a blind flaneur

• Writer William T. Vollmann Uncovers His FBI File : NPR 082213
  David Greene talks to author Willam T. Vollmann about this latest article in Harpers Magazine. In it, Vollmann details his discovery, following a Freedom of Information Act request, that the FBI was watching him, and that he was suspected of being a domestic terrorist.
• nixontapes.org – Nixon Tapes and Transcripts
  Between February 1971 and July 1973, President Richard Nixon secretly recorded 3,700 hours of his phone calls and meetings across the executive offices. Currently, approximately 2,371 hours of these tapes have been declassified, released, and made available to the public. Neither the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) nor the Nixon Presidential Library have produced official transcriptions or made the complete audio files available online. Instead, they have left this monumental task–a task that NARA once estimated took 100 hours of staff time to transcribe 1 hour of tape–to individual researchers and scholars. | nixontapes.org is the only website dedicated solely to the scholarly production and dissemination of digitized Nixon tape audio and transcripts. We have the most complete digitized tape collection in existence–approximately 2,300 hours spread over 2.5 terabytes of hard drives that contain more than 7,000 audio files.** The few hours of audio that we do not have will require additional troubleshooting, and could not be converted due to more advanced technical difficulties. However, we are working through these final “problem tapes” and will make them available before anyone else does. In addition, as the remaining tapes from January through July 1973 are released by NARA, they will be added here.
• The End of an Era: Final Set of Nixon Tapes Released – The Takeaway 082213
  On Wednesday, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum released the last set of secret recordings from the 37th president. The 340 hours of tape cover April 9th through July 12th, 1973—a period of some success and serious turmoil in the Nixon Administration, according to Luke Nichter, professor of history at Texas A&M University-Central Texas and manager of the website Nixontapes.org.
• Immersion: a people-centric view of your email life
  What is Immersion? It has been almost two decades since the beginning of the web. This means that the web is no longer just a technology of the present, but also, a record of our past. Email, one of the original forms of social media, is even older than the web and contains a detailed description of our personal and professional history. Immersion is an invitation to dive into the history of your email life in a platform that offers you the safety of knowing that you can always delete your data. Just like a cubist painting, Immersion presents users with a number of different perspectives of their email data. It provides a tool for self-reflection at a time where the zeitgeist is one of self-promotion. It provides an artistic representation that exists only in the presence of the visitor. It helps explore privacy by showing users data that they have already shared with others. Finally, it presents users wanting to be more strategic with their professional interactions, with a map to plan more effectively who they connect with. So Immersion is not about one thing. It’s about four. It’s about self-reflection, art, privacy and strategy. It’s about providing users with a number of different perspectives by leveraging on the fact that the web, and emails, are now an important part of our past.
• Wright State Newsroom – Jeffrey Vernooy, director of disability services, passes away « Wright State University 081913
  Jeffrey Vernooy, who tirelessly advocated for students with disabilities and was the architect of the campus support structure for them as longtime director of the Wright State University Office of Disability Services, passed away at Hospice of Dayton on Aug. 19. He was 61.

