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Eulogy to my Aunt June

Had a surprise reunion, patching up of relations with my mother’s only sister in early September. My Aunt June passed away yesterday.

The boys and I had arrived in Boston for a conference we were attending that weekend. The balance of the conference was to take place in Quincy, going out towards “The Cape.” I had planned to visit my Aunt June, who was recovering from a hip operation, with my boys on Saturday night or Sunday after we settled in and could assess the best time to break away, or visit after the conference ended. Finding ourselves with a car in Central Boston at rush hour on a Friday afternoon, however, it seemed most logical to head over to the hospital for a visit with my aunt while the traffic sorted itself out. Truth to tell, as soon as this idea occurred to me I realized that I was quite anxious to see my aunt. read more

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EPA needs to monitor pesticides better

Apparently, the US has been asleep at the helm for years when we should have been much more closely monitoring the alarming and increasing use of herbicides and pesticides in our crops, fields and yards. Atrazine, a chemical widely banned across Europe since 2004, is finally coming under the scrutiny of our own government, and it’s about time.

The Huffington Post tell us,

Atrazine is one of the most widely used herbicides in the U.S. An estimated 76 million pounds of the chemical are sprayed on corn and other fields in the U.S. each year, sometimes ending up in rivers, streams, and drinking water supplies. It has been the focus of intense scientific debate over its potential to cause cancer, birth defects, and hormonal and reproductive problems. As the Huffington Post Investigative Fund reported in a series of articles last fall, the EPA failed to warn the public that the weed-killer had been found at levels above federal safety limits in drinking water in at least four states. Some water utilities are suing Syngenta to have it pay their costs of filtering the chemical. read more

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No user privacy on iPhones & iPads

Did you know that data is collected by Apple applications running on iPhones and iPads, and is transmitted to the applications’ owners, without you knowing about this? Craig Michael Lie Njie of KismetWorldWide learned while creating an application for his own company that reports are created every day by applications used on these devices detailing

every action a user takes within an app: every button click, every page viewed, every table cell viewed, and the time a person took between each action, all sent back to the server without any notification or customer access to that information. read more

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Roza Jaffe: Forced Journeys, a holocaust survivor remembers

Family friend Roza Jaffe recounts,

“My grandfather was a big merchant, my mother helped in the store. They were 9 children, 6 survived by coming to America in their twenties.

One sister died of hunger during the holocaust . . Khotyn, my hometown, was set on on fire and my house along with everything in it was destroyed. My family members and I were forced to travel by foot from Khotyn to the Ukraine. I was the only survivor, an orphan, begging in the streets, until I was taken on a transport to Romainia with a group of other survivors. The Russians came into Romania and I was taken to an orphanage in Odesa . . .” read more

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Missão Brasil Festival Brasileira 9/6 em Clifton

Venha festejar no feriado em Clifton com Missão Brasil

Dia 6 de Setembro
Segunda-feira (Labor Day) às 12pm
Igreja Assembléia de Deus Filadélfia
45 Hazel Street, Clifton, NJ 07011

Mais informações ligue 1-973-951-3407

400+ pessoas esperadas!

Comida Tipica
(Pé de moleque, bijú, acarajé, pamonha, curau e muito mais

Diversão para a Garotada
Pula-pula, histórias animadas e muito, muito mais

E muita Música

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Get Annie back to her owner

My Aunt writes from Florida:

I know the heartache of losing a pet. My Aussie was 9 when she died and this dog is 8 and the man had her since a puppy. The article spells it all out. I am also contacting the local talk show to see about starting a legal fund for him. An organization has already offered the people who adopted the dog $1,000 but they won’t accept the money in exchange for Annie’s return. We need to write letters to help Chuck get his 8 year old Australian Shepard back. She got spooked while he was feeding horses. Chuck looked for her and made a report to animal control but his dog was adopted out to new owners, and they refuse to give her back. read more

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Iceland poised to provide true freedom to journalists

Edited to add: Julian Assange, one of the engineers of Iceland’s new freedom of speech protection laws, was arrested for rape today but released after police decided the report against him lacked merit.

