Latest ghost investigation

We spent a night at a very cushy lodge resort in Manitou Springs this past weekend, our second investigation there.

A cursory examination of my digital photos and voice recordings hasn't revealed anything, but Sharon did capture at least one very interesting EVP recording, utterly unexplainable. I have not yet been through all my audio, or any of my video (video usually yields nothing anyway.)

I won't presume to be a "sensitive" - in fact, I've been called "thick" by people who know about these things - but I have to be quite honest that I did not feel on either trip anything particularly spooky about this place. Another paranormal group insists the place is crazy haunted, based on the evidence they caught a month or so ago.

Being a very comfortable lodge resort, beautfully maintained and cush to the max, it may be that my own biases are coming into play here (haunted houses are supposed to be creaky, cold, derelict, etc...). I do think that this pursuit is fraught with personal biases all the time - the mere fact that you're there suggests you have some reason to believe some location is haunted, and that predisposition may be based on no more than someone else's belief that it is so, which may be based on yet someone else's belief, etc etc. In this vein, I have often believed that an effective test of so-called sensitives would be to walk them through three house, one of which has reported activity they are not informed of, and the other two with none, and see which one they choose.

But I do insist that, just as belief in the paranormal should as much as possible be based on evidence, a disbelief in the paranormal should at the very least be subjected to a possible encounter with evidence of the contrary...and thus the hunt goes on.

I'll see about uploading Sharon's evidence if I can get an edited version of it.

Weather turns

Big snow in Colorado last week, the Central mountains got a decent helping (Loveland clocked 26" in four days last week). Two more storms this week, and weather in the teens promises a return to decent snow and a reprieve from the squishy early spring we posted about last installement.

Words escape...

IBM has submitted for the second time (and, evidently, withdrawn a second time) a patent on an app that "that calculates how to offshore jobs while maximizing government tax breaks."

This one went somewhat viral (my office mate sent me the link), and in their admirably predictable way, IBM darts back from the glare of negative publicity into the shady recesses of "global strategizing".

Love ya, guys. Every day is FAC in Bangalore.

We made so much money last year, we can't afford you

Yes, four strong quarters in a row, and Big Blue celebrates by putting more of its US workforce out on the street. Only its US workforce. And finding new ways to do it, without paying severence or unemployment.

Palmisano made $21 million last year. Wonder if he's worried about finding health insurance, tanking his mortgage or extending his retirement date.

Welcome to Indian Business Machines.

*edit: This Reuters piece has a little more info.

Loveland Day 12

Fifty degrees most of the day (Sat 3/21), soupy slush at the bottom and a lot of long faces amongst the hardcore regulars about the freakishly warm weather and the prospect of a unnaturally shortened season.

It was even warmer up there today. It was 77 degrees in Boulder - nice for the around-town crowd, but worrisome for skiers who always get a little panicky about how the season will end around this time.

The good news is that a massive storm is gathering up there now, which could drop 8-16" of freshies at Loveland and statewide, lingering for days, and setting up for more storms and colder/wetter weather well into the beginning of April.

Reagan: Upward Socialism

One of the few voices I've heard during this entire financial meltdown that I trust is Ravi Batra, an SMU professor of economics and bestselling author. He predicted this entire house of cards - massive securities instruments bundled upon shaky mortgages, squeezed to generate short-term financial profit for the banks - would fall back in the summer of 2008.

His latest piece in truthout.org examines the legacy of Ronald Reagan, who promoted and signed massive cuts at the top end of income taxation, exploded the deficit and essentially transferred huge amounts of post-tax wealth to the top, while implementing incrementally increasing taxation on the middle class. Here's a quote:

Let's go back to the early 1980's. In 1981, Reagan signed a law that sharply reduced the income tax for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The president asserted his program would create jobs, purge inflation and, get this, trim the budget deficit. However, following the tax cut, the deficit soared from 2.5 percent of GDP to over 6 percent, alarming financial markets, sending interest rates sky high, and culminating in the worst recession since the 1930's.

Soon the president realized he needed new revenues to trim the deficit, bring down interest rates and improve his chances for reelection. He would not rescind the income tax cut, but other taxes were acceptable. In 1982, taxes were raised on gasoline and cigarettes, but the deficit hardly budged. In 1983, the president signed the biggest tax rise on payrolls, promising to create a surplus in the Social Security system, while knowing all along that the new revenue would be used to finance the deficit.

The veil of incompetence and naked preference for the wealthy - which for Reagan constituted his rich Orange County Hollywood pals - is finally being lifted in both this piece and the recently published Will Bunch book on the lies and historic revisionism that have led to Reagan's canonization amongst modern conservatives.

