Idaho Conversation League

Old post from the Anthropik network

2011-05-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

"I noticed, when she delivered the plate of fruit, that my Balian hostess was also balancing a tray containing many little green bowls-small, boatshaped platters, each of them woven neatly from a freshly cut section of palm frond. The platters were two or three inches long, and within each was a small mound of white rice. After handing me my breakfast, the woman and the tray disappeared from view behind the other buildings, and when she came by some minutes later to pick up my empty plate, the tray was empty as well.

*
On the second morning, when I saw the array of tiny rice platters, I asked my hostess what they were for. Patiently, she explained to me that they were offerings for the household spirits. When I inquired about the Balinese term that she used for "spirit," she repeated the explanation in Indonesian, saying that these were gifts for the spirits of the family compound, and I saw that I had understood her correctly. She handed me a bowl of sliced papaya and mango and slipped around the corner of the building. I pondered for a minute, then set down the bowl, stepped to the side of my hut, and peered through the trees. I caught sight of her crouched low beside the corner of one of the other buildings, carefully setting what I presumed was one of the offerings on the ground. Then she stood up with the tray, walked back to the other corner, and set down another offering. I returned to my bowl of fruit and finished my breakfast.

*
That afternoon, when the rest of the household was busy, I walked back behind the building where I had seen her set down two of the offerings. There were the green platters resting neatly at the two rear corners of the hut. But the little mounds of rice within them were gone.

*
The next morning I finished the sliced fruit, waited for my hostess to come by and take the empty bowl, then quietly beaded back behind the buildings. Two fresh palm leaf offerings sat at the same spots where the others had been the day before. These were filled with rice. Yet as I gazed at one of them, I suddenly noticed, with a shudder, that one of the kernels of rice was moving. Only when I knelt down to look more closely did I see a tiny line of black ants winding through the dirt to the palm leaf. Peering still closer, I saw that two ants had already climbed onto the offering and were struggling with the uppermost kernel of rice; as I watched, one of them dragged the kernel down and off the leaf, then set off with it back along the advancing line of ants. The second ant took another kernel and climbed down the mound of rice, dragging and pushing, and fell over the edge of the leaf; then a third climbed onto the offering. The column of ants emerged from a thick clump of grass around a nearby palm tree. I walked over to the other offering and discovered another column of tiny ants dragging away the rice kernels. There was an offering on the ground behind my building as well, and a nearly identical line of ants. I walked back to my room chuckling to myself. The balian and his wife had gone to so much trouble to daily placate the household spirits with gifts; only to have them stolen by little six-legged thieves. What a waste! But then a strange thought dawned within me. What if the ants themselves were the "household spirits" to whom the offerings were being made?

*
The idea became less strange as I pondered the matter. The family compound, like most on this tropical island, had been constructed in the vicinity of several ant colonies. Since a great deal of household cooking took place in the compound, and also the preparation of elaborate offerings of foodstuffs for various rituals and festivals, the grounds and the buildings were vulnerable to infestations by the ant population. Such invasions could range from rare nuisances to a periodic or even constant siege. It became apparent that the daily palm-frond offerings served to preclude such an attack by the natural forces that surrounded (and underlay) the family's land. The daily gifts of rice kept the ant colonies occupied and, presumably, satisfied. Placed in regular, repeated locations at the corners of various structures around the compound, the offerings seemed to establish certain boundaries between the human and ant communities; by honoring this boundary with gifts, the humans apparently hoped to persuade the insects to respect the boundary and not enter the buildings.

*
The maintenance of such boundaries is the essence of magic, but our civilization has lost its magic, and we have violated every boundary. We've been as short-sighted as the man who hated frogs. Could it ever be as simple as just asking the frog to come back to our stream?"

2010-08-16T22:10:00.000-07:00

Jim Dee’s sunny power line suggestion

My three closest blog followers remarked that I’ve been quiet recently and wondered if I had nothing to write. I replied that I’ve been trying to get outside in the sun more, which reminded me of my friend Jim Dee’s solar power suggestion:

Two years ago, I stumbled onto Mr.’s Dee’s unique proposal. And with recent improvements in solar power efficiency, and a President who actually reads ten U.S. citizen letters handpicked by his staff each day, Mr. Dee’s suggestion is now more feasible than ever.

Here is the jist of it, which; with his permission, I have paraphrased from his blog:

"I had a moment of insight this morning and wanted to share. It does nothing less than solve the entire American/Mexican border issue in a true bipartisan way. Here's the deal:

We take the entire length of the U.S./Mexican border, at a width of a good quarter mile wide or so, and privatize it -- sell it to the highest qualified bidder. And, by "qualified bidder," I mean Power Generation Company.

What no other political commentator (to my knowledge) has seemingly noticed is that the border in question, besides being the source of exhaustive political debate, is also located in a particularly bright, sunny patch of the country. Because that area's so ridiculously bathed in sunshine, it lends itself particularly well to ... wait for it ... solar power development! (Yeah, it was an "aha!" moment for me, too.)

Anyway, our high bidding Power Company purchases the land, with the sole stipulation that it must develop a solar array spanning pretty much the entire length of the U.S./Mexican border. Along either side of the array, the company would also have to construct a large security wall to serve the primary purpose of keeping out vandals (from both sides); as a bonus, it would also naturally keep anyone from entering the U.S. illegally.

Here's an additional bonus: Part of the power generated by the array could be diverted to the fence itself -- because, let's face it; an electric fence is much more efficient! The rest of the power would be sold, as normal, to nearby communities, thus (1) improving air quality from fewer coal-fired plants; (2) boosting economic development; and (3) furthering solar technology in general.

Since the power company would have their income/profitability at stake, it would be in their best interest to hire armed security patrols. Let's face it: Unlike government-run initiatives, when there are private/stockholder earnings on the line, stuff gets done. (It used to get done poorly, I'll admit. But, hopefully Sarbanes-Oxley fixes some of that.)

It's an elegant bipartisan solution, don't you think? The right gets a Jurassic Park-esque electric fence, the left gets solar power out the wazoo!”

Thank you Mr. Dee!

This Difficult Individual Eustace Mullins — and the Remarkable Ezra Pound

2010-03-26T05:38:00.000-07:00

by Beatrice Mott

Authors wishing to quote Eustace's books in their own writing make themselves an easy target for reasonable critics or hate organizations like the ADL. In this way, Mr. Mullins has done more harm to the movement than good.

