Rozworld’s WebLog

You know you’ve made it when you get your own Wiki. I definitely have not, but my Great-Great Grandfather has an entry in the new online encyclopedia at Waldemar Ager. Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia where anyone with a little bit of “notable” knowledge can contribute to. The idea is that it’s a self correcting system, with the vast majority of contributors correcting any mistakes and vandalisms. So far the site boasts over 10 times the number of articles in Encyclopedia Britannica, (with 50 thousand being added every month), and independent research that concluded the number of mistakes are getting down to the level of Britannica’s. I didn’t add Waldemar’s entry, but I think I’ll work on it and fix some mistakes I’ve seen. Visit
Wikipedia it’s FREE!

Our society moves in the right direction, slowly but surely, but only because of mounting evidence and pressure from group like the American Lung Association. The latest semi-heart warming news comes from the EPA and their new standards of fine particulates in air quality. But the EPA did not go far enough and we know the reason why they stopped short, “Industry groups don’t like the new EPA standards either, they say they’re too strict.” Personally, I think it’s always better to error on the side of health and safety when it comes to any aspect of our lives than to have a couple extra bucks in some CEOs wallets.

I bike to work often and I know what it’s like to get behind a huge diesel truck and breathe in that soot. Why should bikes and pedestrians have to breathe in this garbage? Is it healthier to just get in that air filtered car and sit in traffic and not get any exercise? It just might be. To read the full article go to, EPA Unveils Tighter Rules on Particles in Air

We just finished watching a PBS documentary on Andy Warhol. The 4 hour documentary directed by Ric Burns covers Andy’s humble beginning during the Depression in Pittsburgh to the end of his life in 1987. There’s something deeply appealing to Warhol’s expressions of the elemental forces that shape our society. Things like fame and the everyday objects we come in contact with and think nothing about. Andy had a gift for showing these things in a new light and in a larger than life perspective. He also had an unworldly sense of space and time. They said he could’ve been thought of as the anti-artist. Before Andy, art was an elitist endeavor. He was someone who merely reflected the culture around him, not someone who actually did original art. Strangely enough, what he created became art. Mass production was the hallmark of the 20th century which created the “culture of products”. What Marilyn Monroe did for movies, Campbell’s cans did for soups in some sense. Andy put them both to silk screen. To learn more, go to Andy Warhol documentry at PBS.org

I did my own Warhol inspired colored soft screen. Andy would be proud. We have our own legends in the family.

I’m so glad our government knows how to set priorities on what to spend on. Take these two stories from Reuters :

“The U.S. Senate voted on Thursday to reinstate a special CIA unit hunting for Osama bin Laden as it passed a $469 billion Pentagon funding bill. ” The full article here

“Lockheed Martin Corp. has won a five-year, $3.9 billion contract to build a capsule-like U.S. spacecraft called Orion to take humans back to the Moon and beyond, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration said on Thursday.” The full article here

$469 billion to burn in the next year with uncertain results and $3.9 billion to take humans into the future of space travel for the next 25 years. You do the math, it’s a bargain.