You know, in spite of my beloved country being in the hands of crazy people, I feel pretty good. Every day, you have to leave some things undone, and I managed to get quite a few things left until next time. Yesterday, I left about half of next winter's wood waiting stacked up beside the clearing we just made on the mountainside. Sometime in the next twelve months I have to finish cutting it up to stove length, split it, and bring it down to the house. I'm ready for this winter, though, if we have one. In today's global climate disruption, one never knows about such things. The old signs and sayings don't work nowadays, so even though we had all the seed washed off the field by hurricane Ivan, we can still replant this fall, and the date gets later and later in the year. My neighbor, who gave up the banking business to run a bulldozer, says he can't butcher his hogs on Thanksgiving any more; too hot! We just carry on and feel good at the end of the day washing off the dirt from the day's labors, and putting ice on the various body parts that hurt. A glass of wine is an excellent ice pack for the mind. My neighbor the bulldozer driver says he's got pokeberry wine working, and it's real good for the arthritis. When I ask him if he's worried about the toxic effects he said there'd be a lot more dead birds lying around if that were so. It's better not to think too hard at such times, and just let the ice pasks work their magic.
It seems like every one has some personal experience with climate change and what is known in scientific circles as "The End of Nature". It's mostly all about us from now on. Mother Nature is on the run, fer sure. We'll take the hogs to someplace with a butchering cooler and keep eating bacon as long as it lasts.
Humans have no limits when it comes to how badly they can mess things up. They would have no limits in what they could fix if they would only give it a shot. I kayaked the stream in my yard twice on Saturday with my wife and kids. All the way along the banks I kept being drawn to the Hemlock trees. They will most likely be gone before my children can show them to their children in spite of heroic efforts by scientists and environmentalists. Greedy plant nursery operators brought young trees infected with a devastating insect pest, in from a foreign country. In doing this thing they have written the death warrant for the most perfect of trees lining our streams...A tree that looks for all the world like a child's vision of a Christmas tree. I would heed the words of Jesus who is quoted as saying, Forgive them...they know not what they do!", except that they do know, so I don't forgive them!
The Eastern United States was home to a most beautiful deciduous tree that dominated the Smoky mountains, providing superior lumber and food. It is the American Chestnut. It has been destroyed by a fungus brought in by greedy plant nurserymen. I have made things, jewelry boxes and cabins, from chestnut wood that had been buried for decades below the sediment on creek banks. The logs that my wood came from were excavated when someone wanted to build a pond, having washed down and been covered up when billions of the trees died and left the soil defenseless to erosion in fthe face of winter's rain. If you are ever in Mountain City Georgia, I think you might enjoy a tour of the Hambidge Center. I was the handyman there a long time ago. It is an Artist's retreat that has several old chestnut buildings. The warmth of the wood is undescribable, as you walk through a weaving workshop. There is no finish on the wood walls, but they look like some rich man just paid exorbitantly to acheive that perfect look for his study. When I was working here, they raised sheep of different colors and searched for higher consciousness through weaving. A bunch of women ran the place and I needed the paycheck. One of the hardest thing I ever did was to stand by and watch a woman who said she was an interior decorator paint a chestnut wall orange. I have not forgiven her, either.
So we lost the Chestnut and now we will lose the American Hemlock. It will greivously change the ecosystem of my creek and its tributaries. I cannot fathom how much, but the forest surface below a hemlock grove will be loss enough to grieve. These places draw me in and hold me. Rooms in the forest that make me thinks of mythological creatures sitting together and talking about mystical things. I once sat under an large Hemlock in an elven bower and watched the world grow dark at day's end. A screech owl studied me, sure that I was not supposed to be there and quite in the way of his crepuscular hunt. I made tiny scratching noises in the leaves with one finger to keep him around. He circled me, hopping from shrub to shrub until he decided there was nothing for supper anywhere close to this big oaf who had taken over the hunting grounds. I would have given much to have had night vision at that point in time. To see the owl's eyes grow alert and focus his ears on my curious noise. We will say goodbye to these fairy land experiences sometime in the next thirty years if things go as we fear. Our future ghosts will only live in urban settings. Grendel and Leprichans amidst the dumpsters.
But I lay awake last night thinking it was a good day anyhow. Tired and achy, getting older, wondering how much these old war wounds are going to hurt when I really do get old? I hit the double nickel in two and a half weeks. I shoulda taken better care of my parts... they complain too much, nowadays. There's lots to do tomorrow, so shut up and leave me alone for a little sleep. I want to have an owl dream of what could be.
Peace,
Steve
Monday, September 20, 2004
Sunday, September 19, 2004
It is a paddler's dream to have days like Saturday. Seventy degrees, sunny, high water, and my kids to show me up for the old man I have become. Gotta love it!
We have watched an immature bald eagle get his color over the summer. In the strong winds of Ivan's aftermath, we watched as the freshly decorated bird worked its way along the ridge line against the wind. They are masterful aviators and you could see it using the swirling eddies against the edge of the gorge to head up stream. I made a joke about the floods we've been through "drowning fish" and it seems like that is true to an extent. The Eagles have found easy meals as fish were left high and dry in the receding water.
There are downed trees everywhere, and the water got high enough to wash out the railroad that runs along Highway 27 headed toward Chattanooga. I was amused by the bass boat being used to evacuate folks from a mobile home resting crookedly in the flood plain of the Piney River in Spring City. It was about a half a mile from the normal banks of the lake. Let's see, you put a trailer next to a river and wait for the ten year high water mark. Sounds like good judgement to me. These folks just might be the strategists the Bush administration is looking for to finish the job in Fallujah. At least they are positive there will be a disaster, the only question is when?
I keep getting new insight into human judgement. Our house sits part way up the gorge, 250 feet above the water in White's Creek. As we were buying the land back in the winter of 92-93 there was a pretty good flood that wash our neighbor's mobile home of its blocks. They were inside at the time and the water eventually rose to leave them about three feet of air near the ceiling to breathe. Four adults and a baby in its mother's arms waited to possibly die as the trailer floated around in the current, held from washing downstream by the electric cable attached to the power pole in the yard, and absolutely nothing else except a telephone wire. They talked on the phone with the folks who were trying to get to them during the night. Not a cell phone but the normal old phone connected by an old fashioned cord. It never went out through the whole ordeal. Rescuers waited in the rain watching the current crash through the trees in the direction of the trailer and its occupants and waited for dawn's light to see how bad the situation was.
I think about what would have happened if the power cable had come loose. There are only three 3/8 inch bolts that pinch the wires in place in the electrical box. This is plenty to protect against squirrels but not the force of a flood. If one of these friction connections had given up, the others would have gone too. The trailer would have rolled over and over in the flood water until it hit something big enough to stop it. There are lots of trees along the bank but the tralier was only 20 yards from a main channel. Suppose it made it that far? It would have washed past the remains of one of the old bridges that washed away in the flood back in the forties. Then it would have washed past the carcass of the Studebaker Commander that sits in the woods where it washed in high water during the 70's. If every thing worked out just right, the mobile home could have floated right by the monument they put up that has the names of twenty seven or eight boy scouts, scout masters and other folks who died in 1929 in that flood...the one that erased the town of Glen Alice, Tennessee from the face of the earth, if not from the Rand McNally map lying next to me on the table. There is still a five by five slab of concrete that is all that is left of the Glen Alice Post Office which was essentially the town back then. Everything else went down the Tennessee river.
Well does any body ever learn anything? Maybe not.
The folks who were getting rescued by the bass boat, didn't learn. The folks who were talking on the phone through the longest night of their lives were saved at first light the next morning. As I write this, their son and his family are getting ready for church inside a trailer that sits in exactly the same spot as the one that washed away twelve years ago.
I will go down sometime and check on the Studebaker and see how it is doing.
We never learn, it appears.
Courage,
Steve
We have watched an immature bald eagle get his color over the summer. In the strong winds of Ivan's aftermath, we watched as the freshly decorated bird worked its way along the ridge line against the wind. They are masterful aviators and you could see it using the swirling eddies against the edge of the gorge to head up stream. I made a joke about the floods we've been through "drowning fish" and it seems like that is true to an extent. The Eagles have found easy meals as fish were left high and dry in the receding water.
There are downed trees everywhere, and the water got high enough to wash out the railroad that runs along Highway 27 headed toward Chattanooga. I was amused by the bass boat being used to evacuate folks from a mobile home resting crookedly in the flood plain of the Piney River in Spring City. It was about a half a mile from the normal banks of the lake. Let's see, you put a trailer next to a river and wait for the ten year high water mark. Sounds like good judgement to me. These folks just might be the strategists the Bush administration is looking for to finish the job in Fallujah. At least they are positive there will be a disaster, the only question is when?
I keep getting new insight into human judgement. Our house sits part way up the gorge, 250 feet above the water in White's Creek. As we were buying the land back in the winter of 92-93 there was a pretty good flood that wash our neighbor's mobile home of its blocks. They were inside at the time and the water eventually rose to leave them about three feet of air near the ceiling to breathe. Four adults and a baby in its mother's arms waited to possibly die as the trailer floated around in the current, held from washing downstream by the electric cable attached to the power pole in the yard, and absolutely nothing else except a telephone wire. They talked on the phone with the folks who were trying to get to them during the night. Not a cell phone but the normal old phone connected by an old fashioned cord. It never went out through the whole ordeal. Rescuers waited in the rain watching the current crash through the trees in the direction of the trailer and its occupants and waited for dawn's light to see how bad the situation was.
I think about what would have happened if the power cable had come loose. There are only three 3/8 inch bolts that pinch the wires in place in the electrical box. This is plenty to protect against squirrels but not the force of a flood. If one of these friction connections had given up, the others would have gone too. The trailer would have rolled over and over in the flood water until it hit something big enough to stop it. There are lots of trees along the bank but the tralier was only 20 yards from a main channel. Suppose it made it that far? It would have washed past the remains of one of the old bridges that washed away in the flood back in the forties. Then it would have washed past the carcass of the Studebaker Commander that sits in the woods where it washed in high water during the 70's. If every thing worked out just right, the mobile home could have floated right by the monument they put up that has the names of twenty seven or eight boy scouts, scout masters and other folks who died in 1929 in that flood...the one that erased the town of Glen Alice, Tennessee from the face of the earth, if not from the Rand McNally map lying next to me on the table. There is still a five by five slab of concrete that is all that is left of the Glen Alice Post Office which was essentially the town back then. Everything else went down the Tennessee river.
Well does any body ever learn anything? Maybe not.
The folks who were getting rescued by the bass boat, didn't learn. The folks who were talking on the phone through the longest night of their lives were saved at first light the next morning. As I write this, their son and his family are getting ready for church inside a trailer that sits in exactly the same spot as the one that washed away twelve years ago.
I will go down sometime and check on the Studebaker and see how it is doing.
We never learn, it appears.
Courage,
Steve
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
This is a glorious time of year!
Well, in my universe all times are glorious, but I am personally equipped to enjoy some days more than others and the last few have landed square on my happy spot. The body has trouble keeping up with the surge of activity brought on by 59 degree mornings, but like my son Thomas says, "That's why aspirin comes in big bottles!" I have big bottles on hand of the aging, has been, wannabe, athlete's two main food groups...Aspirin and red wine. If the temps drop just ten more degrees, the hot tub becomes the heaven I probably don't deserve.
We have another hurricane headed our way up here in Tennessee. Number six is aimed at the bottom end of Florida before number five can finish off the pan handle. It is at times like this that people like me like to point out that New Orleans is mostly ten feet below sea level and has a storm with a fifteen foot surge pooking along inside headed that way. Stupid stupid Army Core of Engineers made this possible by failing to point out the inevitable to 200 years worth of developer greed. At least they could have said, "You'll be sorry..." somewhere along the way, as they spent billions to keep the Mississippi River out of it's natural course and destroyed the Delta in the process. Along with that, they destroyed the livelihood of thousands of fishermen and whole industries that caught the bounty of the bayous and provided the rich and wholesome food New Orleans is famous for. The Delta is sinking fast. Lot's of it are gone but if Ivan can land just right...Well even I won't wish for that, even though it would serve a few folks right. I just hope the French Quarter survives.
The French Quarter is built on the only high ground on the waterfront. Boy, those French are really dumb, aren't they? Pointing out what a stupid thing it is to start a war in Iraq and building towns on high ground...They seem to piss every body off by saying things that are are 100 percent true at precisely the most inopportune moments...Hmm, I must have a bit of French DNA diluting the purebred English, Scotch Irish, mulatto redneck American blood coursing through my only partially clogged arteries. The Ambassador to the United Nations from France stood up and pointed out an uncomfortable fact about the document that Colin Powell had just presented to the General Assembly proving that Saddam was trying to buy niclear weapons material from Niger...The uncomfortable fact was that Colin Powell's document was a forgery!
Damn those French! They must be cowards, right? They didn't want to start a stupid war that can't possibly be won for reasons that are obvious lies, right? Cowards?
Maybe we have the wrong definition of what a coward is. Maybe a coward is someone who lies to get other people to do bad things for them. Maybe a Coward is someone who does those bad things knowing they are wrong and based on lies. Colin Powell spent one and a half hours standing up in front of the United Nations General Assembly presenting a slickly done presentation "proving" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was going to use them. George W. Bush made a famous scare speech warning that anyone who did not believe Saddam had Weapons of mass destruction could be proven wrong by a "Mushroom Cloud!" The Prime Minister of France said he did not believe Saddam had these weapons, A preemptive war with Iraq is a mistake. This week, Colin Powell said something after 1006 American soldiers have been killed. He said it after thousands of Americans have been wounded and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed. What he said was this:
"It is unlikely that we will ever find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Oops! 1006 Americans have died bravely for the wrong reason.
They died in the service of our President George who is supposed to be a brave man, after all. He bravely used all his Daddy's pull to get out of danger when it was his turn to fight for his country. He bravely quit going to the marching drills he was supposed to attend after losing his flight status for not passing the drug test he would have taken had he "Bravely" shown up for his physical examination. Personally, I don't think what a man did thirty years ago should be held against him, so let's let bygones be bye, shall we? I say a man has time to be brave every second of every day. George has the chance to be brave when he steps out to face reporters at a Press conference. A coward wouldn't do that unless he had the questions given to him three days in advance...Just like in college, George?
George had a very well known chance to be brave when his aide whispered into his ear,
"Sir, America is under attack!"
He had the chance to be brave for the famous seven minutes he sat there with his eyes darting back and forth, Looking less like the leader of the free world than a man trying not to wet himself. (Doubt me? look at the tape and make your own decision! Your chance to be brave might simply be watching Fahrenheit 9-11 before you vote!)
I remember what I did, the instant I found out about the first plane flying into the World Trade Towers. I immediately changed my plans and started trying to find out what was going on and what it meant. While I was going to the Reuters web site to learn more, the Man in charge was reading a book about a goat. We were both scared, the President and I, but I needed him to spring into action because that is his job! I would have done that and you, dear reader, would have done that, but the one man on earth whose job it was to act... didn't!
Now, in spite of spending one and a half Trillion Dollars we don't have, our economy is sputtering, unable to get the traction it needs to produce enough jobs for our work force.
In spite of the fact that 70% of Americans favor the assault weapon ban, the President's man in the Senate says it is the "Will of the People" that it expire.
In spite of the fact that Millions of Americans can not afford health care insurance, the President says it will cost too much to help American Citizen. We can't divert money from the war.
In Spite of the fact that our environment shows growing signs of getting sicker and sicker, our President backs further and deeper destruction of the earths natural processes.
In spite of the fact that the average American's earnings went up by five thousand dollars a year under Bill Clinton and have gone down by nearly two thousand dollars under Bush, our President says things are great for those who count. You know, the "Owners" he is so fond of in his fantasy world of the Ownership society! That is the world where George and his friends own all the stuff and you flip burgers at your "factory" job.
Well the chance to be brave gets passed around and maybe it is our turn. All I know is that the one guy in the whole world, we, as Americans, have to count on has not once, not ever, stepped up and been brave. He has always hid behind his Daddy. his momma, or that plastic turkey last Christmas. He won't face an open Press conference, he wouldn't testify for the 9-11 Commission under oath or without Dick Cheney as his keeper, and now he is doing his best to avoid Presidential debates. George 'Bush is only the second President in US history to abandon the White House when America was under attack. Before that, he sat frozen in front of a room of grade school children, and then, in America's moment of greatest need, George W. Bush spent another 20 minutes getting his picture taken. Brave? I don't think so!
Why don't we as Americans call him out?
Hey, George! Why don't you come out and face America? If you've got what it takes to lead us, we'll know, and if you don't?
We'll know that too!
Courage, Americans! It is your time,now!
Steve
Oh yeah, and by the way, the French were right about this war being unwinnable!
Fact is, Bush has lost the war in Iraq. Let's face up to it and figure out what to do now.
"Events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq."
"Both the cities, Fallujah and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias .... "
"American efforts to build a government structure around former Ba'ath Party stalwarts ... have collapsed. Instead, the former Hussein loyalists, under threat of beheadings, kidnappings and humiliation, have mostly resigned or defected to the fundamentalists, or been killed. Enforcers for the old government, including former Republican Guard officers, have put themselves in the service of fundamentalist clerics they once tortured at Abu Ghraib."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/15/02033/2476
My ramblings are at:
http://whitescreek.blogspot.com/
Post your comments
Well, in my universe all times are glorious, but I am personally equipped to enjoy some days more than others and the last few have landed square on my happy spot. The body has trouble keeping up with the surge of activity brought on by 59 degree mornings, but like my son Thomas says, "That's why aspirin comes in big bottles!" I have big bottles on hand of the aging, has been, wannabe, athlete's two main food groups...Aspirin and red wine. If the temps drop just ten more degrees, the hot tub becomes the heaven I probably don't deserve.
