discrimination that produce inferior and segregated schools. No doubt this is partly true. We have tried to desegregate the schools for a half-century and failed. Middle-class white parents have voted for individual freedom with their feet, enrolling their children in private schools, leaving the public schools more segregated than ever. The same is true for middle-class black families. Gail Foster, an educator who has studied black independent schools, was quoted in 2004 in The New York Times as saying: “Many of the most empowered parents and families are removing their children. What’s left, in even working-class communities, are schools filled with the least empowered families. Families with the least parent involvement to offer, families with the least help with homework to offer. There’s been a continual outflow for at least 10 years, and it isn’t stopping now.”
More money is not the answer either. Kozol points to wide disparities in educational expenditures ranging from $11,700 per student in New York City to $22,000 in suburban Manhasset. Disturbing as that is, study after study shows that equalizing money does not necessarily equalize learning.
In 1966, sociologist James Coleman conducted the most extensive study ever made of desegregating education and found that what mattered most in students’ learning was the economic status of their peers rather than the racial makeup of the school. He also found that school funding was not closely related to students’ achievement—their families’ economic status was far more predictive. Coleman’s findings were controversial and led to a bitter debate, but they have been replicated many times. Daniel Patrick Moynihan summed it up best when he commented shortly after Coleman’s groundbreaking study, “We should begin to see that the underlying reality is not race but social class.”
Since social class matters because money follows privilege, and since desegregation will take generations to eradicate, what can be done now? Are poor children doomed to attend grossly inadequate schools? Surely not. We must find ways to remove the influences that have crippled the schools. Money must be diverted from bloated bureaucracies that snuff out innovation. Instead it must go directly to schools where principals and teachers can influence what is taught and what children learn, and help bring parents back into the fold. Otherwise, it is going down a rat hole.
Parents have a significant role to play in their children’s education, but their voices have been largely silenced. Over the last 40 years, we have witnessed the decline of civic involvement and the growing dominance of self-interest over the greater good, a social deterioration that sociologist Robert Putnam calls “hollowing out” in his 2000 book “Bowling Alone.” One result, as the old saying goes, is that “the rich get richer” and the poor fall ever further behind in crumbling schools.
Over the last 25 years, education in general has been taken from ordinary citizens and teachers by politicians, administrators, union leaders, publishers, test makers, consultants, university professors, hardware and software developers and the media, each playing its part in keeping alive the illusion of reform. All in all, this $1-trillion industry has replaced the common interest, and no one, it seems, can muster the will to rein it in.
Local control is only a dim memory. Decisions now come from the top—from the federal and state governments, school boards and high-level administrators who have little knowledge of what goes on in the classroom. Teachers are left out of these decisions, carrying on the best they can, safe in the assumption that the newest fad, like those before it, will blow over. Parents are all but forgotten.
While command-and-control management may seem to produce results in the short run, it strips schools of the capacity to develop the stable leadership that is necessary to sustain success. Principals are besieged with demands from district offices and from the educational fads that emanate from publishers and university researchers. Many principals know that they put their careers in peril unless they do what their bosses want. One elementary school principal told me, “District directives undermine our own abilities to think for ourselves, to believe in what we see and know.” When schools discover something that works, it is rarely sustained because they lack authority or stable leadership.
In 1969 when I worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, I monitored the schools in impoverished Ocean Hill-Brownsville in New York City. The local school board hired a charismatic superintendent, who fired incompetent teachers and hired young and idealistic ones. The firings set the local board at odds with the huge teachers’ union, which demanded due process for the fired teachers. The superintendent, Rhody McCoy, was convinced that good teachers had to respect the children they taught. He put it in plain words: “If you’re convinced that this kid is doomed by nature or by something else to lead a shrunken and curtailed life, then you’re basically incompetent to teach that child.” The experiment worked. Observing classrooms left no doubt in my mind that students were learning. Eager first-graders sat attentively on the floor in semicircles shouting out answers to fraction problems and reading aloud. The schools buzzed with excitement as parent helpers streamed in and out of classrooms. But in a bitter power struggle the board seized authority and the experiment ended.
