It's no surprise that Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., both have Holocaust memorials.

But most people wouldn't expect to find one in rural Whitwell, Tenn., a predominately Christian, two-traffic-light town with a population of 1,600 and no Jews.

Yet, a German railcar sits in the yard of Whitwell Middle School, housing The Children's Holocaust Memorial.

The story behind this memorial involves teachers who wanted to teach their students about diversity and intolerance; teenagers who were shocked by the atrocities of the Holocaust and sympathized with its victims; and a lot of paper clips.

"Paper Clips," a documentary about this memorial, premieres in Scottsdale on Friday, Feb. 11, at Harkins Camelview 5 Theatres. After the film, Valley resident and Holocaust survivor Helen Handler will comment on the film and talk about her experiences during World War II.

The story begins in 1998, when David Smith, assistant principal of Whitwell Middle School, attended a teacher's conference in nearby Chattanooga, and was inspired to start a program to teach students about the Holocaust.

good read...

Six million paper clips

It can be a lonely feeling when the phone doesn't ring.
And even though, yes, you could pick up the phone and call someone, sometimes you just need someone else to reach out first.

Ryan Paulson knows that feeling. Even though he's busy with classes at Dakota State University and a part-time job at Daktronics in Brookings, even though his parents only live a few miles away in Colman, even though he has - as of Saturday - a fianc� by the name of Cassie Moeller, sometimes he would look at his cell phone lifeline and just wish it would ring more often.

That's why a postcard posted Sept. 23 on PostSecret.com resonated deep within Paulson.

It said, "I bought the coolest phone on the planet - but it still only rings as often as my old phone did."

PostSecret is a Web site that bills itself as an art project. People are invited to send in homemade postcards that reveal a secret they've never shared before.

A man named Frank Warren started the site in 2005. About 20 postcards are put on the Web site each Sunday, and Warren's fourth book of postcards will be released next week.

Earlier this year he began accepting reader comments on the week's postcards.

Paulson's response was put online the same day the postcard appeared.

Paulson wrote, "I feel the same way. I often wonder why I even have a phone because I rarely receive calls."

Then he offered a metaphorical ear.

"If there was a way we could contact each other, that would be cool. My phone number is 605-212-7787."

A few hours later, his phone rang. It was Warren, checking to see if Paulson had submitted a real phone number and truly was willing to talk with a stranger.

Paulson said yes, and his response was on line by 7:30 p.m.

Then his cell phone started ringing.

"Within five, 10 minutes of putting it up, I'd already had a couple phone calls," Paulson says. "I was like, OK, a few people will call and maybe the one person who put it up there."

Little did he know.

Within the first couple of days, Paulson received 250 calls, so many that his voicemail told countless other callers that it could accept no more messages.

He has talked to people in almost every state, along with calls from Colombia, Scotland, England and Australia. He's talked with soldiers stationed in Iraq.

Paulson spoke for more than two hours with cousins conducting a conference call from North Carolina and Georgia. He spoke to a 45-year-old nontraditional student who shares his interest in art. He talked with a woman who had just put her children to bed.

And he learned he's not the only one out there who sometimes just wants to feel like someone out there cares.

Paulson, unknowingly, tapped into fears that many of us share: that in a busy, crammed-full life, no one remembers us; that our answering machines never flash because we simply don't matter to anyone; that in an era when communication with ot... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

Reach Out and Touch Someone...

Although Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) uses some of the most sophisticated technologies in the world to test aerospace systems before flight, it's been using one system for 24 years that's about as simple as instant mashed potatoes and Stovetop Stuffing.

"It's about as low-tech as you can get," said Randal Watt, a project manager at the Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn., test center's Bird Impact Test Facility. "Most people who tour AEDC are surprised we haven't developed a more sophisticated test technique. But it's really common sense, a very simple thing. If you are trying to simulate a bird hitting the windshield of an aircraft, the easiest and best way to do it is to catch a bird, accelerate it to the desired speed, and have an aircraft windshield in its path."

I had to post this old news about the chicken gun at Arnold AFB...

now to find video...

Something to crow about: Rooster Booster proves old-fashioned ingenuity needn't be high-tech Combat Edge - Find Articles

(CNN) -- A federal jury in Baltimore, Maryland, Wednesday awarded $10.9 million to a father of a Marine whose funeral was picketed by members of a fundamentalist church carrying signs blaming soldiers' deaths on America's tolerance of homosexuals.

The family of Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder -- who was killed in a vehicle accident in Iraq's Anbar province in 2006 -- sued the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, and its leaders for defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Church members showed up at Snyder's funeral chanting derogatory slogans and holding picket signs with messages including "God Hates Fags."

I am all for free speech but some people take $4!7 too far!

Good!

Church ordered to pay $10.9 million for funeral protest - CNN.com

Stories of people trying to exorcize their inner demons.

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass talks about not being able to admit when he's wrong, as well as other traits he's not proud of, but can't seem to change. (3 minutes)

Act One. And So We Meet Again.