We have another hurricane headed our way up here in Tennessee. Number six is aimed at the bottom end of Florida before number five can finish off the pan handle. It is at times like this that people like me like to point out that New Orleans is mostly ten feet below sea level and has a storm with a fifteen foot surge pooking along inside headed that way. Stupid stupid Army Core of Engineers made this possible by failing to point out the inevitable to 200 years worth of developer greed. At least they could have said, "You'll be sorry..." somewhere along the way, as they spent billions to keep the Mississippi River out of it's natural course and destroyed the Delta in the process. Along with that, they destroyed the livelihood of thousands of fishermen and whole industries that caught the bounty of the bayous and provided the rich and wholesome food New Orleans is famous for. The Delta is sinking fast. Lot's of it are gone but if Ivan can land just right...Well even I won't wish for that, even though it would serve a few folks right. I just hope the French Quarter survives.
The French Quarter is built on the only high ground on the waterfront. Boy, those French are really dumb, aren't they? Pointing out what a stupid thing it is to start a war in Iraq and building towns on high ground...They seem to piss every body off by saying things that are are 100 percent true at precisely the most inopportune moments...Hmm, I must have a bit of French DNA diluting the purebred English, Scotch Irish, mulatto redneck American blood coursing through my only partially clogged arteries. The Ambassador to the United Nations from France stood up and pointed out an uncomfortable fact about the document that Colin Powell had just presented to the General Assembly proving that Saddam was trying to buy niclear weapons material from Niger...The uncomfortable fact was that Colin Powell's document was a forgery!
Damn those French! They must be cowards, right? They didn't want to start a stupid war that can't possibly be won for reasons that are obvious lies, right? Cowards?
Maybe we have the wrong definition of what a coward is. Maybe a coward is someone who lies to get other people to do bad things for them. Maybe a Coward is someone who does those bad things knowing they are wrong and based on lies. Colin Powell spent one and a half hours standing up in front of the United Nations General Assembly presenting a slickly done presentation "proving" that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was going to use them. George W. Bush made a famous scare speech warning that anyone who did not believe Saddam had Weapons of mass destruction could be proven wrong by a "Mushroom Cloud!" The Prime Minister of France said he did not believe Saddam had these weapons, A preemptive war with Iraq is a mistake. This week, Colin Powell said something after 1006 American soldiers have been killed. He said it after thousands of Americans have been wounded and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians have been killed. What he said was this:
"It is unlikely that we will ever find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Oops! 1006 Americans have died bravely for the wrong reason.
They died in the service of our President George who is supposed to be a brave man, after all. He bravely used all his Daddy's pull to get out of danger when it was his turn to fight for his country. He bravely quit going to the marching drills he was supposed to attend after losing his flight status for not passing the drug test he would have taken had he "Bravely" shown up for his physical examination. Personally, I don't think what a man did thirty years ago should be held against him, so let's let bygones be bye, shall we? I say a man has time to be brave every second of every day. George has the chance to be brave when he steps out to face reporters at a Press conference. A coward wouldn't do that unless he had the questions given to him three days in advance...Just like in college, George?
George had a very well known chance to be brave when his aide whispered into his ear,
"Sir, America is under attack!"
He had the chance to be brave for the famous seven minutes he sat there with his eyes darting back and forth, Looking less like the leader of the free world than a man trying not to wet himself. (Doubt me? look at the tape and make your own decision! Your chance to be brave might simply be watching Fahrenheit 9-11 before you vote!)
I remember what I did, the instant I found out about the first plane flying into the World Trade Towers. I immediately changed my plans and started trying to find out what was going on and what it meant. While I was going to the Reuters web site to learn more, the Man in charge was reading a book about a goat. We were both scared, the President and I, but I needed him to spring into action because that is his job! I would have done that and you, dear reader, would have done that, but the one man on earth whose job it was to act... didn't!
Now, in spite of spending one and a half Trillion Dollars we don't have, our economy is sputtering, unable to get the traction it needs to produce enough jobs for our work force.
In spite of the fact that 70% of Americans favor the assault weapon ban, the President's man in the Senate says it is the "Will of the People" that it expire.
In spite of the fact that Millions of Americans can not afford health care insurance, the President says it will cost too much to help American Citizen. We can't divert money from the war.
In Spite of the fact that our environment shows growing signs of getting sicker and sicker, our President backs further and deeper destruction of the earths natural processes.
In spite of the fact that the average American's earnings went up by five thousand dollars a year under Bill Clinton and have gone down by nearly two thousand dollars under Bush, our President says things are great for those who count. You know, the "Owners" he is so fond of in his fantasy world of the Ownership society! That is the world where George and his friends own all the stuff and you flip burgers at your "factory" job.
Well the chance to be brave gets passed around and maybe it is our turn. All I know is that the one guy in the whole world, we, as Americans, have to count on has not once, not ever, stepped up and been brave. He has always hid behind his Daddy. his momma, or that plastic turkey last Christmas. He won't face an open Press conference, he wouldn't testify for the 9-11 Commission under oath or without Dick Cheney as his keeper, and now he is doing his best to avoid Presidential debates. George 'Bush is only the second President in US history to abandon the White House when America was under attack. Before that, he sat frozen in front of a room of grade school children, and then, in America's moment of greatest need, George W. Bush spent another 20 minutes getting his picture taken. Brave? I don't think so!
Why don't we as Americans call him out?
Hey, George! Why don't you come out and face America? If you've got what it takes to lead us, we'll know, and if you don't?
We'll know that too!
Courage, Americans! It is your time,now!
Steve
Oh yeah, and by the way, the French were right about this war being unwinnable!
Fact is, Bush has lost the war in Iraq. Let's face up to it and figure out what to do now.
"Events in two Sunni Muslim cities that stand astride the crucial western approaches to Baghdad have moved significantly against American plans to build a secular democracy in Iraq."
"Both the cities, Fallujah and Ramadi, and much of Anbar Province, are now controlled by fundamentalist militias .... "
"American efforts to build a government structure around former Ba'ath Party stalwarts ... have collapsed. Instead, the former Hussein loyalists, under threat of beheadings, kidnappings and humiliation, have mostly resigned or defected to the fundamentalists, or been killed. Enforcers for the old government, including former Republican Guard officers, have put themselves in the service of fundamentalist clerics they once tortured at Abu Ghraib."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/15/02033/2476
My ramblings are at:
http://whitescreek.blogspot.com/
Post your comments
Thursday, September 09, 2004
Pigs and hogs
Fervent readers of my epistles (maybe that should be "fevered" readers) will remember the garden patch found by a 15 year old turkey hunter on the family farm. There's more to the story. The guy, who got snagged for having a well worn foot trail from the errant garden back to his own house, which connected to several other finely kept gardens, some on his own land, has an uncle. The uncle seems to have gotten himself lost. He got lost just before all the police in the world stopped in to visit his house. I'm sure it was just a social visit to sell tickets to the Al JeZeera Shrine Temple's barbecue benefit for the sheriff's Department, but Uncle Titus was feeling a bit reclusive at that moment and took off. After they got over getting their feelings hurt, the officers looked around and were puzzled as to why someone would leave Five Million dollars worth of pot and lots of cash sitting at home, all lonely and everything, without even inviting the policemen inside to share in Nature's bounteous harvest. That just ain't neighborly and Uncle Titus is in the big social doghouse in Rhea County Tennessee.
He would be in fine company, alongside the County Commissioners who voted to not allow gay people into Rhea County. Rhea County is now Gay Pride Central, with all sorts of really fun marches and demonstrations going on. Turns out that 75% of the people in the county have a gay friend, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, son, or daughter, and the other 25% are lying. The commissioners quickly met again and rescinded the vote, saying they were confused. Everybody around here pretty much agrees with that assessment. I don't think Uncle Titus is all that confused, but he sure is in trouble.
My friend Matt has a saying he likes to throw out concerning bidness deals. "Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered!" Uncle Titus has his name on over twenty parcels of land, some of them pretty large, and several lying right next to Steve's family farm. Titus bought a few of them last year for a good bit of money, which is kinda odd because Uncle Titus only reported about $20,000 in income on his taxes according to the local sheriff. He didn't seem to have a job that would pay what is roughly the yearly income of the Assistant Manager at Hardee's. It is, however, a good bit more than the prospective starting salary of a University of Tennessee graduate with a degree in exercise Physiology, and the sheriff got to wondering about that. The entrepreneurial spirit "Done took over old Titus!" was all the sheriff could come up with. In this part of the country "The Spirit" takes over a lot of folks, just not that one. Titus shoulda quit while he was just a pig!
We don't know where Uncle Titus is. These danged hurricanes are pounding all the usual refuges, like Florida and Jamaica. I know God is really punishing Florida for not counting the votes, but what the heck did Jamaica do? Uncle Titus could disappear into the wilds of Mississippi but now Hurricane Ivan may have a bead on that state too. Anybody that knows much about Mississippi has to wonder why God doesn't just park one on top of the state and leave it... So anyway, Titus has to head somewhere else.
We figure the sheriff found what there was of the cash left behind, and frankly we think there was a whole lot more. Titus is an enterprising fellow, so we figure he's headed out to the borderlands where the last Cracker Barrel restaurant sits gleaming in the evening sun, paying cash for everything.
Just one more crop of corn was all that hog wanted. Think about that, next time you see pork chops on the menu at Cracker Barrel.
Peace,
Steve
Fervent readers of my epistles (maybe that should be "fevered" readers) will remember the garden patch found by a 15 year old turkey hunter on the family farm. There's more to the story. The guy, who got snagged for having a well worn foot trail from the errant garden back to his own house, which connected to several other finely kept gardens, some on his own land, has an uncle. The uncle seems to have gotten himself lost. He got lost just before all the police in the world stopped in to visit his house. I'm sure it was just a social visit to sell tickets to the Al JeZeera Shrine Temple's barbecue benefit for the sheriff's Department, but Uncle Titus was feeling a bit reclusive at that moment and took off. After they got over getting their feelings hurt, the officers looked around and were puzzled as to why someone would leave Five Million dollars worth of pot and lots of cash sitting at home, all lonely and everything, without even inviting the policemen inside to share in Nature's bounteous harvest. That just ain't neighborly and Uncle Titus is in the big social doghouse in Rhea County Tennessee.
He would be in fine company, alongside the County Commissioners who voted to not allow gay people into Rhea County. Rhea County is now Gay Pride Central, with all sorts of really fun marches and demonstrations going on. Turns out that 75% of the people in the county have a gay friend, uncle, aunt, brother, sister, son, or daughter, and the other 25% are lying. The commissioners quickly met again and rescinded the vote, saying they were confused. Everybody around here pretty much agrees with that assessment. I don't think Uncle Titus is all that confused, but he sure is in trouble.
My friend Matt has a saying he likes to throw out concerning bidness deals. "Pigs get fat, Hogs get slaughtered!" Uncle Titus has his name on over twenty parcels of land, some of them pretty large, and several lying right next to Steve's family farm. Titus bought a few of them last year for a good bit of money, which is kinda odd because Uncle Titus only reported about $20,000 in income on his taxes according to the local sheriff. He didn't seem to have a job that would pay what is roughly the yearly income of the Assistant Manager at Hardee's. It is, however, a good bit more than the prospective starting salary of a University of Tennessee graduate with a degree in exercise Physiology, and the sheriff got to wondering about that. The entrepreneurial spirit "Done took over old Titus!" was all the sheriff could come up with. In this part of the country "The Spirit" takes over a lot of folks, just not that one. Titus shoulda quit while he was just a pig!
We don't know where Uncle Titus is. These danged hurricanes are pounding all the usual refuges, like Florida and Jamaica. I know God is really punishing Florida for not counting the votes, but what the heck did Jamaica do? Uncle Titus could disappear into the wilds of Mississippi but now Hurricane Ivan may have a bead on that state too. Anybody that knows much about Mississippi has to wonder why God doesn't just park one on top of the state and leave it... So anyway, Titus has to head somewhere else.
We figure the sheriff found what there was of the cash left behind, and frankly we think there was a whole lot more. Titus is an enterprising fellow, so we figure he's headed out to the borderlands where the last Cracker Barrel restaurant sits gleaming in the evening sun, paying cash for everything.
Just one more crop of corn was all that hog wanted. Think about that, next time you see pork chops on the menu at Cracker Barrel.
Peace,
Steve
Friday, August 27, 2004
Walking down Lick Log Branch yesterday, I saw every pool rippling with "minners" as the man walking with me called them jokingly. This time of year usually finds the pools small if not vanished, and I am glad to see the fish darting around looking for someplace to hide from us. In seconds they are invisible, but I can see that there are more here than just young of the year. Grownups have found refuge well upstream of their normal summer habitat. In the largest pool I can see the tell tale Tennessee volunteer orange slash of a Warpaint Shiner. The rest of the little beasts will remain known as minners though I know there are probably Creek Chub and other species that would still be a mystery to me even if I had my fishing binoculars handy. The mating color of the peacockish males is fading now as fall comes on, but you can still see it on some of the darters.
There has been a Lick Log Branch everywhere I've lived. Not as many of them as Piney creeks, of which there are several fairly close to my house: Big Piney, Little Piney, and, cutest of all, the Tiny Piney. To me, the best creek name is the one from my childhood in Laurens County Georgia, Hunger and Hardship Creek. I wonder how it got the name? Some of you are high school friends of mine. Let me know if you ever find out. When I was about eleven, my great Uncle brought me two baby alligators he picked up while fishing the creek. I named the two gators Hunger and Hardship, of course, and built a fenced in pool in the back yard to keep them in. They were killed by the neighborhood children.
Snots!
As I looked into the clear pools of Lick Log, I wondered why the most environmental President we have had during my lifetime could be Richard Nixon, an otherwise evil and distasteful man. Nixon signed The Clean Water Act which is probably the only reason these fish survive in the waters of what is no longer "The Greenest State in the Land of the Free"...Any body else remember the Ballad of Davey Crockett? Nixon originally ran on a ticket to win the Viet Nam War, and then he ran again on a ticket to end the war. Then he announced a policy called something like "Withdrawal With Dignity", which sounds more like a Catholic birth control plan than a war policy. I remember watching on TV as people were screaming and throwing their children at the open door of US Army Helicopters as they abandoned the roof of the American Embassy. Very dignified!
It may be time to resurrect old Tricky Dicky. I can't remember how many American Soldiers he got killed (30,000?) after he started ending the war, but I believe more died after he took office than before, when we were just fighting for who the hell knows what reason... pretty much the same boat we find ourselves in now. Or should I say helicopter, which begs the question: Why is it, that after thirty years, the most technological society on earth can't make a helicopter that can't be shot down with a squirrel rifle?
Of course it would be simpler if we just stopped sending them into places where there are people who actually have squirrel rifles, or a reasonable facsimile, and want to shoot down American helicopters...We're hunting terrorists where the light is better I guess, and getting the crap shot out of our kids! Is it too much to ask that somebody stand up and say, "Whoops! Bad Idea! Sorry!" and let's leave? We could bring all our kids home and work on an energy conservation plan that would stop those creeps over there from having enough money to buy their danged rifles in the first place. See! No rifles, no helicopters, and presto, they are back to trying to raise goats in the desert again. Maybe one day someone will even tell them that it's the stupid goats that are the reason they have all that desert in the first place, and that brings us full circle back to "Hunger and Hardship"! One day I plan to write about how safe sex could stop most wars, but for now, you can just sit there and try to figure out how in the heck Steve decided goats forced humans into an oil economy, and that resulted in the Iraq war. At any rate lots of people are deciding that this war is down right stupid and we should never have started it.
Did I mention how much I love barbecued goat?
Miss Molly Ivans names names, opening the closet door on the list of conservatives who think we shouldn't have strated the Iraq war. Molly calls for all conservatives to repent their lust for war in Iraq, and points out that quite a few of them already have. Big time conservative names like Wlliam F. Buckley have turned on the war. Molly says it best so I'll let her:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17542
Rich Baker voted for George W. Bush in 2000. He is going to vote for John Kerry this November. He was known as Navy Lieutenant Baker during the Viet Nam War...He commanded a Swift Boat.
"Every Swift boat officer gave his all in Vietnam, but Kerry stood above the rest of us," said Baker, 61, of Scott, a former Navy lieutenant and Swift boat commander. "He was number one as far as courageousness and aggressiveness. He set the tone."
"George Bush has two silver dental fillings in his teeth to show what he did during the Vietnam War," Baker said. "John Kerry has a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts."
"John Kerry should not be alive today," Baker said. "He was aggressive -- more aggressive than the rest of us. That was his nature, and everybody who was there knows it."
But, Baker said, these men never criticized Kerry until he became the Democratic presidential nominee. Baker specifically recalled a 1995 reunion of Swift boat crews in Washington at which praise for Kerry's service in Vietnam was unanimous. Kerry then was the pride of the group as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04237/366585.stm
Here is my choice for quote of the day:
Ordinary Americans have been manipulated into imagining they are a people under siege whose sole refuge and protector is their government. If it isn't the Communists, it's al-Qaeda. If it isn't Cuba. it's Nicaragua. As a result, this, the most powerful nation in the world - with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs - is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear."