Years later, in 1985, Deborah Meier, a passionate educator who founded Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary School, achieved stunning successes that led the school to be celebrated as a model alternative school in Time magazine. But it could not be sustained beyond Meier’s unique leadership. Today, 10 years after Meier left, a respected children’s advocacy group, Insideschools and Advocates for Children, reports that the Harlem school “…has fallen on hard times in recent years with rapid staff turnover, low staff morale and uneven discipline.”
In risk-averse environments like public schools, few principals will stick out their necks, because they don’t want to buck the bosses downtown. Courageous and visionary principals like Rhody McCoy and Deborah Meier keep coming. But charismatic leadership is no match for heavy-handed district management, which always wins out.
Take Foshay Learning Center in Los Angeles, for example. In 1989, Howard Lappin took over a failing middle school. With the help of teachers and an infusion of money, Lappin wrested control from the district and transformed Foshay. The school expanded into a K-12 “learning center” and became largely autonomous of the district’s bureaucratic requirements. Teachers and administrators decided who would be hired and what would be taught. Foshay succeeded, and in 2000 its high school was selected by Newsweek as one of the 100 best in America. But in 2001 Lappin retired, and his unique leadership was lost. Today Foshay is being threatened with sanctions by the district and the county because gains in students’ test scores have stalled. As the school has fallen under the district’s “one-size-fits all” bureaucratic requirements, the impact has been to undermine the once vibrant teacher leadership that made the school so enviable.
The problem with public education is not with the teachers, or with the children, but the way we organize the schools. Probably the greatest casualties are teachers themselves, who are forced to accept decisions by authorities about teaching that they know to be nonsense. One professor interviewed by Kozol said that forcing an absurdity on teachers teaches something: acquiescence. For example, in study after study, teachers report that relying on test scores as sole marks of student achievement and teaching scripted lessons destroy students’ natural love of learning. And such practices also erode teachers’ professional authority, which is fundamental to student learning.
Why is it so hard to foster the only kind of reform that really works, which is right in the schoolhouse? Because politicians, school board members and administrators are under intense pressure to produce immediate results, i.e., higher and higher test scores—a goal that is pursued through directives from districts with little input of principals, teachers and parents. Superintendents serve at the pleasure of school boards, and most board members are elected or appointed and have limited terms of office. As test scores have become the measure of educational quality, everyone is under immense pressure to show fast results or be turned out.
No wonder that school boards hire superintendents who promise to deliver quick results. But few do. Superintendents last on average only three or four years. Many are thwarted by outmoded bureaucracies that were designed a century ago using top-down control practiced in American industry to mass-produce learning. Within these organizations, power has quietly accumulated, making them all but impervious to outside influence. Sid Thompson, former superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told me: “Trying to change the district is like trying to change the direction of a fast-moving freight train. You might knock it off course for a moment, but before you know it it’s rattling right down the tracks again.”
Frustration and suspicion about who might emerge from the shadows to sabotage their plans often lead superintendents to jealously guard their power. In 2002, Day Higuchi, then president of United Teachers Los Angeles, the Los Angeles teacher union, had high hopes for working with the school district’s new “can-do” superintendent, Roy Romer. Higuchi hoped that Romer would endorse a new union initiative called Lesson Study, a plan to help teachers work collectively to improve classroom lessons. At a breakfast meeting that I attended, Higuchi presented Romer with an invitation to work with the union to develop and spread Lesson Study across the district. When Higuchi finished, Romer flipped over his paper placemat and with a red felt pen drew a box with an S in it. “That’s me,” he said. Beneath he drew 11 boxes with smaller s’s in them, representing the 11 local superintendents, and below that, a number of small boxes with roofs, representing schools and teachers. Then, pulling his face near to Higuchi’s, he drew bold red arrows pointing downward from the top. Romer jabbed his pen in the air to accentuate each word: “You cannot usurp my authority to manage this district!” It was a dumbfounding moment, one that revealed the true underside of the use of power. Here was a chance for a new superintendent to forge a small but significant step with the union, but Romer, who recently announced his resignation, explained that he was “in a hurry.” He clearly had little time for ideas that were at odds with his own. In the end his refusal to work with the union undermined the possibility of creating a broader base of power that could transcend self-interest.