After Iceland’s near-economic collapse laid bare deep-seated corruption, the country aims to become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers from around the globe by creating the world’s most far-reaching freedom of information legislation.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and parliamentary representative Birgitta Jonsdottir are helping to create, “the world’s most far-reaching freedom of information legislation,” in Iceland. Reformers estimate it will take 1 1/2 years to change 13 laws to make it possible for Iceland to offer the most extreme level journalists have anywhere in the globe, plus similar protection for whistleblowers who report on abuse by governments and major corporations and afterwards may become targets for persecution, harassment, slander and even assassination. read more

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Macbook i5 and i7 run too hot?

I asked an ebay seller for his thoughts about the last generation core duo Macbook Pros and the newer i5s (15″) and i7s (17″), “I’d stay away from the newer MPB models until Apple solves the heating issue . . . previous models (of the Macbook Pro), such as the 2.8 Ghz MBP run barely warm to the touch and will last a lot longer because of that.”

Wanting to know exactly how hot would be too hot for the processor temp to rise up to I did some searching on the topic and came up with several references to the heating issue: read more

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Immediate benefits of health care reform

So many people are asking what the benefits are of recent health care reforms, and there’s a lot of frustration because so much help is needed right now, but the changes aren’t all that exciting – for this year. I share feelings many have that urgent help is needed NOW but it helps to remember that every journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, and the current changes add up to way more than that. Along with the health care changes, the final bills provided changes to aid for college students too. Let’s take a look at some of the health care changes that do kick in this year: read more

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$35 tablet computer changes everything

The idea that everything costs a lot of money has been a constant in the United States for way too long. Only this concept would account for very boring hamburgers costing about $4.00 at today’s fast food restaurants – an amount of money that people in quite a few countries work all day to earn. Hidden costs are built into so many of the items sold in the States and for some reason, America is willing to pay them.

The $4.00 fast food burger price, for example, represents the collective cost of the burger you bought plus the other one (or two) tossed into the garbage because nobody after about 15 minutes of sitting under the heat lamp they are declared inedible. Add to the waste cost franchise fees, national advertising fees, licensing and advertising costs and you can see clearly that you’re not paying much for your burger, but you sure as heck are paying for everything that burger represents in the consumer maketplace. read more

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Facts need wider acceptance

Have you ever introduced a group of people to information new to them and found your audience going to sleep on you? I’ve noticed that when introducing people to facts which challenge their assumptions about “how things work”, or simply an overabundance of data which is completely outside of what they’ve been accustomed to experience or think about, they my audience may nod right off to sleep on me.

Important scientific studies are apparently identifying some of the reasons that our minds reject facts that are incompatible with our beliefs and experiences, or are so new we haven’t yet figured out what to do with them. read more

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Gulf oil spill changes ecology consciousness

Phil Greenspun always shares germane and interesting observations in his public writing. Here’s a doozy . .

After the big Gulf oil spill, though, I’m beginning to wonder if a soda can in a Massachusetts landfill has any significance. The U.S. has millions of environmentally-conscious citizens. We probably have close to a million people involved in complying with various environmental laws and regulations. Yet we’ve just destroyed the ecology of the world’s ninth largest body of water, 660 quadrillion gallons (6.6 x 10^18) of water. This was home to sea life for 300 million years before we came along and trashed it. Will it be possible to summon up any outrage the next time we see an SUV driver throwing a cigarette out the window? read more

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Danger not equal to crisis+opportunity

Chinese language professor Victor H. Mair at U Penn writes,

“There is a widespread public misperception, particularly among the New Age sector, that the Chinese word for “crisis” is composed of elements that signify “danger” and “opportunity.” . . . A whole industry of pundits and therapists has grown up around this one grossly inaccurate statement. A casual search of the Web turns up more than a million references to this spurious proverb. . . This catchy expression (Crisis = Danger + Opportunity) has rapidly become nearly as ubiquitous as The Tao of Pooh and Sun Zi’s Art of War for the Board / Bed / Bath / Whichever Room.” read more

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AIDS Walk in memory of my brother

My cousin Jill Judson has a team in AIDS Walk Boston on June 6 2010 in honor of my brother Jared, who died of AIDS. If you are able, please support Jill with a donation. Visit the team page for more information or visit “JILLElizabeth Judson directly to make your donation via the internet or by mail.

Apparently, Jill has participated in the AIDS walk every year for the past 5 or 6 years. This is remarkable commitment for anyone, and considering that Jill struggles with physical issue of her own which make walking far a challenge for her, it is really the most lovely and loving tribute. As you can see, there are several other members on Jill’s team helping to make this march. read more