Sam Slaven is an Iraq War veteran who came home from the War plagued by feelings of hate and anger toward Muslims. TAL producer Lisa Pollak tells the story of the unusual action Sam took to change himself, and the Muslim students who helped him do it. (34 minutes)

Act Two. Vox Diaboli.

Sometimes the inner voice telling us to do the wrong thing actually sounds like a voice. TAL producer Nancy Updike talks to people about the voices in their heads that persuade them to go astray. (6 minutes)

Song: "Lexicon Devil," The Germs

Act Three. The Devil Wears Birkenstocks.

Some people battle inner demons, but contributor Dave Dickerson went one step further. Dave tells the story of the time he took on an actual demon in his college classroom. (10 and 1/2 minutes)

Song: "Jesus and the Devil," David Karsten Daniel

Good...

This American Life - 340: The Devil in Me

OMFG! This is must see...

BLEVE's (boiling liquid expanding vapour explosion) & PEPCON Video

Anymore, criticizing the Bush administration is like having an unproductive cough- the stuff is so deep in there that you can’t hack up the obstructing mass. And so it is with the current president and appointees, who are insinuated into the deep recesses of power like a resistant strain of waxy mycobacterium.

Serial government haters all, the Bush II krewe has privatized large chunks of gov’t service work and handed it on a no-bid platter to loyal backers like Halliburton who are largely registered in tax haven countries.

Unwilling to make the ultimate commitment to the USA (or wanting cover its tracks), Halliburton moved its headquarters to the United Arab Emirates. Presumably to take advantage of the tax-free business environment and the lack of a troublesome extradition treaty with the USA. The status of Halliburton as a foreign contractor needs to be examined in public.

Yes, this is old news, but Americans should not forget this outrage. According to HalliburtonWatch, Cheney himself increased the number of foreign tax haven subsidiaries from 9 to 44 during his time there as CEO.

There is nothing illegal about taking advantage of tax law. But at some point a company has to decide what country they support and what side of history they want to be on. That which is possible is not necessarily manditory. When money is the only scorecard, ethics fly out the window. Stockholders bear as much responsibility for this craven behaviour as do the officers. [*crunching* noise as I step off the soapbox]

Halliburton became a successful company in part through it’s use of resources provided by the US taxpayer. Halliburton used US government funded highways to get its goods and services moved around the US. Their security was provided by the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Marines. Halliburton staff and stockholders are protected from epidemic by the Centers for Disease Control. Sewage from Halliburton office buildings goes into local municipal waste treatment plants. Physicians trained in publically subsidized medical institutions lance their boils and treat their childrens ear infections. The list of benefits from public infrastructure is substantial.

Now these greedy corporate ex-patriots want to shelter their earnings from tax liability. They don’t want to contribute to the upkeep of the very system that facilitated their ascent to wealth.

This entire thing is so dirty and so extensive, it will take a generation to understand it and legislate corrective action. The whole fetid, reeking mess is offensive.

organized crime?

Halliburton and the Bush II Krewe « Lamentations on Chemistry

Before starting Artic Technologies the founders worked together in the Research & Development group of VOTRAX, a pioneering company in speech synthesis since the early 1970s. Back then, speech synthesizers were built from scratch using hundreds of components and sometimes requiring several circuit boards in a case as big as a bread box. This size was eventually reduced down to a single 24 pin chip known as the SC02 (now called the 263) chip. While at Votrax the founders worked together on many ground breaking projects of the time including...

* Speech devices for computers of the day (including S100 bus ,TRS-80, Atari, etc.)
* The original Handi-Voice (the first portable communicator for non-verbal users)
* The SC01 and SC02 (renamed 263) phoneme synthesizer chips.
* Type N' Talk (external speech device, computer interfaceable)
* PSS - Personal Speech System (external speech device, computer interfaceable)
* Collaborated with various sound Artists such as:
o Sound Effects creator for the movie "TRON"
o German Electronic Music group "Kraftwerk"

Heh...

Artic History

Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar
Published September/October 1982 Byte Publications Inc.
by Steven A. Ciarcia, POB 582, Glastonbury, CT 06033 USA. All rights reserved

Build the Microvox Text-to-Speech Synthesiser Part 1. Hardware
The 6502 microprocessor in this intelligent peripheral device translates plain English text to phonemes to control a Votrax SC-01A.

Build the Microvox Text-to-Speech Synthesiser Part 2. Text-to-Speech
Rules for conversion of English plain text to phonemes govern the operation of this SC-01A-based device

I now have a serial Microvox and am going to place it up on the web. This was lent to me by a friend and I am wondering if anyone else remembers such a device.

I love old hardware and am thinking about sticking up a Perl script or whatever to allow people to send text to it via the web.... (record it ? )

hoary for old hardware ...

The Microvox 25 years later...

YOU DON'T KNOW JACK - Episode 35