Early afternoon yesterday, before the news broke about the plane ditching into the frigid Hudson river, I made this larger drawing from a chunk of words I first entered in the small book on Jan 7th (click the pic for a larger version):
Is it megalomaniacal of me to think that I might be God, controlling fate with my words?
In a feat of amazing piloting by heroic captain Chesley B. “Sully” Sullenberger III, All 155 Escape Jet’s Plunge Into Hudson after a flock of geese take out both engines of the Airbus A320.
Here’s a great cell phone photo snapped moments after the jet hit the drink by a tourist who was Twittering away at the time on a ferry bound from Manhattan to New Jersey that was one of the first on the scene to help rescue passengers (click for a larger version):
Here is the photographer, Janis Krums’ succinct caption: “There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.”
More evidence that the world has gone crazy, in the form of a major, seven-site coordinated terrorist attack on Mumbai, India. Here is the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel on fire, from CNN.com:
Ike Wavewall, a future persona of mine. Currently the title of this great image of Hurricane Ike making his presence felt on along the Texas coast. Ike has already innundated Galveston Island. From CNN.com: Sea floods Texas island; get out or ‘certain death’. I don’t recall ever hearing a warning as definitively dire as this one from the weather service:
“All neighborhoods … and possibly entire coastal communities … will be inundated during the peak storm tide,” the weather service warned. “Persons not heeding evacuation orders in single family one- or two-story homes will face certain death.”
That’s quite a guarantee. Apparently the last time such language was used, three years ago, a hurricane named Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf coast.
Now, if just by not evacuating and remaining at or near the coast makes you eligible for “certain death”, what exactly is this guy on the left getting set up for? Immediate certain death? No, I got it: Sudden Death. Sudden Onset Death Syndrome (SODS). Or, Hurricane Induced Denial & Elimination Syndrome (HIDES).
An Antonioni mashup on Youtube: ‘Blow-up’ sequences from Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Zabriskie Point” (1970) cut-up + layed-down to the original soundtrack:
This image of “Nano-Explosions” won first prize in at the November 2007 Materials Research Society (MRS) “Science As Art” competition.
“Nano-Explosions Color-enhanced scanning electron micrograph of an overflowed electrodeposited magnetic nanowire array (CoFeB), where the template has been subsequently completely etched. It’s a reminder that nanoscale research can have unpredicted consequences at a high level. (Image: Fanny Beron, École Polytechnique de Montréal, Montréal, Canada)”
A week into yet another war, and the horror just keeps coming. Here is another beautiful photo of a decidedly unbeautiful thing, courtesy CNN.com.
Some people, with more moral clarity than me, may be able to not see the beauty in the horror, but I can’t help seeing it. Besides, there are no moral absolutes, and it’s the illusion that such absolutes exist as truth that fuels so much hatred and violence in the name of upholding those absolutes. And that’s really sickening, if you think about it, because it pretty much means we’re all doomed.
Beautiful isn’t it? Enjoy it while it’s here. According to a new story out today about the earth being hotter than it has ever been in at least 400 years, CNN.com captioned this picture, “A newspaper reports this glacier off Greenland has receded 3 miles in two years.”
Some 11,000 villagers around Indonesia’s Mount Merapi volcano were evacuated as lava and superheated clouds of gas poured down its upper slopes, officials said. The mountain’s lava dome has swelled in recent weeks, raising fears that it could suddenly collapse and send clouds of fast-moving gas and debris into populated areas.
More than 20,000 people have been urged to evacuate their homes ahead of an “imminent” eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Merapi. A lava dome forming at the peak of one of the nation’s most dangerous and active volcanoes has triggered fresh concerns. Authorities are going door to door on Saturday to encourage residents to leave the densely populated slopes.
Up to 200 people died today in an oil pipeline explosion on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria, the state commissioner of police said. “You can see the corpses. Some are burned to ash,” the police commissioner told Reuters. “It seems these people were literally incinerated, almost instantly,” CNN’s Jeff Koinange reports.
An explosion at a celebration of Prophet Mohammed’s birthday has killed at least 40 people and sparked a confrontation between Muslims and Karachi police, according to Pakistan’s interior minister and local media reports. Several thousand people were at the rally when the blast detonated during a break for prayer. After the explosion, people at the rally protested and confronted police on the scene.
A line of severe thunderstorms and multiple tornadoes swept parts of four states on Friday, with reports of damage north and west of Nashville, Tennessee….
A little later, again from CNN.com:
Ten people died in Tennessee as tornadoes and severe thunderstorms battered parts of nine states, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said. Baseball-sized hail was reported and damage includes destroyed homes and downed power lines. The National Weather Service said the tornado threat for Alabama and Mississippi was now rapidly increasing.
Friday, January 16th, 2009 - 1:20pm |
disasters + field reports + phenomena + works in progress |
Comments (0) 
Ike Wavewall, a future 
That’s quite a guarantee. Apparently the last time such language was used, three years ago, a hurricane named Katrina was bearing down on the Gulf coast.