...The mandarins of the corporate world, the CEOs, the bankers, the politicians, the judges and generals look down on us from on high and shake their heads sternly. "There's no Alternative," they say. And let slip the dogs of war ... Terrorism is vicious, ugly, and dehumanizing for its perpetrators, as well as its victims. But so is war. You could say that terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketers of war. They are people who don't believe that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence ... Human society is journeying to a terrible place ... Of course, there is an alternative to terrorism. It's called justice."
It is from Arundhati Roy. Here's where I found out about her:
http://allspinzone.blogspot.com/
Peace,
Steve
There has been a Lick Log Branch everywhere I've lived. Not as many of them as Piney creeks, of which there are several fairly close to my house: Big Piney, Little Piney, and, cutest of all, the Tiny Piney. To me, the best creek name is the one from my childhood in Laurens County Georgia, Hunger and Hardship Creek. I wonder how it got the name? Some of you are high school friends of mine. Let me know if you ever find out. When I was about eleven, my great Uncle brought me two baby alligators he picked up while fishing the creek. I named the two gators Hunger and Hardship, of course, and built a fenced in pool in the back yard to keep them in. They were killed by the neighborhood children.
Snots!
As I looked into the clear pools of Lick Log, I wondered why the most environmental President we have had during my lifetime could be Richard Nixon, an otherwise evil and distasteful man. Nixon signed The Clean Water Act which is probably the only reason these fish survive in the waters of what is no longer "The Greenest State in the Land of the Free"...Any body else remember the Ballad of Davey Crockett? Nixon originally ran on a ticket to win the Viet Nam War, and then he ran again on a ticket to end the war. Then he announced a policy called something like "Withdrawal With Dignity", which sounds more like a Catholic birth control plan than a war policy. I remember watching on TV as people were screaming and throwing their children at the open door of US Army Helicopters as they abandoned the roof of the American Embassy. Very dignified!
It may be time to resurrect old Tricky Dicky. I can't remember how many American Soldiers he got killed (30,000?) after he started ending the war, but I believe more died after he took office than before, when we were just fighting for who the hell knows what reason... pretty much the same boat we find ourselves in now. Or should I say helicopter, which begs the question: Why is it, that after thirty years, the most technological society on earth can't make a helicopter that can't be shot down with a squirrel rifle?
Of course it would be simpler if we just stopped sending them into places where there are people who actually have squirrel rifles, or a reasonable facsimile, and want to shoot down American helicopters...We're hunting terrorists where the light is better I guess, and getting the crap shot out of our kids! Is it too much to ask that somebody stand up and say, "Whoops! Bad Idea! Sorry!" and let's leave? We could bring all our kids home and work on an energy conservation plan that would stop those creeps over there from having enough money to buy their danged rifles in the first place. See! No rifles, no helicopters, and presto, they are back to trying to raise goats in the desert again. Maybe one day someone will even tell them that it's the stupid goats that are the reason they have all that desert in the first place, and that brings us full circle back to "Hunger and Hardship"! One day I plan to write about how safe sex could stop most wars, but for now, you can just sit there and try to figure out how in the heck Steve decided goats forced humans into an oil economy, and that resulted in the Iraq war. At any rate lots of people are deciding that this war is down right stupid and we should never have started it.
Did I mention how much I love barbecued goat?
Miss Molly Ivans names names, opening the closet door on the list of conservatives who think we shouldn't have strated the Iraq war. Molly calls for all conservatives to repent their lust for war in Iraq, and points out that quite a few of them already have. Big time conservative names like Wlliam F. Buckley have turned on the war. Molly says it best so I'll let her:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=17542
Rich Baker voted for George W. Bush in 2000. He is going to vote for John Kerry this November. He was known as Navy Lieutenant Baker during the Viet Nam War...He commanded a Swift Boat.
"Every Swift boat officer gave his all in Vietnam, but Kerry stood above the rest of us," said Baker, 61, of Scott, a former Navy lieutenant and Swift boat commander. "He was number one as far as courageousness and aggressiveness. He set the tone."
"George Bush has two silver dental fillings in his teeth to show what he did during the Vietnam War," Baker said. "John Kerry has a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts."
"John Kerry should not be alive today," Baker said. "He was aggressive -- more aggressive than the rest of us. That was his nature, and everybody who was there knows it."
But, Baker said, these men never criticized Kerry until he became the Democratic presidential nominee. Baker specifically recalled a 1995 reunion of Swift boat crews in Washington at which praise for Kerry's service in Vietnam was unanimous. Kerry then was the pride of the group as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04237/366585.stm
Here is my choice for quote of the day:
Ordinary Americans have been manipulated into imagining they are a people under siege whose sole refuge and protector is their government. If it isn't the Communists, it's al-Qaeda. If it isn't Cuba. it's Nicaragua. As a result, this, the most powerful nation in the world - with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs - is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear."
...The mandarins of the corporate world, the CEOs, the bankers, the politicians, the judges and generals look down on us from on high and shake their heads sternly. "There's no Alternative," they say. And let slip the dogs of war ... Terrorism is vicious, ugly, and dehumanizing for its perpetrators, as well as its victims. But so is war. You could say that terrorism is the privatization of war. Terrorists are the free marketers of war. They are people who don't believe that the state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence ... Human society is journeying to a terrible place ... Of course, there is an alternative to terrorism. It's called justice."
It is from Arundhati Roy. Here's where I found out about her:
http://allspinzone.blogspot.com/
Peace,
Steve
I love barbecue! I get sauce all over my face and smile big. It's a red neck thing...sorry. I like to think of myself as an environmentalist, too. Some body has to save the world from boneheads like the ones in charge right now. There's a conflict...always is! Try this from Grist:
"In fact, a 2003 study found that Texans, who like to say that they "live and breathe barbecue," may be doing exactly that. In Houston -- with some of the worst air quality in the country -- meat smoke wafting up from restaurants and grills makes up a somewhat significant part of the pollution mix."
So that means that Bush is not one hundred percent responsible for the lousy air quality in Houston and the rest of Texas. If you are a Republican that lets him completely off the hook to you, since he is never actually responsible for anything bad that happens in your mind. It's Clinton! Well actually in this case, it's dead pigs!
Yum!
Well, we here in Tennessee get a fair bit of bad air contribution from Texas. While it would be bad enough if all we got was Tom Delay, the poster boy for pesticide misuse, the Texas air is not enough by itself so we have TVA and 1000 foot smoke stacks to help make it hard to be a living thing all the way up to the peaks of the Smoky Mountains.
I wonder about the things I do and how they affect the rest of the world. I would never be able to be a good conservative. Now I find out that my gas grill is a boon to the environment:
Though barbecue purists would probably fight to the death to keep their charcoal grills sizzling, the truth is that natural gas and propane are hands-down the most eco-friendly. Both charcoal and wood burn dirty, producing tiny soot particles that pollute the air and can worsen chronic heart and lung problems.
Further bad news...Beer is not an antidote! Dang!
http://www.gristmagazine.com/possessions/possessions082404.asp?source=weekly
******
I may have to come to grips with the fact that people I have respected in the past are willing to be lying weasels to help their side win, regardless of the long term cost to America. I voted against Bob Dole but I respected him.
I'm over that. Bob Dole is now officially a Republican weasel. He told a lie and then refused to take it back when confronted.
Alessandra Stanley writes in the Times:
"Mr. Dole suggested (on CNN) that John Kerry was in a rush to obtain his Purple Hearts to meet a regulation that allowed soldiers to leave the war zone after winning three. "I mean the first one, whether he ought to have a purple heart - He got two in one day, I think. And he was out of there in less than four months..."
Bob Dole lied!
Right on National TV and should have been branded as such right then and there. Wolf Blitzer knew exactly what the dates of Kerry's war wounds! Kerry recieved the Purple Heart for being wounded in action on Dec. 2, 1968, Feb. 20, 1969, and March 13, 1969. Hardly the same day, and hardly the way one wounded war hero should treat another. Blitzer did not confront him right away but waited until later on a phone conversation:
"I wasn't trying to be mean spirited. I was trying to say all these guys on the Republican side just can't be Republican liars."
Well, yes they can, and as it turns out, yes they are, and Bob Dole knows it! Welcome to the ranks of Republican liars, Bob! You, and what's left of your honor, aren't going to fit in very well.
Now George Bush has come forward and called the anti-Kerry ad "False and Libelous"
This is the same guy who said, "We've found the Weapons of Mass Destruction." Of course that turned out to be a weather balloon trailer but hey, Republican Weasels, remember?
Peace,
Steve
"In fact, a 2003 study found that Texans, who like to say that they "live and breathe barbecue," may be doing exactly that. In Houston -- with some of the worst air quality in the country -- meat smoke wafting up from restaurants and grills makes up a somewhat significant part of the pollution mix."
So that means that Bush is not one hundred percent responsible for the lousy air quality in Houston and the rest of Texas. If you are a Republican that lets him completely off the hook to you, since he is never actually responsible for anything bad that happens in your mind. It's Clinton! Well actually in this case, it's dead pigs!
Yum!
Well, we here in Tennessee get a fair bit of bad air contribution from Texas. While it would be bad enough if all we got was Tom Delay, the poster boy for pesticide misuse, the Texas air is not enough by itself so we have TVA and 1000 foot smoke stacks to help make it hard to be a living thing all the way up to the peaks of the Smoky Mountains.
I wonder about the things I do and how they affect the rest of the world. I would never be able to be a good conservative. Now I find out that my gas grill is a boon to the environment:
Though barbecue purists would probably fight to the death to keep their charcoal grills sizzling, the truth is that natural gas and propane are hands-down the most eco-friendly. Both charcoal and wood burn dirty, producing tiny soot particles that pollute the air and can worsen chronic heart and lung problems.
Further bad news...Beer is not an antidote! Dang!
http://www.gristmagazine.com/possessions/possessions082404.asp?source=weekly
******
I may have to come to grips with the fact that people I have respected in the past are willing to be lying weasels to help their side win, regardless of the long term cost to America. I voted against Bob Dole but I respected him.
I'm over that. Bob Dole is now officially a Republican weasel. He told a lie and then refused to take it back when confronted.
Alessandra Stanley writes in the Times:
"Mr. Dole suggested (on CNN) that John Kerry was in a rush to obtain his Purple Hearts to meet a regulation that allowed soldiers to leave the war zone after winning three. "I mean the first one, whether he ought to have a purple heart - He got two in one day, I think. And he was out of there in less than four months..."
Bob Dole lied!
Right on National TV and should have been branded as such right then and there. Wolf Blitzer knew exactly what the dates of Kerry's war wounds! Kerry recieved the Purple Heart for being wounded in action on Dec. 2, 1968, Feb. 20, 1969, and March 13, 1969. Hardly the same day, and hardly the way one wounded war hero should treat another. Blitzer did not confront him right away but waited until later on a phone conversation:
"I wasn't trying to be mean spirited. I was trying to say all these guys on the Republican side just can't be Republican liars."
Well, yes they can, and as it turns out, yes they are, and Bob Dole knows it! Welcome to the ranks of Republican liars, Bob! You, and what's left of your honor, aren't going to fit in very well.
Now George Bush has come forward and called the anti-Kerry ad "False and Libelous"
This is the same guy who said, "We've found the Weapons of Mass Destruction." Of course that turned out to be a weather balloon trailer but hey, Republican Weasels, remember?
Peace,
Steve
I listened to NPR this morning and began wondering what strange beings we humans are. Every where I turn there is evidence of a grave mental illness that has infected a large number of us...the inability to think in any direction except toward a preconceived conclusion that may be completely false.
There was a guy who said that he disagreed with most of what Bush is doing but he just couldn't get "That Picture of Kerry and Jane Fonda together" out of his mind. Do you remember "that picture"?
It is a fake!
It shows Kerry and Jane Fonda sitting very close together at a war protest. It was generated by the P.R. firm used by Karl Rove. Kerry was at one event that Fonda also attended but never met her. Actually I think Jane is not all that far from being a good and principled person who still takes a lot of scorn for being on the right side during the Viet Nam war years. OK, she screwed up big going to North Viet Nam letting herself be used as a propaganda tool, and she's a quite bit out there, but She was right about the war! Our government was wrong! Who disagrees with that? Ok, the far right wing and no one else. Why does this guy still associate her with something bad? He has the disease. Why does he still think Jane and John Kerry were in cahoots to undermine American soldiers when what both of them were trying to do is get them home alive? He has the disease.
Why can't this man accept that the offending picture is a lie and that he is being manipulated and that anyone who would do such a thing is evil?
He has the disease!
We must help these folks. Be kind to them for they are our friends, and brothers, and fathers, and husbands and wives. We love them and want them healed.
If there is one failure I can point to in the American educational system it is this disease. It is the inability to engage in Critical Thinking. It is the Scientific method. The ability to determine fact from fiction and choose fact over wishful thinking. Political parties, Religions, and the Chamber of Commerce all count on American's inability to identify lies and the worst of all, half truths. It is how political parties function and steal our money and our communal possessions and stay out of prison. Cool Hand Luke kept winding up as a victim of a "Failure to communicate". We are victims of a "Failure to think."
The guy on NPR should simply say, "Wait a minute! The picture is a fake. Bush is lying to us!"...and start supporting the good guys in this country...but he has the disease!
John Kerry was trying to save the lives of his fellow warriors anyway. Somewhere around 50,000 of them died while he was trying to get them out of Nam. The ones that came home were nearly all wounded in one way or another. Ask a Viet Nam vet how he feels about the war. Most of them won't even talk about it. They are all victims of the disease.
We all are. We all have this tragic disease! It cannot be cured... but it can be controlled. That is one reason why I write this stuff as often as I can. I have the disease too and I have to make myself think to control it.
I guess that makes you guys victims of my cure!
Try this simple test to see if a Bush supporter has the disease in virulent form. Ask them why they are for George Bush? Listen to the answer. When I have done this I get two forms of replies. "He's decisive." is the least common. The main thing I hear is some kind of slam on Kerry.
"I support Bush because I can't get that picture out of my mind." (diseased!)
"Have you seen the pictures of Kerry's mansions?" (diseased!)
"Kerry didn't deserve one of his purple hearts!" ( really freakin' diseased!) This one is way sick! Just because they don't give medals for desertion and Bush doesn't have any is no reason to trash a genuine hero)
"Bush shares my values!" (terminal stages of disease!)..and what values would that be, exactly? Hates queers? Likes to torture folks? Lies easily? Believes his own lies? help me here, I 'm really curious about this one.
The enemy of a political lie is critical thinking. They don't teach it in church. They don't teach it in "home school" programs. They don't teach it in Marketing class. They don't teach it on TV. They don't teach it at Bryan College and Jerry Falwell condemns "...those who would poison our young people's minds with unclean thought known as Critical thinking."
You might learn it in science class. Where ever you can learn it, you owe it to your children to get with the program. Start thinking right now today! You can do it, I know you can. There are support groups to help you. There are public buildings in nearly every community that have reservoirs of science books in them. They are called Libraries. But I know you are lazy so I am going to give you a list of self help sites you can go to on the internet. I am working on a "Twelve Step Program" but it is not quite ready so you'll have to do this yourself for now.
Step one is "If you can't turn off the TV at least turn off Fox News!"
Step two is surf these web pages.
The first one is Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. The second is the Ralph Waldo Emerson home page. It gives me peace when my head hurts from all that thinking so that's why I put it in here. Then you get into the hard stuff. have fun and don't believe all you see.
http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html
http://www.rwe.org/
http://www.criticalthinking.org/default.html
http://www.churchofcriticalthinking.com/index.shtml
http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/survey_flaws.html
http://www.sonoma.edu/cthink/
Think about it!
Steve
There was a guy who said that he disagreed with most of what Bush is doing but he just couldn't get "That Picture of Kerry and Jane Fonda together" out of his mind. Do you remember "that picture"?
It is a fake!
It shows Kerry and Jane Fonda sitting very close together at a war protest. It was generated by the P.R. firm used by Karl Rove. Kerry was at one event that Fonda also attended but never met her. Actually I think Jane is not all that far from being a good and principled person who still takes a lot of scorn for being on the right side during the Viet Nam war years. OK, she screwed up big going to North Viet Nam letting herself be used as a propaganda tool, and she's a quite bit out there, but She was right about the war! Our government was wrong! Who disagrees with that? Ok, the far right wing and no one else. Why does this guy still associate her with something bad? He has the disease. Why does he still think Jane and John Kerry were in cahoots to undermine American soldiers when what both of them were trying to do is get them home alive? He has the disease.
Why can't this man accept that the offending picture is a lie and that he is being manipulated and that anyone who would do such a thing is evil?
He has the disease!
We must help these folks. Be kind to them for they are our friends, and brothers, and fathers, and husbands and wives. We love them and want them healed.
If there is one failure I can point to in the American educational system it is this disease. It is the inability to engage in Critical Thinking. It is the Scientific method. The ability to determine fact from fiction and choose fact over wishful thinking. Political parties, Religions, and the Chamber of Commerce all count on American's inability to identify lies and the worst of all, half truths. It is how political parties function and steal our money and our communal possessions and stay out of prison. Cool Hand Luke kept winding up as a victim of a "Failure to communicate". We are victims of a "Failure to think."