Nor are the unions exempt from self-interest. A few years ago I helped establish a national group of union presidents called TURN (Teacher Union Reform Network) who were dedicated to remaking their unions as forces to improve education. One way was to cooperate with administrators and encourage teachers to use their classroom know-how to redesign teaching at the schoolhouse. But hostility and mistrust run deep. The union leaders became nervous, fearing that fellow unionists would attack them for “collaborating” with the enemy and that if the effort to collaborate failed they would share the blame. Don Watley, president of the New Mexico Federation of Educational Employees, commented: “It’s like the Normandy landing. We’ve got the best troops in the world. We’ve got the best officers in the world. And we’ve got the best equipment in the world. But at 0800 when we hit the beach half of us are going to get killed!” Sadly, in the years to come, the ingrained mistrust, and the unpredictable dance of union politics, prevented these unionists from becoming a positive force in educational reform. Instead, they have been reduced to stockpiling power, much as the Soviets and Americans stockpiled nuclear weapons during the Cold War, to oppose any hostile moves the other side might make.
So what can be done to break the standoff between teacher unions and districts? How can teachers’ professional authority be restored? How can parents be awakened and brought back into the fold? Experience shows that it can be done. Schools such as Harlem’s Central Park East Secondary, Los Angeles’ Foshay Learning Center, those in Ocean Hill-Brownsville, and many others attest to the fact that schools can be made into safe places where children learn. Sustaining them is the hard part.
There is little doubt that trying to build good schools with command-and-control management doesn’t work. School boards, superintendents and union officials need to clear the obstacles—unnecessary bureaucratic requirements and outmoded work rules—to make innovation at the schoolhouse possible. These top-level educational leaders also must make resources available to support new ways of teaching. Jonathan Kozol has it right. Teaching is the only reform that counts and it can be done only at the schoolhouse by teachers, principals, parents and students working together.
Turning school districts upside down will also mean turning a century of top-down management on its head. But where is such bold leadership to be found? One promising place is among big-city mayors. But they must resist trying to take over the schools, as they did in New York, Chicago and Boston with mixed results at best. Instead, popular mayors could use their influence and visibility to tell the truth about the condition of education and to build a popular consensus about how change must occur.
In the next essay I am going to examine what mayors can do. Waiting for the schools to be saved by someone else is nonsense. Only concerted local action offers a chance. Doubters should recall Margaret Mead’s observation: “Never doubt that a small group of concerned people can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
A Progressive Journal of News and Opinion. Editor, Robert Scheer. Publisher, Zuade Kaufman.
Copyright © 2006 Truthdig, L.L.C. All rights reserved.
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Charles Gesner van der Voort (1916-1991) worked in Shanghai for Holland-China Trading Company, from 1939. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, 7 December 1941, the Japanese entered the International Concession of Shanghai. Life changed considerably for nationals of countries which the Japanese considered enemies. Radios, cameras, cars had to be handed in. It became forbidden to visit cinemas. People had to wear armbands to be easier to recognise. A letter indicated the country: A=American, B=British, N=Netherlands, X=other nationalities.
In March 1943, Charles Gesner van der Voort was interned in Chapei (now: Zhabei) Civil Assembly Centre, along with about a hundred other Dutch nationals.
He kept a diary, in a notebook previously used for French lessons. His fiancé, Nancy Cohen, was a French teacher in camp, which might have been the reason for his interest in French. W 107 on the cover refers to room 107 in the West building.
15 August 1945, the internment camp was liberated. The final months, especially knowing that the war in the Netherlands had ended in May 1945 and when the food rations had reduced considerably, had lasted very long for the people interned.
Several people who were interned in Chapei shared their drawings and stories with me.
Courtesy Gesner van der Voort family archives
We just announced several new workshops for May & June! We'll be going to Reflection Canyon and Coyote Gulch on May 16-18. I took this shot of Reflection Canyon last spring and it really lived up to its name with crystal clear reflections! The Escalante workshops will be held on May 11-15 and June 9-13 and will focus on night photography.