I learned this the long way. Having read Secrets, I drove down to Staunton, VA in the summer of 2006 and spent an afternoon talking with Mr. Mullins. My goal was to find the origin of several stories and statements which I could not reference from the text. Mr. Mullins was an elderly gentleman and he couldn't remember where he had found any of the material I was interested in. He simply replied: “It's all in the Library of Congress. Back then they would let me wander the stacks.”

So I moved to D.C., a few blocks from the library and spent the better part of two years trying to retrace Mr. Mullins' footsteps. Prior to this I had had several years' experience as a researcher and was used to trying to find the proverbial “needle in a haystack.” They wouldn't let me wander around the book storage facility (the stacks), but I scoured the catalog for anything that might contain the source for Mr. Mullins' statements. I couldn't verify any of the information in question.

Sadly, I realized that it would never be good practice to quote Mr. Mullins. But I hadn't wasted the time. I know more about the Federal Reserve now than most people who work there and I learned about the fantastic Mr. Pound.

Ezra Pound is among the most remarkable men of the last 120 years. He made his name as a poet and guided W. B. Yeats, T.S. Elliot and E. Hemingway on their way to the Nobel Prize (back when it meant something). He is the most brilliant founder of Modernism — a movement which sought to create art in a more precise and succinct form. Modernism can be seen as a natural reaction to the florid, heavy Victorian sensibility — it is not the meaningless abstractions we are assaulted with today.

Ezra Pound

Born in Idaho, Pound left the United States for Europe in 1908. In London he found an audience of educated people who appreciated his poetry. He married Dorothy Shakespear, a descendant of the playwright.¹ Pound also befriended some of the most brilliant artists of the time and watched them butchered in the First World War.

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, a sculptor and one of Ezra's best friends, was one of these sacrifices. The Great War changed Pound's outlook on life — no longer content with his artistic endeavors alone, he wanted to find out why that war happened.

Henri Gaudier-Brzeska

The answer he got bought him 12 years as a political prisoner in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Anacostia, just across the river from the Capitol in Washington D.C. Pound was never put on trial but was branded a traitor by the post-war American media.

What answer did Pound find? Our wars begin and end at the instigation of the international financial houses. The bankers make money on fighting and rebuilding by controlling credit. They colonize nations and have no loyalty to their host countries' youth or culture. No sacrifice is too great for their profit.

Much of Pound's work chronicles the effect of this parasitic financial class on societies: from ancient China to modern-day Europe. Pound was a polyglot and scoured numerous (well-documented) sources for historical background. The education that Mullins' work promises is delivered by the truckload in Pound's writing. Pound often lists his sources at the end of his work — and they always check out.

Eustace Mullins got to know Pound during the poet's time as a political prisoner. He was introduced to Pound by an art professor from Washington's Institute of Contemporary Arts which, in Mullins' words, “housed the sad remnants of the 'avant-garde' in America.”

According to Mr. Mullins, Pound took to him and commissioned Eustace to carry on his work investigating the international financial system. Pound gave Eustace an American dollar bill and asked him to find out what “Federal Reserve” printed across its top meant. Secrets, many derivative books, and thousands of conspiracy websites have sprung from that federal reserve note.

And here is where the story goes sour. Pound was a feared political prisoner incarcerated because of what he said in Italy about America's involvement with the international bankers and warmongering. Pound was watched twenty four hours a day and was under the supervision of Dr. Winfred Overholser, the superintendent of the hospital.

Overholser was employed by the Office of Strategic Services (the CIA's forerunner) to test drugs for the personality-profiling program, what would be called MK-ULTRA. (See John Marks' The Search for the "Manchurian Candidate": The CIA and Mind Control.) Personality profiling was St. Elizabeth's bread and butter: The asylum was a natural ally to the agency.

Overholser was also a distinguished professor in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department of George Washington University. This department provided students as test patients for the Frankfurt Schools' personality profiling work, which the CIA was very interested in. Prophets of Deceit, first written by Leo Löwenthal and Norbert Guterman in 1948, reads like a clumsy smear against Pound.

It does seem odd that a nationalist student would be allowed to continue the work of the dangerously brilliant Pound right under Winny's nose. The story gets even stranger, as Mr. Mullins describes his stay in Washington during this time. He was housed at the Library of Congress — apparently he lived in one of the disused rooms in the Jefferson building and became good friends with Elizabeth Bishop.

Ezra Pound

Bishop was the Library of Congress' “Consultant in Poetry” — quite a plum position. She was also identified by Frances Stonor Saunders as working with Nicolas Nabokov in Rio de Janeiro. Nabokov was paid by the CIA to handle South American-focused anti-Stalinist writers. (See The Cultural Cold War.) If what Saunders says is true, then it puts Eustace in strange company at that time of his life.

According to the CIA's in-house historians, the Library was also a central focus for intelligence gathering after the war, so it is doubly unlikely that just anybody would be allowed to poke around there after hours.

Whatever the motivation for letting Mullins in to see Pound was, the result has been that confusion, misinformation and unverifiable literature have clouded Pound's message about the financial industry's role in war. Fortunately Pound did plenty of his own writing.

According to Eustace, his relations with Pound's relatives were strained after Pound's release from prison. Pound moved back to Italy where he died in 1972. He was never the same after his stay with Overholser in St. E's. The St. Elizabeth's building is slated to become the new headquarters of the Department for Homeland Security.

Eustace went on to write many, many books about the abuses of government, big business and organized religion. They are very entertaining and are often insightful, but are arsenic from a researcher's point of view. A book that contains interesting information without saying where the information came from is worse than no book at all.

While lackadaisical about references in his own writing, Mr. Mullins could be extremely perceptive and critical of the writing of others. I once told him how much respect I had for George Orwell's daring to write 1984 — to which he sharply replied: “It's a great piece of pro-government propaganda — they win in the end.” Mr. Mullins is of course right: Orwell's Big Brother is always one step ahead, almost omniscient — and therefore invincible.

Eustace Mullins was much more than a writer. He became a political activist and befriended many prominent people in the American nationalist movement. But Mr. Mullins didn't have much faith in American nationalism: It is a movement, he told me, that the government would never let go anywhere.

Beatrice (email her) is a writer and historian living in Burlington, VT.