The guy on NPR should simply say, "Wait a minute! The picture is a fake. Bush is lying to us!"...and start supporting the good guys in this country...but he has the disease!
John Kerry was trying to save the lives of his fellow warriors anyway. Somewhere around 50,000 of them died while he was trying to get them out of Nam. The ones that came home were nearly all wounded in one way or another. Ask a Viet Nam vet how he feels about the war. Most of them won't even talk about it. They are all victims of the disease.
We all are. We all have this tragic disease! It cannot be cured... but it can be controlled. That is one reason why I write this stuff as often as I can. I have the disease too and I have to make myself think to control it.
I guess that makes you guys victims of my cure!
Try this simple test to see if a Bush supporter has the disease in virulent form. Ask them why they are for George Bush? Listen to the answer. When I have done this I get two forms of replies. "He's decisive." is the least common. The main thing I hear is some kind of slam on Kerry.
"I support Bush because I can't get that picture out of my mind." (diseased!)
"Have you seen the pictures of Kerry's mansions?" (diseased!)
"Kerry didn't deserve one of his purple hearts!" ( really freakin' diseased!) This one is way sick! Just because they don't give medals for desertion and Bush doesn't have any is no reason to trash a genuine hero)
"Bush shares my values!" (terminal stages of disease!)..and what values would that be, exactly? Hates queers? Likes to torture folks? Lies easily? Believes his own lies? help me here, I 'm really curious about this one.
The enemy of a political lie is critical thinking. They don't teach it in church. They don't teach it in "home school" programs. They don't teach it in Marketing class. They don't teach it on TV. They don't teach it at Bryan College and Jerry Falwell condemns "...those who would poison our young people's minds with unclean thought known as Critical thinking."
You might learn it in science class. Where ever you can learn it, you owe it to your children to get with the program. Start thinking right now today! You can do it, I know you can. There are support groups to help you. There are public buildings in nearly every community that have reservoirs of science books in them. They are called Libraries. But I know you are lazy so I am going to give you a list of self help sites you can go to on the internet. I am working on a "Twelve Step Program" but it is not quite ready so you'll have to do this yourself for now.
Step one is "If you can't turn off the TV at least turn off Fox News!"
Step two is surf these web pages.
The first one is Carl Sagan's Baloney Detection Kit. The second is the Ralph Waldo Emerson home page. It gives me peace when my head hurts from all that thinking so that's why I put it in here. Then you get into the hard stuff. have fun and don't believe all you see.
http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/baloney.html
http://www.rwe.org/
http://www.criticalthinking.org/default.html
http://www.churchofcriticalthinking.com/index.shtml
http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/survey_flaws.html
http://www.sonoma.edu/cthink/
Think about it!
Steve
Monday, August 16, 2004
Oh boy, I'm home!
What have you folks done to good old muggy Tennessee while I've been in Utah? I get back and find the best August weather in years: sunny, coolish, and humidity well below the normal 90%. I can take this!
I was at the Outdoor Retailer show lusting over things I disdain in my conscience...consumer goods. I am not a good shopper. I walk into a store, get what I came for, and leave. Women, my long suffering wife chief amongst them, think I am the worst of males for not looking at 59 different shirts in four different stores before going back and buying the second one I picked up. The only time I really understand what shopping is about is in a bookstore. Then I understand what it means to make choices. Do I keep the book on cabin architecture and put back the collection of Edgar Allen Poe novellas, or break the budget and take them both home? Ah, the rush!
The outdoor show takes up most of Salt Lake City. The merchants and purveyors of life's necessities feed upon us like leeches, sucking our blood from every tiny capillary near enough to the surface of our skin for their mouth parts to eviscerate. The combination of fundamental Mormonism and capitalist blood lust is a frightening concurrence, so evil in nature that I decided to take my 17 year old son with me. Hey, a boy's gotta have some fun in life, eh?
The LDS church fathers want our money so badly that they roil in hypocrisy, soiling the waters in the streets surrounding their holiest of temples with booze, strip joints, and the most polite of drunken panhandlers in every nook and cranny of downtown Salt Lake.
The city fathers have resorted to all sorts of ploys to reduce the numbers of homeless at our convention. Over in the next state, Las Vegas officials cried "Foul" when it was discovered that the LDS members who dominate local and state government had overwhelmingly supported a secret plan that gave the homeless some cash in their pocket and a bus ticket to Las Vegas. Hey, sin city. here they come!
Of all the places in America that you are most likely to get wet while walking around the city, SLC is foremost. Not because of the rain, it's a near desert after all. No, it is because of the water sprinklers that they keep firing off to keep the homeless from being able to sleep in the shrubbery and on the grass next to the sidewalks. It took me years to learn to ignore the sprinklers because you dry off in seconds with the desert humidity. It's funny to read the daily paper about the water crisis while walking by millions of gallons a day running down the side of the city streets and into the sewer lines. Really smart folks, those city fathers.
They do put on some good music for us, though. I could not get to all the shows I wanted to because there was so much happening. After the first full day my feet were killing me from walking and standing around. It is apparently illegal to have a chair in your display booth. Must be! We are required to stand up and smile and look other tired folks right in the eye until we drop. So there I was, at the free outdoor concert in the town square, listening to Richard Thompson sing about a truly evil bastard who rides a rather old Vincent motorcycle hitting on a poor but luscious Irish girl named Molly. Thompson's voice sounds like he is singing about the Edmund Fitzgerald with a British accent, but he rips you apart inside and everytime the "thoroughly dangerous man" gets his insides blown out by the shotgun of a man he is about to rob, I cry for him. The only good news is that Molly gets his bike. Since it is a free concert, I am standing next to a six foot five guy smoking like an incinerator, and wearing a "cat in the hat" hat which made him half a foot taller than Keith Van Horn the Utah Jazz basketball player who I had just walked by inside the Marriot. He was wearing a tuxedo and going to a fundraiser for cancer, where they will raise money by auctioning off giutars signed by great humanitarians such as Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, and Willie Nelson. Less than 1000 feet away I was standing next to a goofy guy wearing a Dr. Seus hat and scaring children by merely leaning over and boming a "Hello, young man!" at them with a big goofy tobacco stained grin. If this guy wasn't homeless, he missed a good chance. He kept taking a huge drag on his cigarette and leaning almost down to the ground to get in my face and tell me how he knows all the great musicians I've never heard of, exhaling in the process. The saving grace was that he, at least, had had some sort of bath recently, though my airways had closed up to the point that I couldn't have told by that time.
Richard Thompson was playing the hell out of a guitar with his hands and ripping our hearts out with his voice while all this was going on. Jerry Douglas, maybe the best Dobro player period, was next. He had three of the best musicians you could want to hear playing with him but without Allison Kraus singing, It just couldn't find anything left in my soul to grab but I watched and listened and promised my feet I would do nice things for them, maybe next week, but for now, they would just have to suffer because I'm listening to all the music I can and that's that!
Two blocks from the Mormon Temple is what used to be the Dead Goat Saloon. It was a funky music bar where Canoe Magazine has traditionally thrown a party for their advertisers, with free beer, live music such as the immortal "Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs". Canoe had the venue booked again this year but three months before our show, the owner decided he could make more money running a strip bar and changed the name to the Wild Goat Saloon and brought in the girls who were serving the beer and telling us to come back tomorrow night when they would not be wearing all these skin tight barely covering anything at all clothes. It was an interesting night, starting with the fact that they would not let my seventeen year old son past the front desk. While I was checking with my buddy who was the Editor of Canoe to see if he could work anything out, Joseph was chatting up the girl out front, or vice versa in his version.
"Where's your fake ID?" she asked him. "This is Salt Lake City! You have to have a fake ID to have any fun in this town! Don't you know how to use the Internet?"
Joseph asked her, "What happens if I come back in an hour with an ID? You already know me."
"You'll get in." She beamed a 500 watt smile at him and he beamed a 1000 watt smile right back at her.
"Forget it!" said the dad. The son and the girl both smiled at each other as I dragged him away to seek food. "Think about it!" I told him, "At seventeen, you have now been thrown out of more bars than your father in his entire life." We got thrown out of two more bars that we thought were restaurants before the supper was secured. We finally got served in the sleaziest place we went to. How it managed to be a restaurant and not a bar was beyond us. The City Fathers know best, however. Who are we to question? The barbeque was decent.
The next night I was back in the Goat, but upstairs in the "restaurant" part for the American Whitewater gathering. AW is a non profit that saves rivers and does a damn fine job of it. They have good and dedicated people trying their best to do good for the world with not enough money. They had managed to rent a room and get us some food. After that it gets weird. Downstairs is the Crazy Goat "Gentleman's club" which is bullshit for strip bar. Upstairs, we were in a nice old wooden floored room with a wet bar and a "restored factory" decor, except for the incongruous glass chandelier hanging overhead indicting it's new incarnation. I can hear the deep voice of the announcer:
"Imagine if you will, the dedicated and serious people, gathered together in a small room for purposes of saving the world. As speeches are being made and the participants think of higher things, Girls walk out of the side room that now serves them as a place to change into their dance outfits...which is to say no outfits whatsoever. As they step out of the dressing room, "dressing" is conversely the wrong name for this room, They walk hurriedly across the floor, exactly between those speaking and those listening, through the only open space there is in the room. One of them has a Teddy bear and has trouble closing her robe and hanging on to the little bear at the same time, as she reveals what is to be revealed on her way to the stairway that leads to the underworld below where there will be a small platform in the middle of another slightly larger room. The dedicated and serious people up above are trying not to notice the girls who are headed down below. They are trying not to think about the teddy bear. There is no restroom up here. It is down below and you have to walk across the room which has the small platform to get there. Some of the men in the upstairs room containing high minded and dedicated people have now realized that they have to pee really bad.
"Welcome to the Twilight Zone!"
I left to go hear Richard Thompson before I myself needed to go downstairs. I am still wondering about the bear, but I shall never know, unless those who know who they are but shall remain nameless in this essay, tell me.
Peace,
Steve
What have you folks done to good old muggy Tennessee while I've been in Utah? I get back and find the best August weather in years: sunny, coolish, and humidity well below the normal 90%. I can take this!
I was at the Outdoor Retailer show lusting over things I disdain in my conscience...consumer goods. I am not a good shopper. I walk into a store, get what I came for, and leave. Women, my long suffering wife chief amongst them, think I am the worst of males for not looking at 59 different shirts in four different stores before going back and buying the second one I picked up. The only time I really understand what shopping is about is in a bookstore. Then I understand what it means to make choices. Do I keep the book on cabin architecture and put back the collection of Edgar Allen Poe novellas, or break the budget and take them both home? Ah, the rush!
The outdoor show takes up most of Salt Lake City. The merchants and purveyors of life's necessities feed upon us like leeches, sucking our blood from every tiny capillary near enough to the surface of our skin for their mouth parts to eviscerate. The combination of fundamental Mormonism and capitalist blood lust is a frightening concurrence, so evil in nature that I decided to take my 17 year old son with me. Hey, a boy's gotta have some fun in life, eh?
The LDS church fathers want our money so badly that they roil in hypocrisy, soiling the waters in the streets surrounding their holiest of temples with booze, strip joints, and the most polite of drunken panhandlers in every nook and cranny of downtown Salt Lake.
The city fathers have resorted to all sorts of ploys to reduce the numbers of homeless at our convention. Over in the next state, Las Vegas officials cried "Foul" when it was discovered that the LDS members who dominate local and state government had overwhelmingly supported a secret plan that gave the homeless some cash in their pocket and a bus ticket to Las Vegas. Hey, sin city. here they come!
Of all the places in America that you are most likely to get wet while walking around the city, SLC is foremost. Not because of the rain, it's a near desert after all. No, it is because of the water sprinklers that they keep firing off to keep the homeless from being able to sleep in the shrubbery and on the grass next to the sidewalks. It took me years to learn to ignore the sprinklers because you dry off in seconds with the desert humidity. It's funny to read the daily paper about the water crisis while walking by millions of gallons a day running down the side of the city streets and into the sewer lines. Really smart folks, those city fathers.
They do put on some good music for us, though. I could not get to all the shows I wanted to because there was so much happening. After the first full day my feet were killing me from walking and standing around. It is apparently illegal to have a chair in your display booth. Must be! We are required to stand up and smile and look other tired folks right in the eye until we drop. So there I was, at the free outdoor concert in the town square, listening to Richard Thompson sing about a truly evil bastard who rides a rather old Vincent motorcycle hitting on a poor but luscious Irish girl named Molly. Thompson's voice sounds like he is singing about the Edmund Fitzgerald with a British accent, but he rips you apart inside and everytime the "thoroughly dangerous man" gets his insides blown out by the shotgun of a man he is about to rob, I cry for him. The only good news is that Molly gets his bike. Since it is a free concert, I am standing next to a six foot five guy smoking like an incinerator, and wearing a "cat in the hat" hat which made him half a foot taller than Keith Van Horn the Utah Jazz basketball player who I had just walked by inside the Marriot. He was wearing a tuxedo and going to a fundraiser for cancer, where they will raise money by auctioning off giutars signed by great humanitarians such as Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper, and Willie Nelson. Less than 1000 feet away I was standing next to a goofy guy wearing a Dr. Seus hat and scaring children by merely leaning over and boming a "Hello, young man!" at them with a big goofy tobacco stained grin. If this guy wasn't homeless, he missed a good chance. He kept taking a huge drag on his cigarette and leaning almost down to the ground to get in my face and tell me how he knows all the great musicians I've never heard of, exhaling in the process. The saving grace was that he, at least, had had some sort of bath recently, though my airways had closed up to the point that I couldn't have told by that time.
Richard Thompson was playing the hell out of a guitar with his hands and ripping our hearts out with his voice while all this was going on. Jerry Douglas, maybe the best Dobro player period, was next. He had three of the best musicians you could want to hear playing with him but without Allison Kraus singing, It just couldn't find anything left in my soul to grab but I watched and listened and promised my feet I would do nice things for them, maybe next week, but for now, they would just have to suffer because I'm listening to all the music I can and that's that!
Two blocks from the Mormon Temple is what used to be the Dead Goat Saloon. It was a funky music bar where Canoe Magazine has traditionally thrown a party for their advertisers, with free beer, live music such as the immortal "Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs". Canoe had the venue booked again this year but three months before our show, the owner decided he could make more money running a strip bar and changed the name to the Wild Goat Saloon and brought in the girls who were serving the beer and telling us to come back tomorrow night when they would not be wearing all these skin tight barely covering anything at all clothes. It was an interesting night, starting with the fact that they would not let my seventeen year old son past the front desk. While I was checking with my buddy who was the Editor of Canoe to see if he could work anything out, Joseph was chatting up the girl out front, or vice versa in his version.
"Where's your fake ID?" she asked him. "This is Salt Lake City! You have to have a fake ID to have any fun in this town! Don't you know how to use the Internet?"
Joseph asked her, "What happens if I come back in an hour with an ID? You already know me."
"You'll get in." She beamed a 500 watt smile at him and he beamed a 1000 watt smile right back at her.
"Forget it!" said the dad. The son and the girl both smiled at each other as I dragged him away to seek food. "Think about it!" I told him, "At seventeen, you have now been thrown out of more bars than your father in his entire life." We got thrown out of two more bars that we thought were restaurants before the supper was secured. We finally got served in the sleaziest place we went to. How it managed to be a restaurant and not a bar was beyond us. The City Fathers know best, however. Who are we to question? The barbeque was decent.
The next night I was back in the Goat, but upstairs in the "restaurant" part for the American Whitewater gathering. AW is a non profit that saves rivers and does a damn fine job of it. They have good and dedicated people trying their best to do good for the world with not enough money. They had managed to rent a room and get us some food. After that it gets weird. Downstairs is the Crazy Goat "Gentleman's club" which is bullshit for strip bar. Upstairs, we were in a nice old wooden floored room with a wet bar and a "restored factory" decor, except for the incongruous glass chandelier hanging overhead indicting it's new incarnation. I can hear the deep voice of the announcer:
"Imagine if you will, the dedicated and serious people, gathered together in a small room for purposes of saving the world. As speeches are being made and the participants think of higher things, Girls walk out of the side room that now serves them as a place to change into their dance outfits...which is to say no outfits whatsoever. As they step out of the dressing room, "dressing" is conversely the wrong name for this room, They walk hurriedly across the floor, exactly between those speaking and those listening, through the only open space there is in the room. One of them has a Teddy bear and has trouble closing her robe and hanging on to the little bear at the same time, as she reveals what is to be revealed on her way to the stairway that leads to the underworld below where there will be a small platform in the middle of another slightly larger room. The dedicated and serious people up above are trying not to notice the girls who are headed down below. They are trying not to think about the teddy bear. There is no restroom up here. It is down below and you have to walk across the room which has the small platform to get there. Some of the men in the upstairs room containing high minded and dedicated people have now realized that they have to pee really bad.
"Welcome to the Twilight Zone!"
I left to go hear Richard Thompson before I myself needed to go downstairs. I am still wondering about the bear, but I shall never know, unless those who know who they are but shall remain nameless in this essay, tell me.
Peace,
Steve
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
A Prize at Water's edge
Just talked to the Sheriff.
Very interesting.