You'll want to photograph the wild and vast Grand Staircase Escalante before it all changes! You've probably heard that it will be reduced in size and significant infrastructural changes have been planned for oil, gas, and mining activities. These events will undoubtedly change this uniquely beautiful landscape with increased human foot-print, light pollution, and contamination. As it is right now, the Grand Staircase has the darkest skies in the lower 48 states and is THE mecca for night photography.
Escalante May 11-15: actionphototours.com/spring-grand-staircase/
Reflection Canyon May 15-18: actionphototours.com/reflection-canyon/
Escalante June 9-13: actionphototours.com/spring-grand-staircase-june/
NGC1333
Optics: Skywatcher Esprit 150ED f/7 Refractor with 0.77x reducer/flattener
Camera: QHY 268M
Blue: 36x600 sec
Green: 39x600 sec
Ha: 66x1200 sec
Lum: 121x600 sec
Red: 41x600 sec
The walk up to Segestad started early in the morning, with the mist still clinging to the trees and the faint sound of birds beginning to stir in the forest. The path was steep, winding through ancient pine trees and over rocky outcrops, each turn offering a tantalizing glimpse of what lay ahead. The air was crisp and fresh, carrying the unmistakable scent of pine and earth, a reminder of the untamed beauty of Norway’s landscapes.
As I climbed higher, the trees began to thin, revealing patches of the sky above, a brilliant blue canvas untouched by even the wispiest of clouds. The path grew steeper, demanding more effort with each step, but the anticipation of what awaited at the top made every bit of exertion worthwhile.
Finally, after what felt like hours of climbing, the trail leveled out, and the last of the trees gave way to an open plateau. There it was—Segestad, a quaint, secluded farm perched high above Oppstrynsvatnet, overlooking a view that words could scarcely capture.
I stood in awe as the vast panorama unfolded before me. Below, the fjord-like waters of Oppstrynsvatnet shimmered in the sunlight, a deep, inviting blue that contrasted beautifully with the lush green meadows that framed it. The farm itself was charming, with rustic buildings that seemed to have stood there forever, perfectly at home in this remote and tranquil setting.
But it was the mountains that truly took my breath away. Majestic and snow-capped, they rose in the distance like silent guardians, their peaks glistening under the bright sunlight. The contrast between the white of the snow, the deep blue of the sky, and the verdant greens of the valleys below was nothing short of spectacular.
Standing there, it felt as though time had stopped. The world was reduced to this moment, this view, and the profound sense of peace that accompanied it. The journey had been challenging, but the reward was beyond anything I could have imagined. As I took in the beauty of Segestad and the world around it, I couldn’t help but feel a deep connection to this place, a part of Norway that seemed to hold within it the essence of all that is wild and beautiful in nature.
It was a moment I knew I would carry with me forever, a reminder of the simple, breathtaking beauty that can be found when you take the time to climb a little higher.
The view from my balcony, it was very foggy that morning and during the sunrise it was absolutely amazing lighting, no photoshop editing...
Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L IS, handheld three exposure processed in Photomatix Pro, noise reduced in Topaz DeNoise 5 and completed work in Photoshop CS5 (just cropping)
The Series 62 was a series of cars produced by Cadillac from 1940 through 1964 (when it was renamed the Cadillac Calais, continuing on under that badge until 1976). Originally designed to replace the entry level Series 65, it became the Series 6200 in 1959, and remained that until the change to Calais five years later.
For 1948, the Series 62 was moved to the same 126 in (3,200 mm) chassis as the Series 61, making the vehicles virtually identical. The main difference, apart from extra chrome, was the availability of a convertible model. Distinguishing features included grooved bright metal front fender gravel guards, rocker panel brightwork, chevron style chrome shlashes below taillights and slightly richer interior trim. Also in 1948 the first tail fins were added. Sales fell to 34,213, nevertheless accounting for a record 68% of all Cadillacs sold.