[1] Dorothy Pound's ancestry does depend on some circumstantial evidence, and readers who are interested in this should see John Tytell's book, Ezra Pound: The Solitary Volcano. Return to article.

Permanent URL: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/authors/Mott-Mullins.html

2010-02-05T22:29:00.000-08:00

Secret Lives of Meter Readers

If you are looking for a long walk every day with not bad pay, maybe meter reading is the ticket. Generally, you get to spend a lot of peaceful time by yourself, plenty of serene reflecting space, unhindered by a bickering work crew. Simply dedicating yourself to reading meters all day can actually lead to a very ascetic lifestyle.

When a vault into the earth is uncovered, great mysteries lie inside. Neighborhood kids dash over and want to spy. Newts and frogs, snakes, snails and polliwogs are all revealed from these tiny underground arenas. If the meter reader does not watch carefully, he may uncover a hornet's nest. Thus, most workers carry a medicine pouch within their toolkits.

Meter reading routes are hard roads at first; but endurance soon builds up, as the man (or woman) becomes self-reliant. As he walks along, he strengthens his full character, all the way down to his stem cells. Striding along, his breathing becomes natural and he finds himself more plainspoken.

Travelers often pose directions or unusual questions from meter readers. Does the deer turn into elk at the same elevation rattlesnakes stop snapping? On what Idaho road did Hemingway kick the can? Having snappy answers handy makes the job more pleasant.

Dogs are an inherent part of meter reading. Most browsers are friendly and can decipher the meter reader's spirit with a high degree of accuracy. Many dogs will grant you easy access through their gated community to inspect the meter. It's getting out again that presents a problem, as pups craving companionship insist that you stay and play.

Some meter readers get to thinking up fantastic ideas along the trail. They begin to carry a notepad alongside their number recorder and write down musings in a Thoreau-like manner. Even in cities, they see bits of nature, which many motorists blur by too fast to appreciate. Along the glistening stream: some morel mushrooms for their pouch, a storytelling of crows over in that towering tamarack tree, trying to alter a chapter in an owl's life.

Meter readers of various utilities develop an eye for detail and take note of safety concerns that might otherwise go unnoticed: A dead tree branch leaning into a power line. The scent of gas somewhere, or loose manholes in the street. This talent is not lost on Homeland Security officials who sometimes speak of enlisting meter readers to keep "an eye out" for all of us. However, most meter readers are not into this sort of thing. They could draft maps of homes of the stars if they wished, but most prefer to shine as more of a nameless Pale Rider-type of hero. Blending into the background; but emerging with more than speedy serendipity, for the occasional good deed along their way.

Daydreams of meter readers include running a line of electricity up to Pioneer Cabin. Imagine the boss man wondering why only one meter was read this afternoon. Meter readers face harsh conditions in the winter, post-holing through deep snow and truly appreciate your efforts to keep the pathway clear around reading time. Some consumers seem to forget that having a utility company representative freshly familiar with the physical location of the meter is a key aspect for safety, since the utility meter is also the spot for the emergency shut-off valve.

Customers must think that meter readers are as secretive as wolverines, since they are so seldom seen. However, when they are detected, it's nice to give them a high howdy and a thank you for their dedicated service. They will likely remember that for a long time. During my years of meter reading, there were only a handful of times, when someone offered thanks, but it always brightened my week.

Alas, many healthy aspects of meter reading are rapidly transforming, along with much of our world’s unquestioned “progress.” With the advent of the GPS receivers, probing rods and older methods of tie-down measurements are less required to locate meters obscured by leaves or grass. In addition, remote registers and smart-grid telemetry are phasing out some routes. Therefore, if your dog seems a tad more lonesome lately, it could be that he didn't receive his monthly belly rub and a pat on the head from your friendly neighborhood meter reader.

lovin those acronyms

2010-01-30T21:30:00.000-08:00

http://criggo.com/2010/01/28/lovin-those-acronyms/

Wht Schools Don't Educate

2010-01-28T05:08:00.000-08:00

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/archives/937?page=1

A Sun Magazine classic.

Key Quote:

“But keep in mind that in the United States almost nobody who reads, writes, or does arithmetic gets much respect. We are a land of talkers; we pay talkers the most and admire talkers the most, and so our children talk constantly, following the public models of television and schoolteachers. It is very difficult to teach “the basics” anymore, because they really aren’t basic to the society we’ve made.”

A Mayonaise Jar & Two Beers

2010-01-25T19:11:00.000-08:00

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar, he shook the jar lightly.... The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life The golf balls are the important things---your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions---and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car.

The sand is everything else---the small stuff. 'If you put the sand into the jar first,' he continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

'Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.. Spend time with your children.. Spend time with your parents. Visit with grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first---the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked.'

The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.'

The Loneliness of the long distance runner

2010-01-15T02:38:00.000-08:00

Beth and Ron had both had escaped from the mental institution in recent weeks, temporarily attaining the mythic freedom we often discussed in the sanitized atmosphere of our communal living room. Each of us had roommates in the open ward. Most were there for drug or anger-coping problems, but not me. No, I was there because my basketball dreams had deflated. The patients would sometimes play basketball in the dungy basement too; and there I still had much of the natural ballet flow with which I grew up. Mellaril stifled some of this; but the bigger problem was that I realized how doubtful it was that any basketball scouts would be following up on their scholarship offers, by peeking in on me at the drab mental institution.

After several weeks of loitering there, I felt as if this wasn’t a place for me to make progress. So, I took a cue from Ron and went over to the nurse’s station to hang out for a final time. As the nurse dipped behind the partition to parse out a patients evening dose, I slipped over quietly and quickly tapped the elevator button. It wasn’t going to be enough time though, and I knew this from timing it before, while hatching my escape plan. So I hustled back and leaned against a far wall corner, stroking my beard and reading an important newspaper from my clipboard.

After checking under the tongue of her patient to ensure the dosage was properly swallowed, the nurse drifted behind the partition for more medicine, opening the chance for me to dash to the awaiting elevator. I hopped on soundlessly, hit the button for floor one and placed my palm over the floor indicator bell. The elevator took me down, and as I exited, I clung to my clipboard as if it was breaming with important information, then I nonchalantly walked out, pretending I was a doctor, while stroking my beard, and slipped past the two hypnotized woman at the lower administration desk and through the unlocked glass door to freedom!