Some of you folks will know that we have several mysteries hanging in the air waiting for some kind of resolution. Did they harvest the "garden" that my son found while turkey hunting last May? What ever happened to the girl whose purse we found? There was no workable scenario that we could come up with that explained all the details of that one. If you don't remember all the juice, you can go to www.whitescreek.blogspot.com archives and check for a refresher on the details. Here's the short version.
The girl is fine.
She was hanging out with friends, I read that to mean camping out and partying for the weekend, when they got a lot of rain and the creek rose, washing away her purse and its contents. Must have been partying really really hard for that to happen. I can only imagine....
We found it on the creek bank, looking like it had spent some time in the water and mud. but the contents had been emptied out on the bank. There were sunscreen, sunglasses, money, a cell phone, and a small pipe and a film canister of a suspicious oregano like vegetable substance, and her driver's license. A beach towel was lying beside the purse and we found her car keys sticking out of the sand under water in the edge of the creek. What is unsolved is how the contents got scattered out on the bank but the money and pot was not taken, which would most suredly be the case is a person had found it. One other thing we found up in the woods away from the purse when Officer David and I searched the woods originally...candy wrappers and an empty chip bag. We didn't pick up on what that meant at the time. I had all sorts of scenarios where the purse was stolen and the perp was interrupted before they could make off with the money, being scared by someone else going down to the creek to swim or whatever.
Just so you'll know, raccoons are genetically endowed with the knowledge of how coolers open, as well as zippers, and that candy bars and other goodies live inside purses.
A prize at water's edge for the lucky beast.
Officer David says that, other than a talking to, nothing will come of the pot. They have to catch the perpetrator with it in possession...could have been placed there by a felonious raccoon, after all, in a clever attempt to frame this innocent young girl.
Then we have the real reason the Sheriff called...They have made a new home for one of my neighbors from up on the Mountain. Bill, as we'll call him, looks to be the next horticulturalist at one of our fine institutions of correction here in Tennessee. He is very very good at growing things, according to the Sheriff. If you remember the "garden" my youngest son found, it was quite orderly and looked to be the work of a very concientious gardener. Turns out, Bill had several gardens. Not only that but he had them well documented in his books that he kept at home. They found Bill's home by following the well worn path from our original garden back through the woods, connecting several other gardens to Bill's nice little cabin.
At last count the authorities had harvested well over 2500 of Bill's well cared for high quality Marijuana plants. As with any good horticulturalist, Bill kept good records, with every garden having a name, of the variety of its plants, their watering and feeding schedule, growth measurements and history. I am impressed!
Doesn't it make you wonder that, if Bill could be that diligent and hard working, why couldn't he just work a regular job? With his work ethic he surely would have risen to the top. As it is, I predict he'll be promoted to trustee in no time at all.
You go, Bill!
Peace,
Steve
ps: There's actually more to this story but you'll have to wait. I can't tell you all I know just yet. We'll see.
Just talked to the Sheriff.
Very interesting.
Some of you folks will know that we have several mysteries hanging in the air waiting for some kind of resolution. Did they harvest the "garden" that my son found while turkey hunting last May? What ever happened to the girl whose purse we found? There was no workable scenario that we could come up with that explained all the details of that one. If you don't remember all the juice, you can go to www.whitescreek.blogspot.com archives and check for a refresher on the details. Here's the short version.
The girl is fine.
She was hanging out with friends, I read that to mean camping out and partying for the weekend, when they got a lot of rain and the creek rose, washing away her purse and its contents. Must have been partying really really hard for that to happen. I can only imagine....
We found it on the creek bank, looking like it had spent some time in the water and mud. but the contents had been emptied out on the bank. There were sunscreen, sunglasses, money, a cell phone, and a small pipe and a film canister of a suspicious oregano like vegetable substance, and her driver's license. A beach towel was lying beside the purse and we found her car keys sticking out of the sand under water in the edge of the creek. What is unsolved is how the contents got scattered out on the bank but the money and pot was not taken, which would most suredly be the case is a person had found it. One other thing we found up in the woods away from the purse when Officer David and I searched the woods originally...candy wrappers and an empty chip bag. We didn't pick up on what that meant at the time. I had all sorts of scenarios where the purse was stolen and the perp was interrupted before they could make off with the money, being scared by someone else going down to the creek to swim or whatever.
Just so you'll know, raccoons are genetically endowed with the knowledge of how coolers open, as well as zippers, and that candy bars and other goodies live inside purses.
A prize at water's edge for the lucky beast.
Officer David says that, other than a talking to, nothing will come of the pot. They have to catch the perpetrator with it in possession...could have been placed there by a felonious raccoon, after all, in a clever attempt to frame this innocent young girl.
Then we have the real reason the Sheriff called...They have made a new home for one of my neighbors from up on the Mountain. Bill, as we'll call him, looks to be the next horticulturalist at one of our fine institutions of correction here in Tennessee. He is very very good at growing things, according to the Sheriff. If you remember the "garden" my youngest son found, it was quite orderly and looked to be the work of a very concientious gardener. Turns out, Bill had several gardens. Not only that but he had them well documented in his books that he kept at home. They found Bill's home by following the well worn path from our original garden back through the woods, connecting several other gardens to Bill's nice little cabin.
At last count the authorities had harvested well over 2500 of Bill's well cared for high quality Marijuana plants. As with any good horticulturalist, Bill kept good records, with every garden having a name, of the variety of its plants, their watering and feeding schedule, growth measurements and history. I am impressed!
Doesn't it make you wonder that, if Bill could be that diligent and hard working, why couldn't he just work a regular job? With his work ethic he surely would have risen to the top. As it is, I predict he'll be promoted to trustee in no time at all.
You go, Bill!
Peace,
Steve
ps: There's actually more to this story but you'll have to wait. I can't tell you all I know just yet. We'll see.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
Oh my gosh, I'm home! Muggy, rainy, beloved, home. Actually it isn't bad here. We had the windows and balcony doors open all night in the bedroom and no air conditioner on. It's a lovely 68 degrees out and I had to drink my first cup of my prime addiction outside. The frogs are still going off after the storm last night. It's the end of July already. Even the Katydids are wearing out. What's up with the frogs trying to carry on like that? You would think they were involved in some kind of midlife crisis for amphibians. I wonder what a trophy toad looks like. Lumps and bumps in all the right places?
I have to make myself get busy sometimes, otherwise I'll just stare out over the gorge and be happy. That's wrong, isn't it? I should be worrying about something or repenting for some nefarious deed that I only thought about doing.
This summer, in spite of the high gas prices (which are actually stupidly low to any world traveler), I have burned a fair amount of fossil fuel visiting family, friends, and the like, and I'm not done yet. I have a couple of visitations yet to perform and a college or two to tour for my eldest who graduates in 10 months. Dang!
The money I put away for college has followed the stock market and the cost of college has followed the cost of prescription drugs for old people of which I am fast becoming one. Having a child or two headed for college hastens the process, it appears. It has been a test for me, but I find my manly man self turning into my mother, in the "What are you going to pursue as a career for the rest of your life?" mode. This, we ask of teenagers, while refusing to consciously admit that we ourselves still have no clue as to what we want to do when we grow up. Too often the things that make us money are no fun...or against the law. Still some decision of some sort or another has to be made, and some concession to preparing for life after Dad has to be made.
When I think about what I learned in college that prepared me for my career, I get more confused. The facts and skills base that I picked up at the various institutions of learning I attended was obsolete within a few minutes of my entering the business world. I think you go to college to learn how stupid you are, which you don't actually learn until you leave college and try to talk someone out of a paycheck.
I have this strong personal idea that my children should, at some point in their school life, encounter a rigorous and demanding academic program just like I did. The problem with my experience with this four year period of unreachable goals was that it occurred during my third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. I learned to think critically and question everything. Got me in a lot of trouble throughout my life but, by golly, I can see the trees for the forest, though sometimes only in the retrospection of a mistake made.
I think we have a reasonable school system here in my home county, with all the problems of the world in microcosm but with enough teachers who actually give a flip to make it worthwhile. My own were Miss Walton, Ms Rattery, Mr. Wilkes, I thank you. What a snot I was (still am! ;>) Thanks for letting me to live, though I know the alternative must have crossed your mind at times. Now I hope that my kids can encounter the two or three teachers in higher education that will make a difference for them. Oscar Stembridge, you were the best of all time. Who would have thought an English teacher would be the best for a tech weenie like me? I still don't understand sentence construction but I read a lot.
And David Summers! Head of the Electrical Engineering department at Southern Tech...Still my friend after thirty years. I owe you.
These are the people I want my kids to meet. These are the people who will place seemingly impossible demands on young students who will learn more in failure than success. These are the people that will praise the good effort and show these kids that they are capable of excellence, but that it does not come cheaply. These are the people who suffer the ridiculous system they have work within and still they teach our children.
All I have to do now is find them and ship off my boys to sit at their feet. The search is on for the right ones for my kids, but you know what? These people are everywhere! There aren't enough of them, but every learning institution has them, even the community college down the street. A good education is everywhere you look if you want it. The problem with the world is that so is ignorance!
Peace,
Steve
(Are these actually jokes? )
“President Bush said he also played a lot of sports as a child, but somehow the records were either lost or destroyed.” Jay Leno
"The Bush administration announced they want to lift the ban on logging as part of their No Tree Left Behind program." Jay Leno
I have to make myself get busy sometimes, otherwise I'll just stare out over the gorge and be happy. That's wrong, isn't it? I should be worrying about something or repenting for some nefarious deed that I only thought about doing.
This summer, in spite of the high gas prices (which are actually stupidly low to any world traveler), I have burned a fair amount of fossil fuel visiting family, friends, and the like, and I'm not done yet. I have a couple of visitations yet to perform and a college or two to tour for my eldest who graduates in 10 months. Dang!
The money I put away for college has followed the stock market and the cost of college has followed the cost of prescription drugs for old people of which I am fast becoming one. Having a child or two headed for college hastens the process, it appears. It has been a test for me, but I find my manly man self turning into my mother, in the "What are you going to pursue as a career for the rest of your life?" mode. This, we ask of teenagers, while refusing to consciously admit that we ourselves still have no clue as to what we want to do when we grow up. Too often the things that make us money are no fun...or against the law. Still some decision of some sort or another has to be made, and some concession to preparing for life after Dad has to be made.
When I think about what I learned in college that prepared me for my career, I get more confused. The facts and skills base that I picked up at the various institutions of learning I attended was obsolete within a few minutes of my entering the business world. I think you go to college to learn how stupid you are, which you don't actually learn until you leave college and try to talk someone out of a paycheck.
I have this strong personal idea that my children should, at some point in their school life, encounter a rigorous and demanding academic program just like I did. The problem with my experience with this four year period of unreachable goals was that it occurred during my third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades. I learned to think critically and question everything. Got me in a lot of trouble throughout my life but, by golly, I can see the trees for the forest, though sometimes only in the retrospection of a mistake made.
I think we have a reasonable school system here in my home county, with all the problems of the world in microcosm but with enough teachers who actually give a flip to make it worthwhile. My own were Miss Walton, Ms Rattery, Mr. Wilkes, I thank you. What a snot I was (still am! ;>) Thanks for letting me to live, though I know the alternative must have crossed your mind at times. Now I hope that my kids can encounter the two or three teachers in higher education that will make a difference for them. Oscar Stembridge, you were the best of all time. Who would have thought an English teacher would be the best for a tech weenie like me? I still don't understand sentence construction but I read a lot.
And David Summers! Head of the Electrical Engineering department at Southern Tech...Still my friend after thirty years. I owe you.
These are the people I want my kids to meet. These are the people who will place seemingly impossible demands on young students who will learn more in failure than success. These are the people that will praise the good effort and show these kids that they are capable of excellence, but that it does not come cheaply. These are the people who suffer the ridiculous system they have work within and still they teach our children.
All I have to do now is find them and ship off my boys to sit at their feet. The search is on for the right ones for my kids, but you know what? These people are everywhere! There aren't enough of them, but every learning institution has them, even the community college down the street. A good education is everywhere you look if you want it. The problem with the world is that so is ignorance!
Peace,
Steve
(Are these actually jokes? )
“President Bush said he also played a lot of sports as a child, but somehow the records were either lost or destroyed.” Jay Leno
"The Bush administration announced they want to lift the ban on logging as part of their No Tree Left Behind program." Jay Leno
Oh good! I just checked the weather channel and the fog is really outside and not in my head as I feared. I tried to take a pic of the mist on the hillside but it doesn't do it justice. You'll have to imagine fog monsters crawling around in tendrils over the trees. The redtail hawks have decided to wait until later to go into the office, and are just sitting on convenient limbs being soggy. My head seems foggy and soggy and it is only the first night of the Democratic National Convention.
It will be over in 100 days, good or devastating.
I guess I'm probably the only person here that watched much of the DNC convention last night. Just so all of you will know, it was actually a lot better than the news coverage would have you believe. The woman on CNN was Don Rumsfeld's spokesperson before she became fair and balanced. You'll note the slur and innuendo in her commentary. Ann Coulter is covering for USA Today and had to be censored. Why any news organization would give her a forum is beyond me. They did have the decency to censor her remark that this was a convention of the "Spawn of Satan". I think they should have left it in so folks could see for themselves what she really is. Nothing makes me sadder about the state of my country than to see what passes for our news media now. Even so, it was fun to watch most of the commentators get caught up and say nice things about Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore.
James Earl Carter... looked right into America and told the plain truth about where we have been taken for the last three years. I wish I could make George W. Bush face him in his Sunday school class. You shouldn't lie to America! You shouldn't misslead us into a war to settle your own personal greivances and enrich your friends. You shouldn't play politics with the safety of our country. And folks, it is just plain evil to poison the world for profit. Go Jimmy! They loved him. Even the commentators, everyone I saw, were nice.
Al Gore... Everytime I see Al Gore I wish he had bigger balls. It was ultimately Gore's failure to realize the depth of the emptiness of the Neo-conservative conscience that let him step aside for the Bushistas. He gave a great speech. The crowd initially reacted by waving their Kerry-Edwards posters but before he was done they had put those down and were standing and cheering Al Gore, the man who was elected President but did not serve.
Bill Clinton owns any room he walks into. Hillary gave the speech that introduced him. She does a good job, but it was a token appearance in prelude to the man everyone really wants to hear. Everyone kept waiting for Hillary to kiss Bill but she never did. A good hug, yes, but she never gave in to our voyeurism.
I plan to find a transcript of Clinton's speech. he had to rush it a bit to get it all in and he only went one minute over his alloted time...a miracle for him. I remember sitting there thinking that this should be required reading for all voters. There was no political exaggeration but a clean dissection of the differences between John Kerry and what he will do as president and George Bush and what he has already done. It was clear, methodical, lively, and sincere...All reasons why Bill Clinton speaks at the beginning of the convention, as far from Kerry's time slot as possible. Now here's the thing: every person I have heard who has an ounce of objectivity has said that John Kerry is a decent, honest, and genuine person, completely contrary to the ad hominem attacks generated by Republican operatives. But!...No one claims Kerry is a great speaker. Having to follow John Edwards is bad enough but to have to follow Bill Clinton? No way.
Kerry is working his way around the country and will make his grand entrance toward the end of the convention. Let us hope that he is practicing his speech until he can just talk to us and laugh while he does it. If he reads his jokes, he will have a hard time. If he let's us somehow know that he's a friend of ours, he will dance into the Whitehouse.
*****
Here is a good view of the DNC from a formerly neutral observer:
God knows it's not perfect - not even close. I'm sure there was no shortage of vile hacks and corporate fat cats in the audience. And when it comes to actual policies, it's pretty clear the Democratic Party has about as much progressive backbone as a bowl of corn meal mush.
But compared to the sea of sour-looking honkies and fundamentalist zealots that have filled the seats (if not the stage) of every GOP convention I've ever watched, there's no question in my mind which side I'm on in this fight. It may not be my party, but those are my people, my America. I wish I could be there with them.
http://billmon.org/archives/001607.html
So here's the question: Can independant and swing voters remain in denial for the next 100 days or will they examine what the two candidates say and think about it? If there is any real examination Kerry wins!
Peace and Courage!
Steve
It will be over in 100 days, good or devastating.
I guess I'm probably the only person here that watched much of the DNC convention last night. Just so all of you will know, it was actually a lot better than the news coverage would have you believe. The woman on CNN was Don Rumsfeld's spokesperson before she became fair and balanced. You'll note the slur and innuendo in her commentary. Ann Coulter is covering for USA Today and had to be censored. Why any news organization would give her a forum is beyond me. They did have the decency to censor her remark that this was a convention of the "Spawn of Satan". I think they should have left it in so folks could see for themselves what she really is. Nothing makes me sadder about the state of my country than to see what passes for our news media now. Even so, it was fun to watch most of the commentators get caught up and say nice things about Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore.
James Earl Carter... looked right into America and told the plain truth about where we have been taken for the last three years. I wish I could make George W. Bush face him in his Sunday school class. You shouldn't lie to America! You shouldn't misslead us into a war to settle your own personal greivances and enrich your friends. You shouldn't play politics with the safety of our country. And folks, it is just plain evil to poison the world for profit. Go Jimmy! They loved him. Even the commentators, everyone I saw, were nice.
Al Gore... Everytime I see Al Gore I wish he had bigger balls. It was ultimately Gore's failure to realize the depth of the emptiness of the Neo-conservative conscience that let him step aside for the Bushistas. He gave a great speech. The crowd initially reacted by waving their Kerry-Edwards posters but before he was done they had put those down and were standing and cheering Al Gore, the man who was elected President but did not serve.