Much of what Reagan did to promote the vampirization of American society will take generations to undo. What we are seeing now is the result of years of making the wealthy wealthier, and unregulated, flag-draped, knee-jerk ideology of sucking the lifeblood out of people who actually work for a living.

The latest entrant in the Ronald Reagan Memorial Rich Guy Benevolence Society is Mitt Romney, a guy who made millions throwing Americans out of work by buying up their companies and offshoring their labor.

Matt Haimovitz

I don't get many opportunities to interview world class cellists, but this guy was great. Haimovitz has almost singlehandedly re-defined his instrument in the 21st century, exploiting its expressiveness and tactile immediacy in the realms of classical, contemporary and even rock. ('Kashmir', for solo cello?)

I mentioned Glenn Gould, a guy from an earlier generation who similarly assaulted the conventions of his musical pedigree, and he talked at length in rapturous admiration.

This may be a challenging piece to write, but definitely a cool interview. Dog still hunts, I guess.

Natasha Richardson

I prefer to think of myself as not particularly given to celeb-watching, nor tragedy gawking...but I must admit I've been surprisingly affected by this terrible story of Natasha Richardson. Wife of Liam Neeeson and daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, beautiful woman and talented actress in her own right, she took a fall on a beginner ski slope in Canada yesterday, walked away from the injury only to fall ill a few hours later with what appears at this vantage point to be a lethal subcranial hematoma.

At this point she is in a coma, non-responsive, on life support, and her prognosis is all but certain.

I wish I could say that I can't imagine what her husband is going through, but I do. It is unspeakable, and frankly, it's dredging up a bit of stuff for me.

**edit: Report is that she passed away.

AIG to pay out millions in 'bonus' cash

The nearly collapsed (if it weren't for billions in taxpayer funds) insurance mega-firm AIG announced last week it was paying out >$400 million in bonus money, to the predictable outrage from the media and Obama administration officials.

In most normal circumstances, bonuses are paid to a) keep quality and high performing employees from jumping ship to other companies, and/or b) reward profitable performance.

In this case, one wonders where these executives would go, since a lot of the competition is out of business, or at least in no position to bid up new labor, and what performance they're being rewarded for.

The sense of shameless entitlement at financial institutions during these days when people are losing their jobs, homes and health insurance is breathtaking. Of course, shame is an emotion most acutely experienced when one looks in the mirror, and everyone knows vampires don't look in mirrors.

Interesting NDE tale

Michael Prescott describes a very interesting Near Death Experience on his outstanding afterlife blog.

This case seems to embody many of the standard elements to the common NDE experience, as well as a few twists that leave one perplexed.

h/t to Daily Grail.

Loveland Day 11

Outstanding day - one or two inches of fresh on a very even packed powder base, sun all day, no wind. 25 runs (17/8).

Went up to the ridge - there's two poling sections now for anyone who wants to take the cat track down, so it's a bit of a push.

Weather says warm and dry until next weekend, hopefully some moisture pushing through then. March has been a little disappointing in the high country this season.

Happy Birthday Bear

Happy 51st birthday, Bear.

Loveland Day 10

Another schizo-weather day at altitude - sunny in the morning, then heavy snow off and on from about noon onward. The very warm weather on the last week had created a somewhat anemic spring snow situation (even a little brownish snowtop bacteria growth), but the hurredly delivered freshies during the day made for increasingly good conditions. It ain't spring just yet.

Got in 22 (15/7). Now in the homestretch of the season - looking at 15 days total.

No post on Day 9, but good solid packed powder day, near perfect sunny weather, and 26 runs.

Erratic posting

The trip to NY and a nasty dose of upper respiratory grunge has left me far behind in my (likely unnoticed) blogging, but regular posts will resume as I regain my strength and muster the time.

RIP, Mom

My last post, noting the fifth anniversary of my marriage to Karin, was made unknowingly at very nearly the exact moment my Mom passed away in Bronx, NY, at age 89. As it turns out, February 14th is now the anniversary of my marriage to my late wife, and the anniversary of my Mom's passing.

Sharon and I flew to New York for Mom's funeral, and a somewhat tense and logistically complicated gathering of siblings, my father and a few cousins.

Mom had been enduring the burden of Alzheimer's for some years - what could be more criminal that having almost nine decades of memories and not being able to enjoy any of it?

Mom valued language, loved to laugh, had impeccable taste, a good sense of humor and a certain fearlessness about her that I have only come to appreciate lately. A strong, beautiful woman - far from perfect - but one of Boston's loyal and notable daughters. She gave us all great gifts, and I love her and will never forget her.

RIP, Mom.