• De-Extinction – Studio 360 071913
  Bringing extinct animals back has usually been left to the world of science fiction. But a group of biologists is attempting it in the real world. The organization Revive & Restore, a project of the Long Now Foundation, held a day-long TEDx conference on de-extinction a few months ago at the National Geographic Society. This is not quack science; some of the research involves Harvard University, UC Santa Cruz, and Wake Forest University, among other institutions. Painter Isabella Kirkland, who is also a research associate at the California Academy of Sciences, opened the event with an image of her painting Gone. It looks like a Dutch master’s oil painting, depicting 63 extinct New World species arrayed on a table elegantly: the Carolina parakeet, the golden toad, and in the central place of honor, Martha, the last passenger pigeon, who died in 1914. The passenger pigeon is the preoccupation of Revive & Restore’s Ben Novak, a genetic biologist. “It’s my job to bring the bird back to life.” Novak began thinking about resurrecting animals in junior high school, when he did a science fair project on the dodo bird. “It’s the icon of extinction — ‘dead as a dodo,’ as they say — and I learned that the dodo is actually a giant extinct pigeon. It gave me the pigeon bug.” The techniques are complicated and untried, but de-extinction is simple in concept: take DNA from a dead sample in a natural history museum somewhere, and plant it in the egg of a living relative — in this case, the band-tailed pigeon. If it works, the living bird will hatch an egg out of which will come the clone of a long-dead bird.
• Multi-team SWAT call ends with suspect dead 073113
  YELLOW SPRINGS — A SWAT standoff involving authorities from nearly every Greene County police jurisdiction, Clark County deputies, Ohio Highway Patrol troopers and several Montgomery County jurisdictions, including Dayton, ended with the suspect dead, according to authorities. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation is responding to the scene. A SWAT robot entered the house around 5 a.m. and discovered the suspect down on the floor, News Center 7’s Mike Campbell reported. SWAT members were leaving their positions around the house just after 5 a.m.
• Police shoot-out ends in villager’s death – The Yellow Springs News
  The Sheriff’s Department will launch an investigation into the stand-off, which Fischer described as “a very dangerous situation. Dangerous for my deputies and dangerous for the neighbors.” The department will not at this time release the name of the deceased man. However, the stand-off began when Yellow Springs police were called to the home of Paul Schenck due to a domestic disturbance between Schenck and his son. The officer who responded met with gunfire, and called for back-up, at which time police and sheriff departments from both Greene and Clark Counties responded. The first sheriff deputies who responded also took gunfire, Fischer said. The son of the shooter sustained injuries and was transported away from the home by the Miami Township Fire Rescue Squad before 2 a.m. The sounds of gunfire were heard in the neighborhood until about 2:20 a.m., when the last shots were fired. Before that, police fired several rounds and the local man fired what Sheriff Fischer estimated were “dozens” of shots. The investigation will determine if the villager died from a self-inflicted wound or from police fire, Fischer said.

Of course Putin is a mensch. Stalin would have eaten those cranes! Video: Putin flies with rare cranes! [via Twitter]