Bill Clinton owns any room he walks into. Hillary gave the speech that introduced him. She does a good job, but it was a token appearance in prelude to the man everyone really wants to hear. Everyone kept waiting for Hillary to kiss Bill but she never did. A good hug, yes, but she never gave in to our voyeurism.
I plan to find a transcript of Clinton's speech. he had to rush it a bit to get it all in and he only went one minute over his alloted time...a miracle for him. I remember sitting there thinking that this should be required reading for all voters. There was no political exaggeration but a clean dissection of the differences between John Kerry and what he will do as president and George Bush and what he has already done. It was clear, methodical, lively, and sincere...All reasons why Bill Clinton speaks at the beginning of the convention, as far from Kerry's time slot as possible. Now here's the thing: every person I have heard who has an ounce of objectivity has said that John Kerry is a decent, honest, and genuine person, completely contrary to the ad hominem attacks generated by Republican operatives. But!...No one claims Kerry is a great speaker. Having to follow John Edwards is bad enough but to have to follow Bill Clinton? No way.
Kerry is working his way around the country and will make his grand entrance toward the end of the convention. Let us hope that he is practicing his speech until he can just talk to us and laugh while he does it. If he reads his jokes, he will have a hard time. If he let's us somehow know that he's a friend of ours, he will dance into the Whitehouse.
*****
Here is a good view of the DNC from a formerly neutral observer:
God knows it's not perfect - not even close. I'm sure there was no shortage of vile hacks and corporate fat cats in the audience. And when it comes to actual policies, it's pretty clear the Democratic Party has about as much progressive backbone as a bowl of corn meal mush.
But compared to the sea of sour-looking honkies and fundamentalist zealots that have filled the seats (if not the stage) of every GOP convention I've ever watched, there's no question in my mind which side I'm on in this fight. It may not be my party, but those are my people, my America. I wish I could be there with them.
http://billmon.org/archives/001607.html
So here's the question: Can independant and swing voters remain in denial for the next 100 days or will they examine what the two candidates say and think about it? If there is any real examination Kerry wins!
Peace and Courage!
Steve
Sunday, June 27, 2004
Chuck will in the morning.
At least he will this morning, anyway. Before dawn this loud mouthed bird went off. It flew around the house and set up outside each open window and shouted in through the screens. Over and over and over. We called them whippoorwills growing up but that's a different bird. Whippoorwills go north for the summer and pass through here only during the nicest weather in the early spring. Chuck wills hang out all summer trying to get us to stay awake all night and sleep all day by harrassing us with the loudest most incessant "song" of the night in the animal kingdom. Even the owls and coyotes have the decency to shut up after a bit. I once lived in a very old farm house in South Carolina that was perched on a hill in the middle of several pastures. It had somehow become a sort of singles bar for chuck wills. I did love to hear them at first, but after a while it got to where I really really needed some sleep. I stared out the windows of that old house several times as a male went through his strut and grind mating song to impress a girl. I have not seen the mating noise mentioned in the bird books but I have it ground in to my memory. It sounds like a combination of the noises on a futuristic video pin ball game except for having no bells. The "boings" and "buzzes" are all there. Weird to hear for the first time, particularly in the middle of the night. I would give another night's sleep to experience it again but not every night's sleep like I had to do the last time. I was getting a bit nutty from deprevation before the mating was accomplished and the birds had to shut up and raise their kids which is about now in the scheme of things.
Why this morning's chuck will's widow got noisy, I don't know, but he pulled me from a serious dream sequence, none the less. I actually wanted to hear the bird better when it first started and had to overcome the shut mechanism in my eyes to force myself more awake. I remember my dreams much more clearly at such times but this one has the quality of a phone conversation that is breaking up with some clear moments and some static. My head was working on something and the dream was only metaphor. Women were talking. I don't know what they were saying but they weren't exactly happy. I've lived a lot of my life around unhappy women so it was nothing new. A long time ago I decided that the only time my Grandmother was happy was when she was miserable. My mom was a bit like that too. I think it is a Scotch-Irish thing.
I've noticed this again in the Irish somewhat recently. They are having a rather happy time giving the President of the United States hell right now. Even though both the president and the Irish were mad, only the Irish were happy. He is over there staying in Castles and trying to convince the Europeans that he is not a moron. It's not working.
The Bush team agreed to a television interview and demanded that all the questions that were going to be asked be provided at least three days in advance. They were, and the President's team had three days to get him primed up with the answers. It now turns out that the biggest balls in journalism are hanging on a woman named Carol Coleman. She had the temerity to demand that George Bush actually answer a question he had had three days to work on. He got mad and testy and never did answer the questions. Then the Bush team cancelled a planned interview with Laura Bush. Too bad the interview didn't come out until after Michael Moore's film opened.
That's it!!! That's what my dream was about! Unhappy women asking questions and not getting answers. In an early sequence in Moore's documentary we are on the House of Representatives floor when Al Gore has the ironic duty to certify his own stolen election. There are several Florida Congresswomen who are contesting the Florida vote. They have evidence, since verified by every single investigator that looked into it, that the voters in their districts were cheated out of their votes. They were making an absolutely constitutionally legal challenge to the election results that installed George W. Bush in the Presidency, except for one thing...In order to have legal validity, the challenge had to have the signature of a Senator of the United States. Just one! Not one single Senator would come forward and sign his name. There is one Senator I question more than any other at this point and that is Bob Graham, D-Fla. Former candidate for President. By all accounts, Bob Graham is an honorable man, particularly for a Senator. What the hell were you thinking, Bob?
I like the animals better than I like people some times. When a bird wakes me up in the night, it is nothing personal. A bird gotta do what a bird gotta do. People have no excuses. When a bird clips on to the stem of a plant sticking out of the ground and tells the whole world that he's a chuck will's widow, over and over and over again, it is just because a feeling came over him that said he had to. Sorry, gotta sing! Too bad it's 4:30 am. I forgive the bird. When a Senator, ok, 100 Senators, fail to do the right thing called for by the Constitution, I get mad and I remember it. John Kerry, you messed up too! Now you have to make it right.
Another thought hits me...If you or I had won something and found out that it was wrong, what would we do? There is no question that Al Gore won the most votes in Florida. Even with Kathryn Harris violating the Constitutional rights to vote of roughly 40,000 Floridians who should have had their vote counted, Gore won the recount when they counted the whole state. Bush lost, fair and square. Do you think that the man who "Promised to restore Integrity and Morality to the Whitehouse" should resign? Would that be the moral thing to do? Where is Integrity in staying on?
I sticking with the Bird on this one! Never did get back to sleep.
Here are some sites where you can click on a link and listen to the call of the chuck-will and the whip-poor-will to hear the difference in their songs.
Chuck will's Widow:
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4160id.html
Whippoorwill:
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4170id.html
Peace,
Steve
The guy just keeps on changing positions on things:
Flip flops and waffles:
"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
George W. Bush
Sept. 13, 2001
"I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
George W. Bush
March 13, 2003
At least he will this morning, anyway. Before dawn this loud mouthed bird went off. It flew around the house and set up outside each open window and shouted in through the screens. Over and over and over. We called them whippoorwills growing up but that's a different bird. Whippoorwills go north for the summer and pass through here only during the nicest weather in the early spring. Chuck wills hang out all summer trying to get us to stay awake all night and sleep all day by harrassing us with the loudest most incessant "song" of the night in the animal kingdom. Even the owls and coyotes have the decency to shut up after a bit. I once lived in a very old farm house in South Carolina that was perched on a hill in the middle of several pastures. It had somehow become a sort of singles bar for chuck wills. I did love to hear them at first, but after a while it got to where I really really needed some sleep. I stared out the windows of that old house several times as a male went through his strut and grind mating song to impress a girl. I have not seen the mating noise mentioned in the bird books but I have it ground in to my memory. It sounds like a combination of the noises on a futuristic video pin ball game except for having no bells. The "boings" and "buzzes" are all there. Weird to hear for the first time, particularly in the middle of the night. I would give another night's sleep to experience it again but not every night's sleep like I had to do the last time. I was getting a bit nutty from deprevation before the mating was accomplished and the birds had to shut up and raise their kids which is about now in the scheme of things.
Why this morning's chuck will's widow got noisy, I don't know, but he pulled me from a serious dream sequence, none the less. I actually wanted to hear the bird better when it first started and had to overcome the shut mechanism in my eyes to force myself more awake. I remember my dreams much more clearly at such times but this one has the quality of a phone conversation that is breaking up with some clear moments and some static. My head was working on something and the dream was only metaphor. Women were talking. I don't know what they were saying but they weren't exactly happy. I've lived a lot of my life around unhappy women so it was nothing new. A long time ago I decided that the only time my Grandmother was happy was when she was miserable. My mom was a bit like that too. I think it is a Scotch-Irish thing.
I've noticed this again in the Irish somewhat recently. They are having a rather happy time giving the President of the United States hell right now. Even though both the president and the Irish were mad, only the Irish were happy. He is over there staying in Castles and trying to convince the Europeans that he is not a moron. It's not working.
The Bush team agreed to a television interview and demanded that all the questions that were going to be asked be provided at least three days in advance. They were, and the President's team had three days to get him primed up with the answers. It now turns out that the biggest balls in journalism are hanging on a woman named Carol Coleman. She had the temerity to demand that George Bush actually answer a question he had had three days to work on. He got mad and testy and never did answer the questions. Then the Bush team cancelled a planned interview with Laura Bush. Too bad the interview didn't come out until after Michael Moore's film opened.
That's it!!! That's what my dream was about! Unhappy women asking questions and not getting answers. In an early sequence in Moore's documentary we are on the House of Representatives floor when Al Gore has the ironic duty to certify his own stolen election. There are several Florida Congresswomen who are contesting the Florida vote. They have evidence, since verified by every single investigator that looked into it, that the voters in their districts were cheated out of their votes. They were making an absolutely constitutionally legal challenge to the election results that installed George W. Bush in the Presidency, except for one thing...In order to have legal validity, the challenge had to have the signature of a Senator of the United States. Just one! Not one single Senator would come forward and sign his name. There is one Senator I question more than any other at this point and that is Bob Graham, D-Fla. Former candidate for President. By all accounts, Bob Graham is an honorable man, particularly for a Senator. What the hell were you thinking, Bob?
I like the animals better than I like people some times. When a bird wakes me up in the night, it is nothing personal. A bird gotta do what a bird gotta do. People have no excuses. When a bird clips on to the stem of a plant sticking out of the ground and tells the whole world that he's a chuck will's widow, over and over and over again, it is just because a feeling came over him that said he had to. Sorry, gotta sing! Too bad it's 4:30 am. I forgive the bird. When a Senator, ok, 100 Senators, fail to do the right thing called for by the Constitution, I get mad and I remember it. John Kerry, you messed up too! Now you have to make it right.
Another thought hits me...If you or I had won something and found out that it was wrong, what would we do? There is no question that Al Gore won the most votes in Florida. Even with Kathryn Harris violating the Constitutional rights to vote of roughly 40,000 Floridians who should have had their vote counted, Gore won the recount when they counted the whole state. Bush lost, fair and square. Do you think that the man who "Promised to restore Integrity and Morality to the Whitehouse" should resign? Would that be the moral thing to do? Where is Integrity in staying on?
I sticking with the Bird on this one! Never did get back to sleep.
Here are some sites where you can click on a link and listen to the call of the chuck-will and the whip-poor-will to hear the difference in their songs.
Chuck will's Widow:
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4160id.html
Whippoorwill:
http://www.mbr-pwrc.usgs.gov/id/framlst/i4170id.html
Peace,
Steve
The guy just keeps on changing positions on things:
Flip flops and waffles:
"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
George W. Bush
Sept. 13, 2001
"I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
George W. Bush
March 13, 2003
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Friday, June 25, 2004
Rained all day, stormed and messed up our plans to get outside so we decide to hit the movie. You know..."The" movie.
Wow! I took the family to see Farhenheit 9-11 last night. Waiting to get in, I looked at the faces of the people coming out, trying, as I usually do, to figure out what effect the movie had on them. I'm not sure what I expected but probably something like a "rah rah go team" mood. That's not what showed on the faces of the most diverse group of folks I have ever seen at one place in Tennessee. Some were talking and laughing loudly and some were drying tears. Some were just crying.
We had ordered our tickets on line and had one extra for the 5:10 pm show, thinking that one might be the easiest to get in on opening day. Standing in line we realized we were lucky. Everyone was talking with everyone else. The guy in front of us was in line to get tickets for the next day's show since they were sold out for all shows on Friday. When my wife told him she had gotten tickets over the Internet, he put this Duh look on his face and stepped out of line. A young woman was in front of us holding cash in her hand and I asked if she had her ticket. She said no but she really, really wanted to see this movie but was afraid she wouldn't get to. I sold her our extra ticket but she had to go through with us like a family member since we had a block of tickets printed out that wouldn't separate. We looked just like a nice family as the guy took our tickets except that Thomas's older sister was black.
I looked at a Middle Eastern looking group of women going in. They were smiling and friendly with traditional printed cloth covering their heads. Not one single man had on a suit or a red tie. There were lots of blue shirts in the crowd. That was the secret badge of the Moveon.org members.
The only seats we could get together were down front, dead center, three rows back. The previews were way too loud and I had curious, not entirely comfortable, emotions as I sat with my 15 year old son, through a trailer for a movie about a guy making ends meet by impregnating lesbians. Rated PG 13, the movie was, but the preview was "approved for all audiences". Good grief!
I expected much of the movie. I pay attention to what happens in my world. I knew all about the Saudi Bin Laden connections to the Bush family. I was not prepared for the emotional impact of connecting the dots with nothing more than news footage. I now think back at the Fox news talking heads trying to counter the effectiveness of Michael Moore's film by questioning his "facts". They're going to have a hard time with that because much of what he does is just show news file tape of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and the others contradicting themselves. What do you do when you call your own self a liar? How do you spin that?
There were things I didn't want to see. I cried several times and I hate very few things more than crying in movies. But every tear was ripped apart by laughter. I laughed hard and loud, time after time, except when I was crying. Moore let me off the hook at the end. The last emotional gut wrench was mitigated by the last guffaw. It was a clip of a speech George W. Bush gave in Tennessee. He did it to himself with no help from Michael Moore.
Then it was over. Two hours flew by. I am usually ahead of a film. I am rarely surprised and get impatient for them to be over. When one does surprise me after sending my insides reeling on a roller coaster ride, I am grateful. For Moore to have surprised me with things I already knew is nothing short of amazing. The juxtaposition of facts and events leads us to the inescapable conclusion. Unlike a Presidential campaign ad there is no fiction or wishful thinking presented in 9-11 to make the case. It is a documentary put together with not much more than news clips, network file footage, and interviews. This is the most entertained you will have ever been while being forced to think.
But be warned...It took nearly an hour and two glasses of wine for my insides to settle down enough for supper. I do not recommend that you go see Farhenheit 9-11... I order you to go... and take a Republican! Offer to pay their way.
As we all walked out of the movie, I tried to wipe my eyes casually and then look around. Everyone I looked at was either laughing or crying or trying not to. I saw the women with the covered heads and they were openly weeping. I understand.
America...What have we done?
Can we fix it? We have to!
Peace,
Steve
Rained all day, stormed and messed up our plans to get outside so we decide to hit the movie. You know..."The" movie.
Wow! I took the family to see Farhenheit 9-11 last night. Waiting to get in, I looked at the faces of the people coming out, trying, as I usually do, to figure out what effect the movie had on them. I'm not sure what I expected but probably something like a "rah rah go team" mood. That's not what showed on the faces of the most diverse group of folks I have ever seen at one place in Tennessee. Some were talking and laughing loudly and some were drying tears. Some were just crying.
We had ordered our tickets on line and had one extra for the 5:10 pm show, thinking that one might be the easiest to get in on opening day. Standing in line we realized we were lucky. Everyone was talking with everyone else. The guy in front of us was in line to get tickets for the next day's show since they were sold out for all shows on Friday. When my wife told him she had gotten tickets over the Internet, he put this Duh look on his face and stepped out of line. A young woman was in front of us holding cash in her hand and I asked if she had her ticket. She said no but she really, really wanted to see this movie but was afraid she wouldn't get to. I sold her our extra ticket but she had to go through with us like a family member since we had a block of tickets printed out that wouldn't separate. We looked just like a nice family as the guy took our tickets except that Thomas's older sister was black.
I looked at a Middle Eastern looking group of women going in. They were smiling and friendly with traditional printed cloth covering their heads. Not one single man had on a suit or a red tie. There were lots of blue shirts in the crowd. That was the secret badge of the Moveon.org members.
The only seats we could get together were down front, dead center, three rows back. The previews were way too loud and I had curious, not entirely comfortable, emotions as I sat with my 15 year old son, through a trailer for a movie about a guy making ends meet by impregnating lesbians. Rated PG 13, the movie was, but the preview was "approved for all audiences". Good grief!
I expected much of the movie. I pay attention to what happens in my world. I knew all about the Saudi Bin Laden connections to the Bush family. I was not prepared for the emotional impact of connecting the dots with nothing more than news footage. I now think back at the Fox news talking heads trying to counter the effectiveness of Michael Moore's film by questioning his "facts". They're going to have a hard time with that because much of what he does is just show news file tape of George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and the others contradicting themselves. What do you do when you call your own self a liar? How do you spin that?