The new Cadillac OHV V8 was the big news for 1949, with minor trim differences otherwise. This 331 cu in (5.4 L) engine produced 160 hp (119 kW).The major difference between Series 61 and Series 62 models of similar body style was minor trim variations. The higher-priced series again had grooved, front fender stone shields and bright rocker panel moldings. Chevrons below the taillights were no longer seen. The convertible was an exclusive offering. A heater was optional.
Sales reached a record 55,643.
The Cadillac Series 62 Coupe de Ville was introduced late in the 1949 model year. Along with the Buick Roadmaster Riviera, and the Oldsmobile 98 Holiday, it was among the first pillarless hardtop coupes ever produced. At $3,496 it was only a dollar less than the Series 62 convertible, and like the convertible, it came with power windows standard. It was luxuriously trimmed, with leather upholstery and chrome 'bows' in the headliner to simulate the ribs of a convertible top.
For 1950, major styling changes were performed. The cars were lower and sleeker, with longer hoods, and one-piece windshields were fitted. Hydramatic transmission was now standard. The Series 61 was again a short wheelbase model, having been reduced to 122 in (3099 mm).
Sales set yet another record at 59,818.
Full-length chrome rocker panels set off the 1951 model, and the Coupe de Ville was now marked with noticeably-improved trim, including Coupe de Ville script on the rear roof pillar. Sales were 81,844, or a record of over 74% of all Cadillacs sold. Popular Mechanics reported about 20 mpg at 45mph.
In 1952, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Cadillac, the V-shaped hood and deck emblems were done as gold castings. The Series 62 sedan was also characterized by a higher rear deck lid contour. This provided additional luggage space. Back up lights were now standard equipment and were incorporated in the taillights. The grille wraparound panels were redesigned once again having broad chrome trim below each headlight with side scoop styling and gold-colored winged emblem mounted in the center. At the rear all Cadillacs adopted a through the bumper dual exhaust system. Deck ornamentation took the form of a Cadillac crest over abroad golden "V". New standard features included self-winding clocks, improved direction signal indicators, glare proof mirrors, stannate treated pistons, and four barrel carburetion. Engine output for the 331 was up to 190 hp (142 kW). Sales fell to 70,255, but with the Series 61 out of the way, Series 62 sales accounted for a record 78% of all Cadillacs.
The 1953 Series 62 saw a redesigned grille with heavier integral bumper and bumper guards, the repositioning of parking lamps directly under the headlights, chrome "eybrow" type headlamp doors, and one piece rear windows without division bars. Wheel discs were fashioned in an attractive new disced design. Series 62 bodystyles were identified by non louvered rear fenders, the use of thin bright metal underscores on the bottom rear of the cars only and the decoration of both hood and deck lid with Cadillac crests and V- shaped ornaments. The Club Coupe model disappeared. Two door Series 62 were now all hardtops (including the better equipped Coupe de Ville) or convertibles. Another familiar name appeared on 1953's Series 62. The top of the line subseries Eldorado was one of three specialty convertibles produced in 1953 by General Motors, the other two being the Oldsmobile 98 Fiesta and the Buick Roadmaster Skylark. The Eldorado was a limited-edition luxury convertible, and would eventually become its own series. It featured a full assortment of deluxe accessories, including wire wheels, and introduced the wraparound windshield to Cadillac standard production.
Sales set a new record at 85,446.
Bandon, Oregon
Open lot for sale on the bluff edge above Bandon Beach affords open view of Face Rock.
Details:
Scope: AT10RCT @ f/5.3
Reducer: CCDT67
Camera: QSI690-wsg8
Guide Camera: Starlight Xpress Ultrastar
Mount: Mach1 GTO
Ha: 11x15min
OIII: 10x15min
Software: SGP, PHD2, APCC, Pixinsight
5.3 hrs total exposure
What are my own personal favourite photographs of 2013? April's photograph here.
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Hubble pallet Sadr & Butterfly nebula
2 panel mosaic 20-30x300sec Ha, OIII, SII for each with darks & flats.
William Optics ZS81 and Altair 0.8 reducer, ZWO 183mm Pro, AZ-EQ6 GT.
SGP, Pixinsight, LR & PS
Clapton Garage on 11 November 1979.