• Vladimir Putin, the benevolent zookeeper | Stephen Cave and Polina Aronson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk 091012
  Vladimir Putin, whatever else one might think of him, has a certain genius for the theatricality of power. Among his many stunts, communing with wild animals has always played a special role. But whereas his previous performances have been displays of manly courage – petting polar bears or tranquilising tigers – on Wednesday seemed to show a gentler side: Putin as good shepherd, albeit to a flock of Siberian white cranes. The message of the underlying symbolism, however, remained the same: that the Russian president is omnipotent and benevolent, sole dispenser of salvation.
  The stunt itself was pure pantomime: Putin in a motorised hang-glider showing the innocent young fledglings the way to freedom. In order to convince the cranes that he was their legitimate leader, the head of the Russian state cunningly disguised himself as one of them in an all-white suit with black gloves (they are white with black wingtips). Thus clad, he assumed his natural role as alpha-crane and took off.
  Despite the president’s efforts, the birds showed little enthusiasm: only one crane followed the hang glider when Putin flew for the first time, while the other birds sceptically observed from the ground. On a second attempt, however, five cranes took off with Putin, which was regarded by his entourage as good enough. The resident crane experts – who had branded the mission “flight of hope” – explained the lack of engagement on the birds’ side by strong wind, reminiscent of the references to “bad weather” made by election campaigners forced to apologise for the low turnout of pro-Putin voters in their districts.
• Creativity Predicts a Longer Life: Scientific American 090912
  Researchers have long been studying the connection between health and the five major personality traits: agreeableness, extraversion, neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness. A large body of research links neuroticism with poorer health and conscientiousness with superior health. Now openness, which measures cognitive flexibility and the willingness to entertain novel ideas, has emerged as a lifelong protective factor. The linchpin seems to be the creativity associated with the personality trait—creative thinking reduces stress and keeps the brain healthy.
  A study published in the June issue of the Journal of Aging and Health found that higher openness predicted longer life, and other studies this year have linked that trait with lower metabolic risk, higher self-rated health and more appropriate stress response.
• Steampunk Culture, steampunk, fantasy, science fiction, Jules Verne, H. G. Welles, Victorian era England, steam power
  Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used. Usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England, but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy.
• Photos, Videos: Tornado Touched Down In Brooklyn And Queens!: Gothamist
  We knew there were going to be some thunderstorms today, but things just got amped up oh so slightly: the National Weather Service warns that a severe thunderstorm passing over parts of Brooklyn right now could turn into a tornado!
  They say the storm is currently near Sheepshead Bay or Flatbush, and it’s moving northeast at 25 MPH. Other locations that the storm might hit include: Canarsie, Crown Heights, Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Forest Hills, Jamaica, Little Neck, Jackson Heights, Flushing and Bayside. In addition, a flash flood warning has been issued for Queens and Brooklyn until 12:45 p.m.
  You can share your photos with Gothamist, by sending them to photos@gothamist.com, tagging them “gothamist” on Flickr or #gothamist on Instagram, or Tweeting them to us @Gothamist.
  Update: According to The National Weather Service, the tornado has touched down on the Flatbush Avenue area of the Belt Parkway (and is moving eastward). Queens and Brooklyn have been put on tornado alert until 11:30 a.m. They recommend that residents immediately go indoors and/or to the lowest floor of your building for shelter, and to stay away from windows.
  According to reports, there is already “a lot of damage in the area,” including cars ontop of other cars.
  Update: Check out a first look at the tornado below, along with some tweets:
• Advocate Fights ‘Ambient Despair’ In Assisted Living : NPR 090612
  Martin Baybe: “The truth is, in the facility I am in, the administration [is] by and large wonderful people — wonderful people — but in many facilities they are not, and they have a top-down management system, which starts obviously with the owners, or stockholders, whichever the case may be, and they try and make you as compliant as possible, as quickly as possible. They don’t need any revolutions. They want to put on a good face for the public. I was driving with someone else about a mile away from where I live and I saw an ad, a large ad, for my facility and there was a couple dancing [in it]. And I said to myself, ‘If I stood outside my room for five years, I would never see a couple dancing in my facility.’ “
• A Room With A Grim View: The ‘Ambient Despair’ That Marks Life In Assisted Living
  Martin Bayne’s article @Health_Affairs: After entering an assisted living facility at age fifty-three because of young-onset Parkinson’s, an observer-advocate contemplates the dire need for long-term care reform.
• The Feathered Flounder

  Martin Bayne: “The Feathered Flounder offers original literary writing by authors who are 60 or older. Each quarterly issue contains short fiction, essays, interviews, and video by writers with original voices. Sometimes serious, silly, irreverent, and wild; sometimes heartbreaking, educative, inspiring—The Feathered Flounder aims to inspire, incite, and surprise.Additionally, it strives to illuminate the universal path of aging … and beyond. Part fish and part bird, The Feathered Flounder is born in the imagination of those with the benefit of having accepted the unexpectedness of aging. This fish with feathers swims to our deepest depths and soars through the…”

• BLDGBLOG
  BLDGBLOG (“building blog”) is written by Geoff Manaugh. Architectural Conjecture | Urban Speculation | Landscape Futures | BLDGBLOG | Wired UK
• Reagan Daily, 2012/08/25 edition
  scraped MW tweet: “Lynnyrd Skynnyrd @ #GOP convention, that fits. #Heartbreak was Ray Charles hugging Ronald Reagan, 1984.”
• Paris by Julian Green – review | Books | The Observer 082512
  This is no ordinary memoir, or even an alternative travel guide. It’s a tale of Julian Green’s obsession with the French capital, a love of place that is a kind of possession: “Thinking about the capital all the time, I rebuilt it inside myself. I replaced its physical presence with something else, something almost supernatural.” Green takes on the role of flâneur in this book: the leisurely, Baudelairean dandy originally identified and named by Walter Benjamin. This flâneur perspective has two implications for the text. First, Paris is a languid and bourgeois memoir, indulgent and at times hyperbolic, though it has many moments of truly arresting beauty. Second, the attention to detail is astonishing, and reflects the memories of someone who has devoted years of their life to the art of getting lost in the city. Green urges readers to “waste time”, and to experience “the faint distress that comes from thinking you have lost your way”.