There were things I didn't want to see. I cried several times and I hate very few things more than crying in movies. But every tear was ripped apart by laughter. I laughed hard and loud, time after time, except when I was crying. Moore let me off the hook at the end. The last emotional gut wrench was mitigated by the last guffaw. It was a clip of a speech George W. Bush gave in Tennessee. He did it to himself with no help from Michael Moore.
Then it was over. Two hours flew by. I am usually ahead of a film. I am rarely surprised and get impatient for them to be over. When one does surprise me after sending my insides reeling on a roller coaster ride, I am grateful. For Moore to have surprised me with things I already knew is nothing short of amazing. The juxtaposition of facts and events leads us to the inescapable conclusion. Unlike a Presidential campaign ad there is no fiction or wishful thinking presented in 9-11 to make the case. It is a documentary put together with not much more than news clips, network file footage, and interviews. This is the most entertained you will have ever been while being forced to think.
But be warned...It took nearly an hour and two glasses of wine for my insides to settle down enough for supper. I do not recommend that you go see Farhenheit 9-11... I order you to go... and take a Republican! Offer to pay their way.
As we all walked out of the movie, I tried to wipe my eyes casually and then look around. Everyone I looked at was either laughing or crying or trying not to. I saw the women with the covered heads and they were openly weeping. I understand.
America...What have we done?
Can we fix it? We have to!
Peace,
Steve
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Frog days hang in the gorge.
Looking out as I sit here sipping the morning's allotment of juice from the evil bean, I can actually see the air. Lumpy and whitish, it moves up the creek, crawls over the far ridge and then changes its mind...confused and addled from the burden of too much water. Funny how the world works...In Colorado they are beginning to think the local drought will make the dust bowl years look like relief, while here at my home it rains most afternoons, enough to murk up the snorkeling but not enough to make whitewater to play in. I consider myself lucky to be here at this spot but I have to think about the West and wonder if I will live long enough to see the Cumberland Plateau become just as parched.
Anyone who has hiked in New Mexico or Arizona and has also spent much time in Eastern Tennessee will note the geographical resemblance of the two places. One has trees and one has cacti, but the mesas and arroyos of the West are nearly identical to the plateaus and gorges of the East when you get down to the dirt and rock. The crinoid fossil I saw emerging from the rock overlooking the Green River gorge in Colorado looks very much like the crinoid fossil I have laid into my hearth behind the wood stove. It came from Great Falls on the Caney Fork River in Tennessee. Both lived in shallow seas which have long since disappeared. The Twin Arches in Big South Fork could easily be in Moab. You just have to walk much closer to see them because of the trees. It is all about climate, which is all about water and heat. It is another form of the energy problem. During frog days on the plateau, we have our own form of the energy problem. The heat and humidity cause a shortage of energy when we need to be doing things. Lots of things get started and lots of things never get finished.
The climate in both the East and the West has changed. As a matter of geological record it pretty much is always changing all over the world. Humans are very short lived compared to the time frame of historical climate change. If we can't see it, well then it must not be happening. It's the "boiled frog" effect. I've seen this with crabs but I've never had any reason to boil a frog to test it. I have boiled a fair number of blue crabs and they will sit right there in the pot, never moving or trying to save themselves from taking that personal journey from crustacean to food, but only if you start with cold water. It's the slow change that gets them. I made the mistake of tossing one into hot water one time, and all hell broke loose around the camp. A pissed off crab is a frightening thing to confront.
Now we humans are getting to see what it's like. The last three months were the warmest on record in North America. Virtually every scientist in the world, who is not funded one way or another by an energy company, is concerned. Frankly, a whole bunch of the scientists that are funded by the energy companies are concerned. For that matter, even the President of Shell Oil Company is concerned and I'm pretty danged sure he is funded by an energy company. Even the American Military is concerned. The Pentagon has issued a position paper saying this is a huge problem and sent it to the President of the United States who is NOT concerned. He is more worried about being reelected than much of any thing else. He's trying to stay out of jail.
I think he is crazy. All his best buddies are going to be in jail so he could hang with all of them and just kick back for a few years. Ken Lay, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh...They could have their own basketball team at recess so why is Bush fighting it? After some consideration I think he needs a new motto to help boost his ratings. He's pretty unpopular right now. I think his new motto for reelection ought to be:
"Follow Me to the Apocalypse"
That should work with his most fervent voter base, don't you think?
Insiders at the Whitehouse are starting to say George W. Bush is crazy, too. When a Washington news organization published the startling revelations from Whitehouse aids saying The President was nuts like Nixon, nobody refuted it with any factual corrections. The conservative pundits merely attacked the news provider personal sexual history, as is customary. The allegations still stand that the Prez is losing it.
The Vice Prez seems to be losing it too. When ever he gives a speech he says something like, "Hey, I never said Saddam was involved in 9-11, but you know he was because I say so, even though every other knowledgeable person on the planet says I'm lying." To which the Fox News pundits will say, "See, we told you so!" And to which every body else will say,
"Huh?"
See! They're crazy. That is the only rational explanation. One thing you can notice is that when Conservatives have a problem, they accuse everybody else of the same thing. That's why you see Rush, who just fried his third marriage by virtue of drugs and infidelity, ranting about Bill's sex life. Now they have this mental instability issue they have to deal with so what do they do? They accuse every body else of being crazy! Here is a list of the people that conservatives have recently and publicly accused of being crazy:
Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Ann Richards, Jesse Jackson, Paul Wellstone, George Soros, Gray Davis, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Al Franken, Kevin Phillips, Bill Maher, Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Susan McDougal, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Max Cleland, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton
And Al Gore! Al was branded crazy for bringing up the little problem of climate change way back when. I don't think I have heard one single conservative puppet, I mean pundit, say Al was right but he was and is... No boiled Frog, that Al.
So while the air gets heavier and heavier I will just try to keep my cool and watch the show. In the mean time I have a reading assignment for you... here is an excerpt from David Podvin:
"Conservatives are tantalizingly close to eradicating the American way of life as we know it, and they have no intention of allowing their cherished plans to be spoiled by someone who is so crazy that he insists upon telling the truth."
This is a well reasoned article that is a fun read, also. Get to it, frogs!
http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/more/040617_CrazyLikeAStatesman.htm
Peace,
Steve
Looking out as I sit here sipping the morning's allotment of juice from the evil bean, I can actually see the air. Lumpy and whitish, it moves up the creek, crawls over the far ridge and then changes its mind...confused and addled from the burden of too much water. Funny how the world works...In Colorado they are beginning to think the local drought will make the dust bowl years look like relief, while here at my home it rains most afternoons, enough to murk up the snorkeling but not enough to make whitewater to play in. I consider myself lucky to be here at this spot but I have to think about the West and wonder if I will live long enough to see the Cumberland Plateau become just as parched.
Anyone who has hiked in New Mexico or Arizona and has also spent much time in Eastern Tennessee will note the geographical resemblance of the two places. One has trees and one has cacti, but the mesas and arroyos of the West are nearly identical to the plateaus and gorges of the East when you get down to the dirt and rock. The crinoid fossil I saw emerging from the rock overlooking the Green River gorge in Colorado looks very much like the crinoid fossil I have laid into my hearth behind the wood stove. It came from Great Falls on the Caney Fork River in Tennessee. Both lived in shallow seas which have long since disappeared. The Twin Arches in Big South Fork could easily be in Moab. You just have to walk much closer to see them because of the trees. It is all about climate, which is all about water and heat. It is another form of the energy problem. During frog days on the plateau, we have our own form of the energy problem. The heat and humidity cause a shortage of energy when we need to be doing things. Lots of things get started and lots of things never get finished.
The climate in both the East and the West has changed. As a matter of geological record it pretty much is always changing all over the world. Humans are very short lived compared to the time frame of historical climate change. If we can't see it, well then it must not be happening. It's the "boiled frog" effect. I've seen this with crabs but I've never had any reason to boil a frog to test it. I have boiled a fair number of blue crabs and they will sit right there in the pot, never moving or trying to save themselves from taking that personal journey from crustacean to food, but only if you start with cold water. It's the slow change that gets them. I made the mistake of tossing one into hot water one time, and all hell broke loose around the camp. A pissed off crab is a frightening thing to confront.
Now we humans are getting to see what it's like. The last three months were the warmest on record in North America. Virtually every scientist in the world, who is not funded one way or another by an energy company, is concerned. Frankly, a whole bunch of the scientists that are funded by the energy companies are concerned. For that matter, even the President of Shell Oil Company is concerned and I'm pretty danged sure he is funded by an energy company. Even the American Military is concerned. The Pentagon has issued a position paper saying this is a huge problem and sent it to the President of the United States who is NOT concerned. He is more worried about being reelected than much of any thing else. He's trying to stay out of jail.
I think he is crazy. All his best buddies are going to be in jail so he could hang with all of them and just kick back for a few years. Ken Lay, Dick Cheney, Tom Delay, Rush Limbaugh...They could have their own basketball team at recess so why is Bush fighting it? After some consideration I think he needs a new motto to help boost his ratings. He's pretty unpopular right now. I think his new motto for reelection ought to be:
"Follow Me to the Apocalypse"
That should work with his most fervent voter base, don't you think?
Insiders at the Whitehouse are starting to say George W. Bush is crazy, too. When a Washington news organization published the startling revelations from Whitehouse aids saying The President was nuts like Nixon, nobody refuted it with any factual corrections. The conservative pundits merely attacked the news provider personal sexual history, as is customary. The allegations still stand that the Prez is losing it.
The Vice Prez seems to be losing it too. When ever he gives a speech he says something like, "Hey, I never said Saddam was involved in 9-11, but you know he was because I say so, even though every other knowledgeable person on the planet says I'm lying." To which the Fox News pundits will say, "See, we told you so!" And to which every body else will say,
"Huh?"
See! They're crazy. That is the only rational explanation. One thing you can notice is that when Conservatives have a problem, they accuse everybody else of the same thing. That's why you see Rush, who just fried his third marriage by virtue of drugs and infidelity, ranting about Bill's sex life. Now they have this mental instability issue they have to deal with so what do they do? They accuse every body else of being crazy! Here is a list of the people that conservatives have recently and publicly accused of being crazy:
Tom Daschle, Nancy Pelosi, Ann Richards, Jesse Jackson, Paul Wellstone, George Soros, Gray Davis, Wesley Clark, Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Martin Sheen, Al Franken, Kevin Phillips, Bill Maher, Barney Frank, Ted Kennedy, Susan McDougal, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Max Cleland, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, and Bill Clinton
And Al Gore! Al was branded crazy for bringing up the little problem of climate change way back when. I don't think I have heard one single conservative puppet, I mean pundit, say Al was right but he was and is... No boiled Frog, that Al.
So while the air gets heavier and heavier I will just try to keep my cool and watch the show. In the mean time I have a reading assignment for you... here is an excerpt from David Podvin:
"Conservatives are tantalizingly close to eradicating the American way of life as we know it, and they have no intention of allowing their cherished plans to be spoiled by someone who is so crazy that he insists upon telling the truth."
This is a well reasoned article that is a fun read, also. Get to it, frogs!
http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/more/040617_CrazyLikeAStatesman.htm
Peace,
Steve
Monday, June 21, 2004
I think the last time I slept all the way through the night was in 1956. I usually drop into the "dead zone" for four or five hours and then cat nap until I get up. My wife is a saint for several reasons but this has to be a big one. When I wake up, I usually listen to the world. There's a lot going on at night.
Here in the gorge we are in that time between the frogs and the katydids. If we have any kind of rain the tree frogs go off. Not in any steady background noise way but erratically loud then nothing. Why is it the "nothing" that wakes us up? This all changes in a few weeks. Katydids will rock the gorge...all night long. They don't have the nothing periods while it's dark. All they have is daytime. If you can't sleep with the katydid throbulator rocking these hills, you had better stay in town. I look at them crawling around the screens and wonder how a big green cricket can make such a racket. It's all about cricket love, though, and somehow they manage to do what has to be done, sometime in the night. It will take them about a month once they get started, and this time of year, when I wake up, I try to hear the first rachet from the first bug that reaches sexual maturity. Does he live long enough to score? Is it the male that sings? Ah, the questions, I mean the really big questions, that hover over life wating for answer.
Here's the big question that hit me last night or this morning while I was listening for bug song:
Will conservatives realize that conservatism doesn't work before the Bushistas destroy America?
Of course Liberalism in pure form doesn't work all that well either but it is far more benign and nobody has to die for it. Liberals don't have to lie consciously to promote their mission like Conservatives do. Think about it...There is no single bit of evidence more profound than the Bush / Cheney insistance that Saddam was connected with 9-11. There is something really sick about that one. On one hand we have a bipartisan commission that unanimously says, "It ain't so!" Then what happens? Cheney goes on TV and says Saddam was promoting the terrorism that brought down the towers. Then they get support from another defining icon of conservatism, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin who backs them up with something that Bush's own security chief says is bogus! If Conservatives stopped lying the whole movement would collapse.
Want to see what happens when a society goes Conservative? Look at Israel. Since the Conservative party gained total control of the country by whipping up the fears of the electorate, the economy has been destroyed. The GNP of Israel is now less than one third of what it was before and absolutely no one feels safer. It is as obvious as the indightment papers for Arial Sharon that Conservatives cannot run an economy because they do not know how to make money...they only know how to steal it!
Take the two at the top right now. Bush stole his by following the advice of Ken Lay. It involved off the books deals to con the stockholders of Harken Energy. He stole nearly a million dollars this way from his alma mater's endowment fund. Cheney will probably be indighted in Europe for bribery while he was CEO of Halliburton. He still insists that he has nothing to do with Halliburton now that he is Vice President. No small lie, that! He holds stock options for several hundred thousand shares of Halliburton stock and holds mutual funds that are primarily invested in Halliburton. Couple that with Halliburton's shameful handling of the Iraq war troup support and mishandling of roughly $600,000,000.00. If Bush loses the election there will be indightments. Gotta stay in power so keep lying, boys.
So what started me thinking about this?
Bill Clinton...He has a memoir.
So what do conservative pundits do? They start panting about Monica. Bill lied about having sex with her. He's a liar. When Bill goes on 60 minutes what does he want to talk about as the failures of his Presidency? Health Care and Social Security reform. What do the Conservatives want to talk about? Sex! Near as I can tell, it was pretty rushed and not really actual sex as I think of it anyway. I'm not defending it but I'm not judging it either. You would think that Conservatives didn't have sex from the way they rant on TV and radio. Oh wait...The number one Conservative spokesman is getting a divorce right now because of sex...and drugs...and he lied about it. And you know what? Not one bit of anything that has to do with sex has anything to do with the future of America!
Lying about sex is nothing!
Lying about an imminent threat from Iraq, and Afghanistan, and no bid contracts, and stealing elections, and driving America deep into debt, and ruining the air we have to breathe, and lying about the arsenic in the water we have to drink, and lying about why Osama hates us, and why we should sacrifice our children in a war we can't win, and lying about committing treason...Lying like that is something! Something despicable.
Conservatism falls apart if we make them tell the truth.
There's one other off the wall contradiction that hit me during the night. Why is it exactly that Dick Cheney wants to cut taxes? Without tax money...He has nothing to steal! Halliburton goes broke and loses his ass.
Well the Katydids had better get going soon so I can calm down. All this thinking about sex has me all flustered anyway. Katy did but I didn't...and I'm not lying!
Peace,
Steve
Here in the gorge we are in that time between the frogs and the katydids. If we have any kind of rain the tree frogs go off. Not in any steady background noise way but erratically loud then nothing. Why is it the "nothing" that wakes us up? This all changes in a few weeks. Katydids will rock the gorge...all night long. They don't have the nothing periods while it's dark. All they have is daytime. If you can't sleep with the katydid throbulator rocking these hills, you had better stay in town. I look at them crawling around the screens and wonder how a big green cricket can make such a racket. It's all about cricket love, though, and somehow they manage to do what has to be done, sometime in the night. It will take them about a month once they get started, and this time of year, when I wake up, I try to hear the first rachet from the first bug that reaches sexual maturity. Does he live long enough to score? Is it the male that sings? Ah, the questions, I mean the really big questions, that hover over life wating for answer.
Here's the big question that hit me last night or this morning while I was listening for bug song:
Will conservatives realize that conservatism doesn't work before the Bushistas destroy America?
Of course Liberalism in pure form doesn't work all that well either but it is far more benign and nobody has to die for it. Liberals don't have to lie consciously to promote their mission like Conservatives do. Think about it...There is no single bit of evidence more profound than the Bush / Cheney insistance that Saddam was connected with 9-11. There is something really sick about that one. On one hand we have a bipartisan commission that unanimously says, "It ain't so!" Then what happens? Cheney goes on TV and says Saddam was promoting the terrorism that brought down the towers. Then they get support from another defining icon of conservatism, the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin who backs them up with something that Bush's own security chief says is bogus! If Conservatives stopped lying the whole movement would collapse.
Want to see what happens when a society goes Conservative? Look at Israel. Since the Conservative party gained total control of the country by whipping up the fears of the electorate, the economy has been destroyed. The GNP of Israel is now less than one third of what it was before and absolutely no one feels safer. It is as obvious as the indightment papers for Arial Sharon that Conservatives cannot run an economy because they do not know how to make money...they only know how to steal it!
