My brothers Steve and Mike have web pages. My nephew, Michael Hansen, used to have a webpage up for his band, Soma. Since he started college, however, they haven't been playing. The site's gone, but he'll be back with more music sometime soon I feel sure.
Click here to read about my friend Blake's San-Francisco-based band Helium Angel and their sophomore CD entitled "Early Clues as to the New Direction." If it sounds interesting to you, you can buy it for ten bucks from Amazon.Com. Blake tells me a new CD is in the works now (as of January 2000).
Checok out Tom Winston's website for cool links to foreign language grammars, technology-related sites, etc.
Music:
If you're interested in modern classical music, click on the Ars Millenium icon below. Eventually, they will broadcast music over this website, but for now they are still collecting CDs for this purpose. This will be a great way to have access to obscure pieces your local record store has never heard of. You can donate your modern classical CDs to them to help them speed their way toward their goal of 3500 hours of broadcastable music:
Doppelkopf:
Visit this website for information in English (rules, strategy, etc.) regarding the German cardgame Doppelkopf. (The above site also has a few different versions of computerized Doppelkopf which I intend to try out soon. I'll let you know how they are.) If you'd like to see German rules, click here. If you want more info on Doppelkopf, do a search on "Doppelkopf" at AltaVista. You will find a list of leagues all over Germany and more info on scoring, variations, etc. It's a fun game. Give it a try!
Politics:
If you are interested in seeing the US play a more balanced role in the Mid East peace process, check out the Council for the National Interest. Read what CNI's founder has to say about this organization:
"The United States provides the support without which Israel could not maintain its repression of human rights and its territorial expansion. This collusive relationship severely damages U.S. influence and credibility worldwide. It has led our government into a disgraceful practice of turning a blind eye to Israeli violations of both international and U.S. law, a habit widely noted by foreign leaders."
-Paul Findley, CNI founder
and Chairman of the Board
To get useful information about your state and federal representatives in the White House, House, and Senate (including their addresses, their position on a number of basic issues, and, in an election year, their opponents' views), visit Vote Smart.
Other Interesting Sites:
I have lived in and studied Arabic in Jordan and East Jerusalem, and I am also ABD (all-but-dissertation) in a doctorate program in Arabic at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. In order to hear what Arabic sounds like, listen to a BBC news broadcast by clicking here now.
Click here to convert any webpage into one of a colorful array of English dialects (try Cockney!). Go to the page and hURL any URL at it.
As I drive around this country full of Wal-Marts and McDonalds, I get angry that so much of what is interesting culturally is being destroyed as fast as some developer can figure out a way to make a buck off it. That's way I've taken an interest in American Indian languages and cultures. I hope that you will take an interest, too, because the more people there are out there rooting them on, the more chance Cherokees, Utes, Lakotas, and others will be able to preserve their culture in the wake of the vast destruction they underwent in the 1800s and early 1900s.
If you have heard about the Navajos, Choctaws, and others who used their native language to serve their country in the two world wars, you'll want to check this out: Official US Navy Navajo Code-Talkers' Dictionary
Click here to hear RealAudio recordings of individual lines in an Iroquois-style Thanksgiving prayer in Mohawk. You can read the text in both Mohawk and English as you listen. When I listened to this prayer, I thought back on what I had read about the Iroquois, their religion, their longhouses, and the ancient confederation of the Six Nations which still exists today, and I experienced a reverent awe to be allowed to experience something so rare and so holy. In response, let me offer my own prayer that the Mohawk language and Mohawk culture will endure among us here on Earth until the end of time.
Here's a link to the Cherokees of California who offer Cherokee Language Lessons on line. There are only six lessons currently, but more are promised soon.
Learn Lakota (the language of the Sioux) at a website maintained by the Sioux Nation in South Dakota. There are 17 lessons in all with audio files so you can get the pronunciation right. One year's access to these lessons costs $20, but you can always look at it as a donation to the preservation of Sioux language and culture, a very worthy goal.
To learn more about the Utes who originate from the area surrounding Provo, Utah where I grew up, click here. This page contains a few Ute phrases you can learn as well as a brief history of the Utes who, at some point long ago, broke off from the Aztecs in Mexico. I do wish it were easier to get more information about the Ute language, but I've been after it for some time and haven't found much out there.
One of the most interesting language-oriented sites I've come across on the internet is this graphic ASL (American Sign Language) dictionary. Just click on a letter of the alphabet on the frame in the upper lefthand corner to obtain a list of English words available beginning with that letter. Then click on one of these to see how to sign that word. There are lots of other interesting things as well. For example, you can watch a story being told. Check it out!
If you hadn't noticed, I'm a bit of a languages (both foreign and domestic) freak. Lately, I've been getting into Portuguese as a result of my interest in the music of Gilberto Gil and other fine Brazilian songwriters. To see an admittedly bad but perhaps comprehensible translation of my homepage or any other webpage in Portuguese, click here. Once you're over at the translation site you can choose Italian, Spanish, German, and French, too. You can also translate from these other languages back into English. Go on over and give it a try!
Lyrics to any Elton John/Bernie Taupin song you can think of.
Real Audio files of Native American music from Wolfsongs/Cherokee Productions in the Black Hills of South Dakota!
Visit Pilikia and Paducah in the Doghouse for stock tips and other investment advice.
The Euro and the Mark:
Visit this website for information in English (rules, strategy, etc.) regarding the German cardgame Doppelkopf. (The above site also has a few different versions of computerized Doppelkopf which I intend to try out soon. I'll let you know how they are.) If you'd like to see German rules, click here. If you want more info on Doppelkopf, do a search on "Doppelkopf" at AltaVista. You will find a list of leagues all over Germany and more info on scoring, variations, etc. It's a fun game. Give it a try!