When the north eastern end of RM Route 22 was slightly reduced in favour of new DMS operated Route 22a, the two routes ran parallel for a short distance which created a unique situation. As Route 22 was one of the central London routes that operated with the BESI system (Bus electronic scanning indicator which was a sort of early form of what we would call GPS), for route control purposes the DMS`s on the 22a were also fitted making them the only example of a non-crew route on BESI. Mounted in the holder above the entrance door were two plates - one denoted the route number and the other the bus running number - and these were read by roadside scanning posts. The height of the fixture on the bus corresponds to the height of the scanner. It had to be so even though it part covers the bullseye. The BESI system was abandoned a few years before this picture was taken though the buses fitted with the holder retained it until it was removed on next overhaul.
A picture of a pair of BESI plates can be found by going back through my uploads (which are in date order) to November 2018.
It would make this explanation a bit easier if DMS 531 was blinded for a 22a rather than a 277 which also operated out of Clapton!
Reduced prices on these figs, PayPal or trade if you have any of the parts I wanted in my previous photo. They're all sealed and poseable, ready to ship. Shipping is 3 in US, 7 international.
Kix - 16
Dogma - 15
Hardcase (blue) - 15
Hardcase (red) - 13
Bomb Squad - 20
As the X7 doesn't operate on Sundays and the X8 has a reduced service spare branded vehicles are used as seen in Wednesbury.
Class 40 Indian Summer - the legendary Manchester-Skegness
On 25th Aug 1984, instead of chasing 40s across the north-west, I chose to take the only scheduled service that was still booked a Class 40, the Man Picc-Skegness (SO) and return. Here we have reached Boston station, after traversing the single-line curve between Sleaford North and Sleaford West Junctions. A six-car DMU set passes us heading for Nottingham Midland, made up of a 2-car Cravens unit with DMBS power trailer E51288 leading, E54431 behind, and two pairs of Lincoln-based Class 114 Derby Heavyweights. The Cravens unit had only a month or so left to live - being withdrawn on 23rd September 1984 and meeting its end at Mayer Newman's scrapyard in Snailwell in 1986. Info courtesy of railcar.co.uk/data/vehicle/51288 & railcar.co.uk/data/vehicle/54431 :)
40012 (D212) was one of the old LMR namers 'Aureol' and in the 1980s was one of a relatively small number of 'Whistlers' that were based at Carlisle Kingmoor (KD).
Little did I know then, as a Londoner born and bred, that some 14 years later I would end up living in Lincoln!
More on the Class 105 Cravens units here: railcar.co.uk/type/class-105/ and more on the Derby built Class 114s here: railcar.co.uk/type/class-114/
'A day in the life' - log book update:
Saturday 25th August 1984 - 40012 on 1E67 08.15 Man Picc - Skegness
MAN PICC
Ashburys
Reddish North
Romiley
New Mills Central
EDALE
Dore
SHEFFIELD
Darnall
Worksop
RETFORD (Low Level)
Gainsborough Lea Road
Saxilby
LINCOLN CENTRAL
Metheringham
Ruskington
SLEAFORD
Heckington
Swineshead
Hubbert's bridge
BOSTON
Thorpe Culvert
Wainfleet
Havenhouse
SKEGNESS
and in reverse for
1M54 13.24 Skegness - Man Picc
304 miles
Between 1982 and 1984 I spent many happy hours with my friends chasing around the North of England after the remaining Class 40s. At the beginning of 1984, there were still 50 members of the fleet in service, but this had already reduced down to 26 by the time I had 40012 to Skeg. By the end of the summer timetable, just 25 remained in service, and only 17 of the class survived into 1985, all but 3 being withdrawn over the weekend of 21st/22nd Jan 1985.
