Years of Poems and Spirits

Just read the news that the condition in Aral Sea is improving. I read the story of Aral Sea several years ago and it was the first time environmental degradation became tangible/shocking/scary to me.

Some of the facts are well-known by now. In short, Aral Sea was once the fourth largest inland water body in the world. Because human ignorance (abusive agricultural practice), it has lost half of the size or 3/4 of the volume. In the process, many fish in the lake went extinct and the population suffered from many diseases as a result of deterioriating water and air condition–in fact I now remember I saw the story at Doctors Without Border’s website. I remember vividly the picture that caught my eye was a fishing boat–clearly in working condition–resting on top of a sand dune like a ghost.

The good news is that today, after years of human effort, the condition is improving.

I am also excited at this news because a rejuvenated Aral Sea may help to reduce the Asian Sand Storm that has been a fixture of Beijing since the 1990s.

I have been looking for a good place to scan my old photos. Here are some outfits I tried:
1. DigMyPics, http://www.digmypics.com
Price: 600dpi@$0.59, TIFF, 1 free CD
Good: Has physical address, prominently displaying 1-800 number, simple ordering page.
Poor: Very high shipping ($11 using USPS Priority), inbound shipping NOT included, too many options, no order confirmation, the final instruction is long and confusing: when is the credit card charged? Too much “done locally” chanting–why does it matter?
Shipped out 4 pics on 7/5, received confirmation on 7/8. Order comes back on 7/18.
Includes: invoice w/ price, two CDs (TIFF and JPEG), original photos in orginal package.
Total $7.

2. http://www.photoscanclub.com/
Price: up to 150 @ 59, 300 @ 99, duplicate CD: $9
Good: send shipping package to you, good “How It Works”
Poor: No 600 dpi, 10-15 day turnaround, stair pricing, high CD price, needs to create account/
3. http://www.scandigital.com/index.php
Price: 0.48 @ 300 dpi or 0.68 @ 600 dpi
Good: has referral program and physical location. Good website.

About this morning’s news when two judges who ruled in favor for the wiretap program: both are cowards and traitors to their own institution. The two might as well take off their judge’s gown and hand the power back to the executive branch!

The ACLU is perfectly right when it says, if the program is such a secret and the threshold is proven victimhood, then how can ANYONE challenge it? It is Dick Cheney’s job to grab as much power for the executive branch as he could; It is his nature wanting to be the the law giver, executor and interpreter. But it is the judiciary’s duty to put a check on such a impulse yet the two women did their best justifying the judiciary’s submission–as if a parliament arduously passes a law giving a dictator unlimited power. Why do the two “judges” still call themselves so?

The apologists of this case, together with those who defended the suspension of habeas corpus, are just as cowardly as the two judges in that they are willing to give up their basic rights in order to feel “safe”. If the executive branch ever abused the sudden bounty those cowards surrendered, the American public has no one but itself to blame for submitting to the fear mongering.