It was a frigid freedom however, with the temperature in the lower twenties. Immediately after I strode past the front desk and up the hilly grass, I sprinted to the far end of Macarthur Park and slipped into a shady grove. There I followed an ancient railroad track though some thick woods. Even though the path was amid a bustling metro area, it was not well traveled, probably because of the large amount of briars in that neighborhood. The path came out conveniently near Key Bridge, which would be the natural route for me to head into Virginia. However, that’s precisely where authorities recaptured Ron and I wasn’t going to make the same mistake.

Therefore, I purposely walked deeper into the city. It was Saturday, December 23, 1978 – a long holiday weekend and not many people were out for this cold late night. Fortunately, I was dressed warm enough to walk around. I trudged into the heart of the red-light district, to elude police, alerted to any escaped mental patients, fitting my description. After a few hours of gerrymandering around the Capitol, I wound my way over to the 14th Street Bridge. Back then, it did not have a pedestrian walkway, and the guardrail was only thirty inches high, but as the traffic was sparse, it felt safe enough to cross the river there.

While crossing the 14th St. Bridge, there was a brief period when it became completely barren of traffic. Here*, I stopped and reflected above the Potomac for a few minutes, wondering if back at the institute they were aware of my escape yet. Then looking down at the dark water, it struck me, “So this is what it comes to for some people.” The thought naturally occurred, to make me wonder what would happen if I jumped in. The river didn’t appear to be flowing very fast, but that probably was deceptive, because it must certainly be powerful. Then I thought that if I jumped in, deception or not, there was a chance I would survive, because I was still a strong young man. Next, I thought, what a cliché this tragic event would be, and if I was to go, it should certainly be under circumstances that are more dramatic! Here they might not even find me, unless somebody actually sees me jump.

Thinking again about the cliché, I realized that this was something funny. Even though the doctors had drugged me badly, I recognized the element of dry humor above the river there and remembered that I had often been a funny guy. As I looked over at some vehicles approaching from the Rosslyn end of the bridge, I thought I could laugh at this incident in a year or two, if I filed the humorous fragment away for future use. Then I walked to end of the bridge to my Virginia freedom.

*Two years later, Air Florida’s Flight 90 crashed at the same spot of the bridge where I stood reflecting that dark evening. The crash resulted in some heroic, dramatic rescues, along with 78 fatalities, most in the frigid river: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Florida_Flight_90

It made me stop and think

2010-01-13T08:16:00.000-08:00

A few decades ago, a good friend of mine, and his girlfriend broke up. They had been together for several years, and were quite close, but circumstances were such that it was time for them to split apart. They still had places in their hearts for each other though, and even after they moved to different states, they kept in touch once or twice a year.

A few years passed, and they had not spoken for a while. Then one day, my friend received a letter from his old girlfriend’s sister. Before he even opened the letter, he sensed that she was no longer alive and the letter confirmed his sad intuition. Her next-door neighbor in a violent act murdered her, and I don’t know many more details than that.

My friend has often been an eye-for-an-eye type of person. For several years, he actively petitioned the Governor of the state where she lived, pushing for the death penalty for the murderer. For a long time, I secretly disagreed with what he was doing and with his grim death-row outlook. Finally, it was on my mind so much that I asked one or two friends what they thought of the situation. One woman said that if somebody murdered her, she would be proud that an old boyfriend would take such a chivalrous stance to avenge her death. This made me stop and think; to the point that eventually I started shifting my belief system about the death penalty - at least enough that I started respecting my friend's fortitude and resolution, dedicated to someone he once loved. After all, how could I purport to understand how he feels, when I’ve never experienced somebody that close to me being murdered?

2009-12-08T19:13:00.001-08:00

How powerful is Television?

(From Slate Magazine) “Cornell University researchers are reporting what appears to be a statistically significant relationship between autism rates and television watching by children under the age of three.”

I’m not an expert on autism, but recently I took a refresher psychology class at The College of Southern Idaho. When we arrived at the chapter on dreams, something reminded me of the textbook from my previous psyche class, three decades ago. Back then, a statement claimed that 95 percent of us Americans dream in black and white. That study was from the early 60's, an era when we watched over 90 percent of TV shows through black and white sets.

The textbook from my recent CSI class, posited precisely the opposite: that 95 percent of us now dream in living color! What was there to explain for this grand shift? Is there a correlation between the tones of Americans dreams and the types of TV’s they own?

This made me wonder: Is television high-definition hypnotism, a force so powerful, that not only does it connect as a crucial cause of autism, when used as a primary babysitter; but also that its programming transforms our dream colors?

Beautiful Minds: Stephen Wiltshire

2009-11-28T07:46:00.001-08:00

2009-11-27T11:43:00.000-08:00

Barefoot from Africa by Catharina ©

On a recent cold snowy morning, I was visiting a friend who reminded me that as dazzling as the hypnotic snow is, it’s customary to brush the snow from our cars. Moving slowly and not accustomed to the cold; being from a continent of sunshine with no winters, I find snow enchanting. I was even amused when I saw that the bottle of water kept in my car was frozen.

Funny, in my country there is always a lack of freezers. You have to search for ingenious ways to keep things cool; here you are searching for ways to keep things warm. Odd...funny, inside out and upside down, from where I come. -That is, barefoot from Africa.

As I was trodding around my freezing little blue car, which was the color of my

skin after five minutes out of the warmth of his shack; trying to look intelligent and knowing what I am doing in this cold; I noticed the soft inner feather of a bird's wing stuck in the ice of my car's windshield. I called my friend over and we were amazed at the little message. My friend remarked that birds are messengers and the message mesmerized me. I’ve heard an ancient story about four feathers and inquired about this tale, but my friend could not remember it.

However, in the next breath, he pointed way above us in the sky. As the snow was drifting down from the heavens, we observed a flock of wild geese flapping gracefully through the foggy atmosphere, resolutely migrating to warmer regions.

During the day and the rest of my time at the shack, I became shrouded by thoughts and memories from my past. I had been the victim of attempted murder a few years ago, a vicious act that left me temporarily paralyzed from the head down, and without the ability to speak, read or write for a long period, until I won the fight of my life and recovered.

I remember a dream, or rather a time traveling experience six months prior to the attempted murder. I refer to it as a holographic experience. Some said I was nuts at that time, but criticism tends to makes me stronger and gives me more courage; like the little feather. It was not criticism involved this time, but rather the patience of my gentle and courageous friend, from whom I learn how to be patient with myself, and come to terms with saying goodbye to my many silent self-criticisms.