D200/40122, 40118 and 40012 were kept on just for rail tours, although D200 had a second Indian summer :)
Locomotive History
D212 / 40012 'Aureol'
D212 was built by the English Electric Company at their Vulcan Foundry Works, Newton-Le-Willows, Lancashire and entered service in May 1959, allocated to Willesden MPD. From the 1st June 1959, D212 transferred to Crewe North, firstly on loan and then permanently before transfer to Carlisle Upperby in Sep 1959 and Camden in December 1960. D212 was named 'Aureol' by Mr.M.Glaister, Director of the Elder Dempster shipping line at Liverpool Riverside Station on the 20th Sep 1960. D212 remained at Camden for the next five years before a gradual move back to the North West via Bescot (Dec 1965) and Crewe (Apr 1966) finally transferring to Longsight in Aug 1967. It remained at Longsight for almost eleven years apart from brief stays at Springs Branch (Jun 1972 - May 1973) and Kingmoor (May 1973 – Aug 1973).
D212 became 40012 in the 1973 TOPS renumbering scheme. Its final transfer was in Dec 1978 when 40012 transfered to Carlisle Kingmoor where it remained until being withdrawn from active service in Feb 1985, due to derailment damage. Following withdrawal it was dragged to Crewe Gresty Lane sidings awaiting disposal. However, due to the Crewe Station remodeling scheme, 40012 was reinstated to traffic on 20th May 1985 at Crewe TMD, given the departmental running number of 97407 and restricted to a maximum speed of 35 mph for use on engineering trains only. Withdrawal for the second time around finally took place at Crewe TMD on the 4th Apr 1986, due to cracked bogie frames, and it was moved to Crewe Basford Hall yard to again await disposal. On the 1st Sep 1986, 97407 along with sister loco 97408 (ex-40118) moved from Crewe to Carlisle to provide spares to keep the flagship of the class (D200) running in order for it to fill its railtour commitments. 97407 remained at Carlisle until 7th Sep 1988 when it travelled via Workington, Crewe and Nuneaton to Vic Berry's Yard at Leicester for asbestos removal to be carried out, before moving on to its new home at the Midland Railway Centre. This magnificently detailed history courtesy again of John Woolley Photos
My interest in the railways waned permanently with the demise of the Class 50s, initially from the Paddington-Oxford route in 1990, and finally when they retired from the Waterloo-Exeter services in 1992.
As well as enjoying the thrash, I managed to record many of the trips and railway scenes encountered on film for posterity. Those days are now long gone, but happily the photos remain for me to reminisce over and share. ;)
Taken with a Zenith TTL SLR camera and standard lens. Scanned from the original negative with no digital restoration
You can see a random selection of my railway photos here on Flickriver: www.flickriver.com/photos/themightyhood/random/
'Indian Summer' - a period of happiness or success occurring late in life...English Electric Type 4 1958-1984
In these difficult economic times, I will need to reduce my clothing budget. Fortunately, I've been hoarding dresses and heels and my closets are full of unworn outfits.
Thank you Calvin (as in Klein)....and thank you so much TJMaxx for the reduced price tag n this cute sweater dress!
These are the last pics from a couple of days ago.
Due to me actually starting gainful employment this week; I anticipate a greatly reduced service for my followers for the foreseeable future.
And before you ask, no I will not be going to work wearing a dress!
Thanks to all for your continued support.
KT xXx
in the back of our school, the parents and kids constructed a greenhouse using recycled bottles to retain the heat. there are tables for the plants.
ANSH scavenger12 habitat
The unseasonal July weather may well have reduced the number of flying displays at the 2023 Royal International Air Tattoo, but had no impact on the number of coaches attending. One such vehicle pictured arriving at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire was GL71 PUL, a Volvo B8R/Plaxton Leopard coach new to Pulham, Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire in September 2021.
Want to find out more? Join The PSV Circle - Details at www.psvcircle.org.uk
Copyright © P.J. Cook, all rights reserved. It is an offence to copy, use or post this image anywhere else without my permission.
Happy Earth Day, ya'll
Reuse more, waste less.
Keep them bushes tidy
and above all don't litter!
Every little bit helps :)
I keep trying to get what I feel is a nice crow portrait. Every attempt seems to fall a little short. It's either not quite as sharp as I would like or the exposure isn't the best possible or as in this case the background isn't the best. The bright object to the rear of the bird's head is a aluminum pole. The best I could do with my software was to reduce it somewhat with a vignette. I do like the detail and exposure on this shot and the catchlight is nice. So I'm posting it until I can improve my attempt. Taken on the left field fence of Wilkes Comm. College ball field
Sometimes I wonder if Beibei is actually a dog.