Take the two at the top right now. Bush stole his by following the advice of Ken Lay. It involved off the books deals to con the stockholders of Harken Energy. He stole nearly a million dollars this way from his alma mater's endowment fund. Cheney will probably be indighted in Europe for bribery while he was CEO of Halliburton. He still insists that he has nothing to do with Halliburton now that he is Vice President. No small lie, that! He holds stock options for several hundred thousand shares of Halliburton stock and holds mutual funds that are primarily invested in Halliburton. Couple that with Halliburton's shameful handling of the Iraq war troup support and mishandling of roughly $600,000,000.00. If Bush loses the election there will be indightments. Gotta stay in power so keep lying, boys.
So what started me thinking about this?
Bill Clinton...He has a memoir.
So what do conservative pundits do? They start panting about Monica. Bill lied about having sex with her. He's a liar. When Bill goes on 60 minutes what does he want to talk about as the failures of his Presidency? Health Care and Social Security reform. What do the Conservatives want to talk about? Sex! Near as I can tell, it was pretty rushed and not really actual sex as I think of it anyway. I'm not defending it but I'm not judging it either. You would think that Conservatives didn't have sex from the way they rant on TV and radio. Oh wait...The number one Conservative spokesman is getting a divorce right now because of sex...and drugs...and he lied about it. And you know what? Not one bit of anything that has to do with sex has anything to do with the future of America!
Lying about sex is nothing!
Lying about an imminent threat from Iraq, and Afghanistan, and no bid contracts, and stealing elections, and driving America deep into debt, and ruining the air we have to breathe, and lying about the arsenic in the water we have to drink, and lying about why Osama hates us, and why we should sacrifice our children in a war we can't win, and lying about committing treason...Lying like that is something! Something despicable.
Conservatism falls apart if we make them tell the truth.
There's one other off the wall contradiction that hit me during the night. Why is it exactly that Dick Cheney wants to cut taxes? Without tax money...He has nothing to steal! Halliburton goes broke and loses his ass.
Well the Katydids had better get going soon so I can calm down. All this thinking about sex has me all flustered anyway. Katy did but I didn't...and I'm not lying!
Peace,
Steve
Thursday, June 17, 2004
Something different today, although I often reference Bill Moyers as a conscience of America. It is evident from his writing that he is a strong believer in the "Fairness Code." This is a little but of a different take on it though, and I cannot completely rationalize the contradictions of the historical actions of even a man so great as Thomas Jefferson. By this I mean: How do you come to grips with having six of your own children kept as slaves? (I wonder if my momma knew about this concept?) There were powerful social forces at work that we can only intellectualize at this time point in Jefferson's future. Great change has come...and unfortunately gone.
Moyers reflects on the return of inequality. Here's an excerpt that may provoke you to read the entire piece:
"Household economics is not the only area where inequality is growing in America. Equality doesn't mean equal incomes, but a fair and decent society where money is not the sole arbiter of status or comfort. In a fair and just society, the commonwealth will be valued even as individual wealth is encouraged.
Let me make something clear here. I wasn't born yesterday. I'm old enough to know that the tension between haves and have-nots are built into human psychology, it is a constant in human history, and it has been a factor in every society. But I also know America was going to be different. I know that because I read Mr. Jefferson's writings, Mr. Lincoln's speeches and other documents in the growing American creed. I presumptuously disagreed with Thomas Jefferson about human equality being self-evident. Where I lived, neither talent, nor opportunity, nor outcomes were equal. Life is rarely fair and never equal. So what could he possibly have meant by that ringing but ambiguous declaration: "All men are created equal"? Two things, possibly. One, although none of us are good, all of us are sacred (Glenn Tinder), that's the basis for thinking we are by nature kin.
Second, he may have come to see the meaning of those words through the experience of the slave who was his mistress. As is now widely acknowledged, the hands that wrote "all men are created equal" also stroked the breasts and caressed the thighs of a black woman named Sally Hennings. She bore him six children whom he never acknowledged as his own, but who were the only slaves freed by his will when he died -- the one request we think Sally Hennings made of her master. Thomas Jefferson could not have been insensitive to the flesh-and-blood woman in his arms. He had to know she was his equal in her desire for life, her longing for liberty, her passion for happiness."
What is the ultimate price of inequality? Historically an investor class of the wealthy has always destroyed itself. Why? because everyone else eventually can't stand it anymore:
"Let's face the reality: If ripping off the public trust; if distributing tax breaks to the wealthy at the expense of the poor; if driving the country into deficits deliberately to starve social benefits; if requiring states to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor; if squeezing the wages of workers until the labor force resembles a nation of serfs -- if this isn't class war, what is?
It's un-American. It's unpatriotic. And it's wrong."
And now he gives us a call to action. Readers of my ravings may recognize a brother in arms:
"What we need is a mass movement of people like you. Get mad, yes -- there's plenty to be mad about. Then get organized and get busy. This is the fight of our lives!"
Read it all...Please!
http://www.alternet.org/story/18954/
Talking with a Republican friend yesterday afternoon. He said the insider Repub jokes about the Clinton portrait unveiling were hilarious. I asked for an example and he said,
"The Clintons had to walk through the metal detectors...on the way out of the Whitehouse."
This, of course, is a continuation of the false myth created by Karl Rove. You remember the stolen W's from keyboards and all sorts of other vandalism that was supposed to have taken place. None of it was true. It was a Rovian lie, planted with the most mean spirited of motives. When I confronted my friend with the "fact" of that "Lie" he owned up to it with a "Yeah, I know." He is that rarest of human beings...an honest Republican, and I admire him for it. His must be a difficult way of life.
(Before you get huffy, let me also say that I think honest Democrat officials are pretty rare, too.)
But anyway, my friend came back at me with "They all lie" so that was supposed to mean the Rovian antics were ok, I guess, even though they were unjustly intended to hurt a man's reputation along with that of his wife. So my response was "No they don't! ...
"Name one lie that Clinton told that was not about his sex life?"
He looked me in the eye and his face went into a painful smile of the child confronted with the fact that the dog did not eat his homework..."I can't come up with anything" he said.
This man was a fairly high up Republican operative and he could not come up with anything. He is exactly the kind of man that is going to help us get rid of Bush. When he goes into the voting booth and closes the curtain, he will have to vote against the man who took over the Republican party and is trying to assist the book of Revelations. My friend will have to be honest with himself and put the best interests of his children first.
While I am thinking about it, "Thy shalt not commit adultery" came up in the Clintonian context. If you want something really strange to study in your bible this weekend, search out the biblical definition of "adultery" and the recommended punishments. I have been observing the Southern Baptist Convention get more biblical and I think that they should carry out all the recommended punishments on themselves as an example to all of the rest of us. In addition to the stonings for adultery I would particularly like to see them "punish" all of their devout membership that have broken this little commandment:
"Thy shalt not bear false witness against thy fellow man."
Throw in a few "punishments" for stealing and coveting and the Southern Baptist problem neatly goes away, don't you think? We may have to look over the list of infractions closely to get them all and some may squeak through on technicalities. I don't think we will see many stonings for the "Seething of calves in their mother's milk" for instance. (Had you forgotten that was a commandment? While it is not there on Judge Roy's rock, it is plainly sitting right there in Exodus. I guess God needs a little editing now and then.)
Think about it...I figure they're all gonna be guilty of one or two commandment transgressions and the bible very clearly calls for stoning. Once they are all wiped out there would be several benefits to the community. Right off the bat I can envision how taking back all that non-taxable land they have tied up in those ostentatious churches and freeing it up for gainful reuse would neatly revitalize all our local communities in short order. I like this idea so much I think I will call it "The Emerson Project."
Hey! Just kidding folks! Honest! Gotta go now...there's a veal recipe I want to try.
Peace,
Steve
Monday, June 07, 2004
Long Creek, S.C. June 6, 2004
"It's gonna rain," said David.
"Clever observation," I thought silently. It is June in the Southeastern United States, the Humidity is at least a couple of hundred, and the sky has been lumpy overcast rain clouds for days. Now some cluck comes from up in the tree top over us and David predicts rain with more conviction that anyone who has ever been on the local evening news.
I'm thinking about David's remarks yesterday morning as I sit here and listen to it rain on the metal roof above me. Oddly enough, David and I were looking at putting a metal roof on an old house that came into my possession years ago when I decided to help a marvelous elderly lady who had helped me once. Everyone called her Miss High. She was 90 when I bought her house, for too much probably, so she could move into an assisted living facility. The church ladies had decided she needed to do this because she was 90. When they came to move her out, the church ladies couldn't lift or tote anything themselves so Miss High did all the heavy lifting and carried her own furniture out to the van herself. She was only ninety, after all. I watched this and wondered exactly who it was that should be getting help. I also wondered how long she would live after she got stuck in a "home"?
Lois was her first name. She taught at the Long Creek Acadamy, which was founded around the end of World War II by a Baptist preacher to help educate children who needed to learn what he thought they needed to learn and not much else. When she and another teacher at the acadamy wanted to live in their own house and move out of the dormatory, they built this house for them. It wouldn't pass any code ever created but it used to keep the rain out. The men who built the house were being taught carpentry at the Academy so they could earn a living now that they were back from the war. Some of them did not have all their legs. By the time all of them were officially educated in their new trade, some of them did not have all their fingers either. I don't think Miss High's house was built by men who had made the honor roll in the house building class at the school. Particularly, I think they had slept through the foundation building part. If you could see the house you would understand. Lois lived to be 93 and passed away living out her days amongst a "bunch of snowball heads" as she used to call them. She didn't like old people...didn't consider herself one of them.
Long Creek was in the path of a total solar eclipse one day, and I walked down to her house and told her about it just as it started. We got her out a lawn chair and I made her a pin hole projector out of a piece of cardboard so she could watch the eclipse. I'd never seen her happier. She liked new ideas. I remember watching her as I walked away, sitting in her chair moving the cardboard, with the pinhole we punched in it, up and down to focus the crescent of the sun. She was sitting there when it got very dark as the shadow of the moon passed over us. One of those crystaline moments in my life is the sight of hundreds of crescent sun projections shing up from the ground under the huge oak trees in the yard right before it got darkest. The patches of light where the sun could get through the leaves of the tree had been focussed on the ground as the tree itself became hundreds of pinhole projectors. There were light crescents every where I stepped. Wow, I thought, I'm walking on the sun. Hundreds of suns, actually.
"A Rain Crow," said David. It had made a sound like a turkey "gulp" only raspier and softer. "When the Rain Crow calls it is gonna' rain soon." It was up in the projector oak tree high over our heads. I got my small binoculars out of the car and tried to find it. I had heard the name Rain Crow before but I didn't make the connection right away. It was a yellow billed cuckoo. I have watched them many times from inside my house. They stay high in the trees and eat mostly catapillars. Tent worms are high on the delicacy list if you are a yellow billed cuckoo. You also have no evolved defenses against flying into large panes of glass, either, if you are a yellow billed cuckoo. I, once, picked up the dead one that had just been claimed by my new house and wondered what to do. It was a beautiful bird...majestic and regal looking only a few minutes before. They sit up proud on tree limbs, holding their head up and chest out. They are big for birds that live in trees, about 12 inches from tip to tail...a pleasant buff brown on the back with a white chest that looks more like the ermine fur of a King's robe than feathers. I felt responsible for killing this creature and wondered what to do, short of boarding up the windows. I wound up cutting down the few small cherrie trees around the house that had tent catapillars in them. Now I rarely see a rain crow but I hear them all the time in the dense woods around the house. I have not held a dead one in my hand since I got rid of the attractive source of food next to the house and that is worth the loss of viewing this magnificent bird.
David was right, it's raining. Or I guess the rain crow was right. I'm glad I showed Miss High the eclipse. Tomorrow morning the planet Venus will pass in front of the sun. This was a tremendously important astronomical event the last few times it happened. It let astronomers determine several measurements that we take for granted today and caused all kinds of problems between astronomers and preachers. The preachers of the day were all stuck on what they called "Truth" and didn't have much use for what scientists call "fact". This is a proud tradition that is carried on today. You want to know what I think? Of course you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway...I think that humankind will wipe out the Rain Crow and Humankind well before the rain crow evolves defenses against large panes of glass. I think Miss High would have liked to see the sillouette of Venus pass before the sun. I will get up tomorrow morning and try to see it myself but I don't think I will be successful. According to the Rain Crow, it's gonna' be raining.
Peace,
Steve
Here's a place to find out more about the Rain Crow.
http://www.backyardnature.net/n/03/030720.htm
I liked this picture and the site is interesting. There are several good shots taken around Cumberland Falls.
http://www.darkdarling.com/watersindex.html
"It's gonna rain," said David.
"Clever observation," I thought silently. It is June in the Southeastern United States, the Humidity is at least a couple of hundred, and the sky has been lumpy overcast rain clouds for days. Now some cluck comes from up in the tree top over us and David predicts rain with more conviction that anyone who has ever been on the local evening news.
I'm thinking about David's remarks yesterday morning as I sit here and listen to it rain on the metal roof above me. Oddly enough, David and I were looking at putting a metal roof on an old house that came into my possession years ago when I decided to help a marvelous elderly lady who had helped me once. Everyone called her Miss High. She was 90 when I bought her house, for too much probably, so she could move into an assisted living facility. The church ladies had decided she needed to do this because she was 90. When they came to move her out, the church ladies couldn't lift or tote anything themselves so Miss High did all the heavy lifting and carried her own furniture out to the van herself. She was only ninety, after all. I watched this and wondered exactly who it was that should be getting help. I also wondered how long she would live after she got stuck in a "home"?
Lois was her first name. She taught at the Long Creek Acadamy, which was founded around the end of World War II by a Baptist preacher to help educate children who needed to learn what he thought they needed to learn and not much else. When she and another teacher at the acadamy wanted to live in their own house and move out of the dormatory, they built this house for them. It wouldn't pass any code ever created but it used to keep the rain out. The men who built the house were being taught carpentry at the Academy so they could earn a living now that they were back from the war. Some of them did not have all their legs. By the time all of them were officially educated in their new trade, some of them did not have all their fingers either. I don't think Miss High's house was built by men who had made the honor roll in the house building class at the school. Particularly, I think they had slept through the foundation building part. If you could see the house you would understand. Lois lived to be 93 and passed away living out her days amongst a "bunch of snowball heads" as she used to call them. She didn't like old people...didn't consider herself one of them.
Long Creek was in the path of a total solar eclipse one day, and I walked down to her house and told her about it just as it started. We got her out a lawn chair and I made her a pin hole projector out of a piece of cardboard so she could watch the eclipse. I'd never seen her happier. She liked new ideas. I remember watching her as I walked away, sitting in her chair moving the cardboard, with the pinhole we punched in it, up and down to focus the crescent of the sun. She was sitting there when it got very dark as the shadow of the moon passed over us. One of those crystaline moments in my life is the sight of hundreds of crescent sun projections shing up from the ground under the huge oak trees in the yard right before it got darkest. The patches of light where the sun could get through the leaves of the tree had been focussed on the ground as the tree itself became hundreds of pinhole projectors. There were light crescents every where I stepped. Wow, I thought, I'm walking on the sun. Hundreds of suns, actually.
"A Rain Crow," said David. It had made a sound like a turkey "gulp" only raspier and softer. "When the Rain Crow calls it is gonna' rain soon." It was up in the projector oak tree high over our heads. I got my small binoculars out of the car and tried to find it. I had heard the name Rain Crow before but I didn't make the connection right away. It was a yellow billed cuckoo. I have watched them many times from inside my house. They stay high in the trees and eat mostly catapillars. Tent worms are high on the delicacy list if you are a yellow billed cuckoo. You also have no evolved defenses against flying into large panes of glass, either, if you are a yellow billed cuckoo. I, once, picked up the dead one that had just been claimed by my new house and wondered what to do. It was a beautiful bird...majestic and regal looking only a few minutes before. They sit up proud on tree limbs, holding their head up and chest out. They are big for birds that live in trees, about 12 inches from tip to tail...a pleasant buff brown on the back with a white chest that looks more like the ermine fur of a King's robe than feathers. I felt responsible for killing this creature and wondered what to do, short of boarding up the windows. I wound up cutting down the few small cherrie trees around the house that had tent catapillars in them. Now I rarely see a rain crow but I hear them all the time in the dense woods around the house. I have not held a dead one in my hand since I got rid of the attractive source of food next to the house and that is worth the loss of viewing this magnificent bird.
David was right, it's raining. Or I guess the rain crow was right. I'm glad I showed Miss High the eclipse. Tomorrow morning the planet Venus will pass in front of the sun. This was a tremendously important astronomical event the last few times it happened. It let astronomers determine several measurements that we take for granted today and caused all kinds of problems between astronomers and preachers. The preachers of the day were all stuck on what they called "Truth" and didn't have much use for what scientists call "fact". This is a proud tradition that is carried on today. You want to know what I think? Of course you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyway...I think that humankind will wipe out the Rain Crow and Humankind well before the rain crow evolves defenses against large panes of glass. I think Miss High would have liked to see the sillouette of Venus pass before the sun. I will get up tomorrow morning and try to see it myself but I don't think I will be successful. According to the Rain Crow, it's gonna' be raining.
Peace,
Steve
Here's a place to find out more about the Rain Crow.
http://www.backyardnature.net/n/03/030720.htm
I liked this picture and the site is interesting. There are several good shots taken around Cumberland Falls.
http://www.darkdarling.com/watersindex.html
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