I am freshly barefoot from Africa. During my long spell there, I learned much about the spiritual paths of our many ethnic black cultures and always held those values in high esteem.

As I grew to know my western friend better, I started learning more about American Indian cultures and their sacred spiritual teachings. Much of those lessons correlate with what I learned in Greece about all religions, while working on my Hypnotherapy degree. Combined with what I learned from African ethnocentric cultures, makes this immeasurable; but most remarkable is the line of connections extracted from book knowledge. Combining book knowledge with inner knowledge, drawn with what I learn from my friend makes for a mind-broadening experience.

I was stuck in making one of the most important decisions of my life. Was it time to bail out of the U.S. and return to Africa? -Not an easy decision if you have lost all your earnings, are down and out financially and facing obstacles of a thorny economy. Although I once ‘owned’ many Earthly possessions, rubbed shoulders with ambassadors, and had a private hospital, I also had an unfulfilling marriage that nearly claimed my life. I gave it all up, because I had visions of fulfilling my life purpose.

What would that be? -Some would ask. To help others, some suggest. Others, I’ve met, who have experienced powerful life-directing epiphanies, asked, what makes yours different? Mine is different and so is everyone else’s, Why? Since we all contribute to a Greater Whole, each of us experiences a unique awakening. It certainly keeps things more interesting that way, the same way we all have diverse personalities, fingerprints, facial characteristics, DNA and dreams. The specific tasks for each individual are different, but it all forms a magnanimous whole, even more so, for those of us who have received awakenings at synchronous times.

Which brings me to my insight: When I was on the opposite end of the world facing my near-death experience, my friend on American soil was phoning his office at the same precise time, to explain he was returning nevermore. My understanding is that he did not know what he was going to do to support himself, but he knew if he didn’t quit that day, he would have soon been snared by the golden handcuffs. This is only a part of the synchronicity he will be able to reveal, when he is ready.[i]

I, on African soil had to overcome a limp unresponsive body and almost defy medical history and predictions so readily verbalized by professionals around my bed. All the while on life-support, I was quite aware of their dire forecast. However, I refused to accept this. I wanted to live. My reservoir of inner knowledge told me where I had to escape, but I had no idea where those tall misty mountains were, nor how I was to get there. The visions came and were confusing at times, but from my limp body I kept asking guidance from the Greater Awareness.

Today I am walking, talking, reading, and writing...obviously not very fluent and with the level of artistry as my friend is, but he is the author of my life story as I reveal the path experiences I have walked. My purpose is to share...to help...to encourage...to love...life with compassion as the Greater Divine Awareness is not a God of wrath; but a God of love...deep, deep love. It is only through our veil of tears and moments of intense anger that we view the Greatness as an authority that is punishing us. So let us now lighten up and tell jokes as my friend would say.

The little soft brown feather was a sign for me. I will be homeless soon, not spiritually without a home, but materialistically. I am currently not making enough money to keep my apartment. That is least of my concerns. As I’ve said before, keeping my breath is more important than retaining the roof over my head. It is scary, but there are more frightening things happening to others. And in times of hardship, I think about how the Great Awareness cares for crows during harsh winters. And I know that somehow, I will be ok; how this is, I do not completely understand, but my reliable intuition strongly whispers that I will be ok.

Upon return from visiting my friend, I studied through candlelit hours, the ancient wisdom of the Native Americans. Then I realized a pattern. That was what the little feather told me and the message revealed itself at the sacred Eastern daybreak. Many Native American beliefs maintain that the divine door you open in your life with intent is the spiritual seed that needs fertile ground and nurturing.

The choice is how to accept the role of nurturing, depending on the situation and state of mind. My current overall situation is neither soothing nor securing. Nor is my frantic state of mind.

Facing the south is a challenge. In Native American Tradition, the wisdom lies in knowing when to advance, and when to be passive. I took the option of wearing the War bonnet...meaning: to take advance. Make the most of the choices you have at hand. Choosing the advance position, you might ask whereto? The South expresses where you should place your faith or where a shift in faith has caused you weakness. Somehow, Western psychology teaches us to contain the child within, which I believe -as one who works in counseling fields- is baloney. I believe that our inner child can often sense the truth better, because of its untarnished faith and innocence. With aspects of our inner child’s pure faith and innocence, we can utilize those strengths, cementing them with our adult logic and reasoning to make wise discernable decisions. Our child within, holds the key to our central knowings; the gem we’ve always had, even at a pre-birth stage. It is our life experiences and conditioning by parents, peers and societal rules that influences us to believe we cannot trust our inner child, simply because society believes it is "childish". We lose ourselves, becoming too serious and stiff about being human. We often cut off ‘being a spiritual being’ while having human experiences.

Coming to this realization, I joined the official Native American Council Fire or the West, seeking better inward answers. To reach my goals, I must seek my own truth as to what I desire, how I plan to fulfill that desire, and what my purpose is in meeting that goal. My purpose is to help others, through my hypnotherapy, and writing; and is this when I realized that I neglected the main rule: That is to delegate the part that I cannot be in control of; the writing. That is the part my friend hungers for, in order to make him whole. I have been known as a perfectionist that tried to do it all and be everything. Moreover, this was the main factor that contributed to the breakdown of both of my marriages. Realizing and facing yourself in the mirror might be hard, but this realization has me elated.

I can organize homes, offices, books and set goals, teach, -but to actually write a book...I suck at it. I would read, proofread and edit, but to write I would get so involved in the actual writing just to dismiss it all in the end. And this is where my friend observes the magic in written words. He sees and observes the value, the magical, the imagination the subconscious at its best in every situation, every experience and he does not even have to believe in the myth of Ernest Hemingway that you need to be drunk in order to write a piece that will seize the reader's attention. Some writers seem to forget, that you do not need to grab the full attention of a given audience right now, but that with the right subject, you can grab the attention of audiences later (contingent on the personal growth levels of the various readers).