I am not sure if it is Flickr or Firefox but the brightness of my uploaded photos is always reduced! This is very irritating when they look properly lighted in Photoshop. Colour management had been enabled in Firefox already.
==Personal photos, invites & links will be deleted. Apologies & thanks for visiting!==
IN ENGLISH BELOW THE LINE
La mansió anglesa de Lacock Abbey fou l'escenari on William Henry Fox Talbot descobrí la fotografia, realitzant el primer negatiu fotografic de la historia aquí, el 1835. Es tracta d'un negatiu de paper poc més gran que un segell, fet amb el que la seva dona anomenava "càmeres de trampa de ratolins".
Aquí podeu veure la sala on va fer aquest primer negatiu, amb la càmera sobre una xemeneia i mirant cap a la finestra.
De manera resumida, mullà paper fí amb sal de taula i nitrat de plata; el posà a la càmera i la deixà mirant cap a la finestra durant força temps. M'han comentat que entre 15 minuts i dues hores, però crec que més aviat fou entre 2 i 3 hores. A la llum d'espelmes va veure que el paper havia obtingut la imatge del finestral... en negatiu. Tot seguit el va submergir en una forta sol·lució de sal, el que quasi fixà la imatge en el seu estat. No fou fins 6 anys després que es va descobrir que amb tiosulfat de sodi la imatge quedava perfectament fixada, en dissoldre la resta de sals de plata presents (que enfosquirien del tot la imatge, amb el temps).
Fox Talbot no va publicar els seus treballs fins el 1839, quan el varen sorpendre les noticies que arrivaven de França, on Louis Daguerre havia presentat solemnement el seu procés amb planxes de plata i tòxics vapors de iode i mercuri, el daguerrotip.
Fox Talbot va millorar molt el seu propi procés el 1840, en incorporar el fixador i sobretot en aconseguiir reduir les expossicions de 3 hores a 3 minuts (i fins a menys de un, amb un bon objectiu). Ho va anomenar calotip.
Però des del 1839 fins al 1851, els daguerrotips varen dominar la fotografia completament, ja que eren impressionantment més definits i permetien fàcilment retrats. Però els calotips es podien copiar, al ser negatius, cosa que feu que la evolució de la fotografia (amb la placa humida a partir de 1851) fos a partir de la obra de Fox Talbot.
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Fox_Talbot
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abadia_de_Lacock
====================================
The English manor of Lacock Abbey was the scene where William Henry Fox Talbot discovered photography, making the first photographic negative in history here, in 1835. It is a paper negative little bigger than a stamp, made with the which his wife called "mousetrap cameras".
Here you can see the room where he made this first negative, with the camera on a fireplace and looking out the window.
Briefly, he painted fine paper with table salt and silver nitrate; he put it on the camera and left it staring at the window for quite some time. They told me that between 15 minutes and two hours, but I think it was more like between 2 and 3 hours. In the candlelight he saw that the paper had obtained the image of the window...in negative. He then immersed it in a strong salt solution, which almost fixed the image in its state. It wasn't until 6 years later that it was discovered that with sodium thiosulphate the image was perfectly fixed, by dissolving the rest of the silver salts present (which would completely darken the image, over time).
Fox Talbot did not publish his work until 1839, when he was surprised by the news arriving from France, where Louis Daguerre had solemnly presented his process with silver plates and toxic vapors of iodine and mercury, the daguerreotype.
Fox Talbot greatly improved his own process in 1840, by incorporating the fixer and especially by managing to reduce exposures from 3 hours to 3 minutes (and down to less than one, with a good objective). He called it a calotype.
But from 1839 to 1851, daguerreotypes dominated photography completely, as they were impressively sharper and easily allowed portraits. But calotypes could be copied, being negatives, making the evolution of photography (with the wet plate from 1851 onwards) from the work of Fox Talbot.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacock_Abbey