When readers feel the need to grow, whether it is a spiritual, mental, physical, emotional or auricle level...they will eventually find your book and/or articles. That is what the council revealed to me, I have unlimited vision, but I have to hand over my visions of dreams to the true author that will bring it to life. From my formal training, I have learned there are different types of dreams; often depending on what time you had the dream during the night. More importantly, there is a dream that I refer to as a time-travel. Time travel can happen even while you are wide-awake. It is a kind of hypnosis. A heightened awareness. It is not intuition - it is a psychic awareness... I did not choose this path; it was a part of my life, a gift even at age 5. That was the first time when I came aware of it. I will not go into details, but it saved my life and that of my mother's. Probably has something to do with why she became so hostile towards me afterward. Her attitude towards me does not bother me as much now. I have forgiven her, because I know she does not understand my gift of second sight. She does not need to understand it and nor do I need to explain it. Accepting her and accepting her understanding is no longer an issue for me. I feel relieved that I don’t have to explain myself constantly after so many years.

I love her and respect her. She brought me into this world. I also recognize that this world does not accept dreamers, although in ancient times such visionaries were highly respected. Back then, as still in some indigenous cultures still today, the place of the dreamer was similar to a prophet or healer. These people traveled into the past to bring forward the good into the present. They saw bad addictive behavioral patterns and helped patients overcome seemingly impossible odds, using essences of clear vision and clarity.

This is much different from standard Western Psychology beliefs that addictions are only related to trauma from childhood experiences and genetics. There is more to the story of addictions; it does not matter the genetics and family experiences: I personally believe that a patient or client can be completely healed without a lot a how-to’s, or years of “let's try this or that.” Addicts already know what is best for them. As a Hypnotherapist, I assist patients to be honest within their selves. I do not need to know their answer, they will know instinctively and intuitively how to share the information with me -if they so wish. Until then, I am there for them without judgment and criticism and with unconditional love, because that is something they have seldom experienced. They do not need authoritarian remarks of 'being the best', "are losers" or "will amount to less than what is expected." Such disparaging remarks breed anger and madness within. Sensitive souls will suppress their anger. Suppression can lead to substance abuse and physical destruction.

And coming barefoot from Africa, to standing here in the snow, beneath the behemoth misty mountains, I constantly search for ingenious ways to keep things at the right temperature.

[i] Editor’s note: I did find it particularly interesting to learn that on the same summer solstice day, when I ended my long newspaper career, Catharina was experiencing some seemingly electromagnetic interference in her African hospital room, while trying to send a package of information to her mentor in Greece, which ended up frying two of her computers.

2009-11-14T11:53:00.000-08:00

Pink Rabbits and Flying Dreams

Last night, I had a fanciful dream that I was back at my old Virginia house. I haven’t lived there for decades, but recently went on Google Maps and flew around the woodsy neighborhood a bit. Something, I’ve admired about my father, is that whenever he bought a house, it was always adjacent to some woods, giving us young rapscallions a healthy place to run around to release our energy.

In the dream, I awoke on Saturday daybreak and went outside, barefoot in my pajamas to collect a Washington Post from our snowy driveway. In reality, we lived on a sleepy dead end, but in the dream, cars could now connect into the forest. In fact, it was a bustling thoroughfare now; some elaborate racecars were speeding into the woods, as one or two old jalopies were pulling out and returning to civilization. Even though it was snowy, I was excited to be back, and thought I would take an encompassing walk around the backyard, while waiting for the newspaper. Still barefoot, I walked to the side yard, to see several children shouting with squeals of glee, preparing to sled down our hill. It was a magnificent morning for sledding, and I thought I would trudge up the hill a way, to be closer to the enjoyment. Halfway to the pinnacle, the children easily maneuvered around me on their toy-sleds. While I reached the top, I saw there were several more houses. The furthest yard was filled with dozens of other children, enjoying some festive event. The first few modern houses were quiet and dim, but the ancient house was where the action was. As I approached, I saw a great cauldron of stew boiling over a fire in the front yard, as the happy children continued to dart about, every which-way. It was a four-story grey house, and I tried to picture it from my past. I remembered it being an old house, even back when I was young. Then in the hub of activity, I spied the property owner. She was somebody, I knew from decades ago, but she hadn’t aged much. She had some wild grey curly hair around the fringes of her head, and everyone there respected her with high regard. Trying to be polite, I asked in a curious voice, above the merry din, “How old is this house?” She was elusive with her answer, but smiled, and then kindly but sternly, grabbed me around the forearms, saying, “I remember your kind; I had to straighten you and your brother out a few times, from some of the trouble you caused out here in the woods.” I thought that this wasn’t necessarily true, but perhaps there was a small element to what she spoke. We briefly conversed some more, then I asked what her name was. She spoke a name so peculiar that I knew instantly that I would be incapable of remembering it. It was as if she had cast a spell upon her obscure name, rendering it impossible to recollect, although, I do remember her long singular name had four “i’s” in it. She released me and I trotted a little further down the wet Virginia clay trail. As the snow melted in the late morning forest sun, I came to two more houses that I remembered from childhood: the last one an old blue Victorian, facing Rabbit Run creek. I vaguely recalled some sort of strange happenings there too, but couldn’t penetrate the decades-old memories to put my finger on it yet.

Suddenly, as I spun around in the wet mud, I realized that I was able to fly again. I was flying feet-first with my bare feet sticking out straight ahead of me. Remarkably, the fact that I was able to fly felt quite natural, as it usually does with such flying dreams. This incubated a thought that I would like to turn my body around and fly like Superman to show the Virginians what their prodigal son had learned, while living twenty years in Idaho woods. They will love this! -I thought in a powerful inner celebration, and they will talk about it for decades! My plan was to fly slow motion past the children’s clamor and their holiday cauldron, giving them the broadest smile I could possibly manage. However, when I tried to spin about, to fly face-first like Superman, there was something off with my inner gyroscope. It led me to a higher altitude, and suddenly I was soaring fast, directly behind four space pilots and four astronauts. Those high-flyers were all relying on spacesuits and other backup technologies, so I laughed at them, as I was flying on mind-power alone. It all felt quite fearless, but for some reason, I was unable to switch my inner gears back down to earth, no matter how hard I tried.

Awakening to present day reality, I lay there motionless for several minutes, lightly buzzing about the powerful flying dream. Then, as the dream partially melted away, it occurred to me that those uncanny houses in the woods were never actually there, but rather had been places imagn’d in my childhood dreams. Vivid places I occasionally revisited over the decades, where many events had taken shape and form – enough to record a small history deep in my subconscious. This made me wonder if this all was merely in my mind, or are our minds potentially much more powerful than what my instructors taught, in our Virginia school of thought? Do we somehow mysteriously connect to otherworldly dimensions, where ongoing ethereal events persist in parallel fashions?

Then I realized that I had been sleeping on a sofa brought home recently as a gift from a friend. The sofa is emblazoned with some cute animals, the most notable of which are some pink rabbits dancing on the pillow, which had been pressing against my dreamy head…

Setting Boundaries

2009-10-11T20:28:00.001-07:00

Great advice from many parameters.

2009-09-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

Monday September 14, 2009 - A Day To Remember

On the evening of September 13^th Doro received a phone call from Darcy Harcourt, a veterinarian technician, who joined Silent Voices a couple of months ago from the Twin Falls area.

Darcy exposed a cruelty case going on in Jerome. Five abandoned starving horses, six caged starving dogs, and one goat whose collar tore into her flesh. Aside from two old bales of hay on the premises, no other food or water were present.

Doro met Darcy at the blinking light on Hwy. 75 in the early morning. Arriving at the abandoned site, they took pictures and videos of the caged animals and the horrid unsanitary conditions these animals were enduring.

Apparently after being in Hawaii for a week, the young couple who owned these animals, decided they were going to stay in Hawaii for six months longer. So they apparently contracted someone to feed the animals but never followed up. They also had two other horses shipped to Hawaii, one was temporarily detained by customs in California due to its emaciated condition. The couple were due back in Idaho the middle of October.

Doro contacted Veterinarian Misty Rhett from Twin Falls who agreed to meet with her on the premises that afternoon. Doro then visited with Sheriff Doug McFall and Deputy Sheriff Jack Johnson who had been informed about the situation the previous Thursday and had inspected the site. She introduced herself and SILENT VOICES to four sheriffs and handed out her cards. They all agreed to meet with Dr. Misty Rhett at the site, but felt they would need to call the State Agricultural Department. Doro handed them the phone number for Inspector John Klimes, who is the State inspector for Jerome County.

At the site it was agreed that the horses needed to be seized. Doro had arranged emergency homes for all five horses. Sheriff Jack Johnson contacted the owners in Hawaii who said they would return as soon as possible. The identity of the person hired to care for the animals remains unknown so far.

Sheriff Johnson informed them that the horses were being taken to a Veterinary Hospital at the owners expense until their return. Inspector John Klimes recommended that these people needed to be prosecuted for violating the Idaho State Statutes. Four dogs were taken to temporary foster care and are looking for new homes. The two older ones are temporarily staying with the neighbors who also agreed to care for the goat until the owners are back.

SILENT VOICES RESCUE effectively cooperated and assisted in this cruelty case. Our goal is to SAVE and PROTECT the animals FIRST while the investigation is in progress. The reason why this was so effective is that all parties were present at the same time, everyone's first interest was the animal's welfare and there was no indifference.

It was not only a day to remember but hopefully a day to duplicate in the future when we all have COME TOGETHER TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

We accomplished what we have set out to accomplish:

To EXPOSE and change the indifference about cruelty to horses and animals.

To ENSURE and ASSIST in upholding the administration and enforcement of Idaho Codes.

To IMPLEMENT a system of immediate care for abused and starving horses.

To EMPOWER, through example, all communities who choose not to tolerate horse cruelty.

Julie Lawson

PLEASE PASS THIS ON!

2009-08-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

The illuminating crown of thorns

Not long after this letter ran, I dreamt that I was in the basement of my old newspaper haunt, briefly hanging out with some former colleagues. Suddenly several of us had inkling to rush out to the back ‘smoking’ lot, where we found an enormous pin oak illuminated by a brilliant golden light, coming from within the tree. The oak had about sixty branches shooting out to the sides, roughly in an equilateral circle. Thirty of these were large branches, too large to encompass with your arms. These were intertwined with thirty smaller branches. Another strange thing about this tree is that somebody had recently lopped the trunk off from its base, which caused the branches to fall out in their great circle. This was also causing the tree to levitate three feet off the ground, as the branches held together like a large crown of thorns.

Well the newspaper couldn’t have a levitating crown of thorns like that, just blocking their loading dock, so the cartoonist figured he could cure this problem by slowing plucking away some of the smaller branches, which might in turn loosen some of the larger ones. After some serious yanking, he pulled out several smaller branches, which did indeed loosen some of the larger ones. Meanwhile, passerbies brushing right alongside the edge of the branches were oblivious to the danger, causing me to act as sort of a flagman.

Then I awoke to a slightly less miraculous world. Or was it a slightly more miraculous world?

2009-05-25T19:56:00.001-07:00

Idling thoughts

Someone approached me recently with a concern of cars idling in Ketchum. Her distress was this:

“Hi there, came across your email on the SVO blog. I am not a blogger, but did join the site. Am new to Wood River Valley. since you seem big into blogging, has anyone blogged about how bizarre and disturbing it is that so many people leave their cars running at the curb while they go about their business in Ketchum. I wrote a LTE in the Express about this... but wonder if it can / ought to be blogged about. Thoughts?
And on that subject, why do so many people drive in Ketchum? It’s so unnecessary! - KT”

I replied, “Welcome to the valley. I think that’s an interesting subject you bring up, and could work well for a SVO discussion.”

A few random thoughts:

In recent years, local authorities have posted several dozen no-idling signs in well-thought out places around the valley. Hailey has a lot of these, as do most schools. I wonder though, how local law enforcement works with this. Has anybody been ticketed or warned for idling their vehicle in one of these zones? What about Prius owners? Maybe the accepted wisdom is that the signs, along with a healthy dose of passerby’s scornful-looks, should be enough to do the trick. (Sometimes finger-pointers utilize Miscellany 2 in the Express classifieds in similar technique)

It sounds like you’re focusing on cases, where people actually leave their cars running, unattended. That’s definitely worse and I have heard of somebody ticketed for this. Frequent naïve attitudes about how crime is practically non-existent here don’t help either. A few years ago, somebody stole a Ketchum man’s car on April Fools Day. Although he had left his keys in the car, he presumed that his friends had played a practical joke, until that afternoon, when he realized it really was stolen.

It would be interesting to get a mechanic’s opinion on idling cars and at what point you should turn your engine off for brief stops. When I used to operate a cab, the company liked us to keep the engines running in wintertime. I’ve seen the same thing with the City of Ketchum, snow removal machinery – sometimes they run the engines for an hour or two, without actually operating the machinery, but to keep them warm and at ready stand-by. Probably a wise choice, when we’re facing harsh single-digit weather conditions.

As far as parking goes, some people allow themselves to become spoiled here. I’m not immune to this either. Where I grew up in a larger city, if I discovered a parking spot within ten blocks of the movie theatre, I felt like I had scored big. Here when you have to walk five blocks it seems like a long slog, until I remember…

Perhaps we could design a poll to complement the blogpost.

Something like:

Q: What’s your favorite idling car excuse?

1. I didn’t want to lose the spot at where my music was playing.
2. I couldn’t find a palm tree to park under and my baby was in the back, so I needed to keep the air-conditioner running.
3. Need to keep beer cool.
4. Practicing Heyoka methodology.
5. High altitudes amplify my natural stupidity.
6. Etc.

I wonder how people would feel about idling, if cars ran off solar / water and emitted no pollution. Some idle observers might not even be interested in the subject anymore, as they tend to focus more on arguing than truly seeking solutions. Some would probably argue don’t forget about the noise they create; but personally, I would like to welcome the sound of idling cars operating effectively off small amounts of water as something to harmonize with; something good enough to whet the environmental curiosity of even the saltiest of Ketchum’s rough-idling dogs.

Bob Dylan - 2004 - "60 Minutes" interview pt.1

2009-05-14T17:18:00.001-07:00

Congratulations to Tony!

2009-05-03T07:56:00.000-07:00

Participants in the Idaho Conversation League writing workshops will be pleased to hear that Tony Evans has won two more Idaho Press Club, Excellence in Journalism awards:

A First Place for the informative and refreshing outdoor feature “Out on the ice”:

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005123796

And a third-place for “Home Building 101” in the Education reporting category.

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005123776

Way to go Tony!

PASSACONAWAY IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

2009-04-24T03:36:00.001-07:00

http://www.sidis.net/PassContents.htm

Rod Serling talks about Writing for Television (Part 16)

2009-04-19T20:56:00.001-07:00

Emmylou Harris 'Wrecking Ball'

2009-04-08T22:17:00.001-07:00

Fiery Hypnologic Anthem

I was floating on a red white and blue noctilucent cloud that I had surfed on some years before. I didn’t realize that this cloud could ever be there again. I had seen it before too, in a cartoon, where Ben Franklin trounced Jimi Hendrix in a tight game of air hockey. This got me thinking about Whiskey Jacques air hockey game and the infernal fire it must have endured next to pool table ball teardrops and melting graffiti.

What did the clean-up workers talk about as they excavated this mess? I hope the demolition boys utilized their imagination, while multitasking Neil Young’s Romantic jukebox song, Under the Wrecking Ball: “Wear something pretty and white, and meet me under the wrecking ball tonight”

But first, I’ll have to cash in some sauce-cash at the ATM, as long as it doesn’t cut my finger again, bleeding through wads of sacred infernal Federal Reserve bills.

This reminds me, surfing freely on noctilucent clouds without a wallet or belt always seemed easier, even though it is floating in a most peculiar way.

My friend

2009-04-02T16:13:00.001-07:00

You come for me often; and sometimes you are welcomed. Sometimes I embrace you like a dear old friend. Sometimes we go for walks together through a forested park. Holding hands like lovers on the verge of a life together. Sometimes we just stay in, and share the night together.

There are other times, old friend, when you are not welcome on my doorstep. Sometimes, you need to just leave well enough alone and go your own way. Go back to the dark cave from which you came and wallow in your own misery.

Those are the brighter days for me. Those are the days the clouds clear to blue skies; the sun somehow seems warmer on my skin and the days that the mountains seem so much stronger and wise thrusting themselves from the earth. The days I shout to you; I am not alone dear loneliness. I am not alone!

The days you are away, I become stronger and more alive. Though, I do miss you, and will welcome your embrace again soon. But I also realize that too much time together with you is a depressing and sorrowful place. We need each other. This I know and accept. We've spent too much time together to have it any other way. But, I need our distance from each other, and the more I am away from you, the more I realize this.

I think it best you no longer show up unannounced. If you want me in your life, please let it be me that sends the invitation. Let it be me that sets the table for two, who lights the candles, and pours the wine. You'll be my guest for now on. When I ask you to leave, just go. Don't talk back. Just go. I am not alone dear loneliness. And I live by my rules now. I am not alone.

-Steve O'Donnell

Prisoners of Gravity: Tolkien (Part 1/3)

2009-03-28T20:57:00.001-07:00

2009-03-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Facebooked

by TONY EVANS

My teenage niece has Facebook friends in her hometown to whom she has never spoken a live word. For some mysterious reason, she would never even acknowledge these people if she were to see them at the grocery store. Did she inherit my unfortunate lack of social skills, or has the popularity contest of life taken on a whole new dimension? I suppose flesh and bones interactions these days might break the spell of who everyone is trying to be in cyberspace.

My own friend-scape is an organic and evolving thing, based on common interests, shifting loyalties and a great deal of happenstance. There is no real rhyme or reason to how we all know one another, but lately I have been wondering what my life would be like if I had been more socially adept and focused all these years. Maybe I would be famous, or rich.

Awkwardness didn't play very well in college where the most popular guys in the room always spoke the loudest, usually about sports. It took forever to find out who I wanted to hang out with, and even longer to know if they wanted to hang out with me. By then I was cut loose on the sea of possibilities known as adulthood.

Still the whole idea of "networking" when it comes to making friends has always seemed a bit creepy and elitist to me. Doesn't it eventually lead to stepping over the homeless person on a sidewalk, rather than picking them up, because we have some pressing social engagement?

The father of one of my old girlfriends once told her, "You marry who you meet. It's as easy to fall in love with a rich guy as it is to fall in love with a poor guy." I had to dump her and her father for their lack of faith in romantic destiny. I like to think we meet whom we meet and love whom we love based on deeper mysteries than the size of our bank accounts, that our personal lives should never be circumscribed like gated communities. Relationships of all kinds help to make us who we are as people, and lasting friendships can emerge from unlikely places. "Don't talk to strangers" is about the silliest piece of advice I ever got as a kid.

Facebook allows us to be selective when finding friends, searching out those with common interests, but when everyone is thinking the same, is anybody really thinking?

Thankfully, Facebook is more than just a handy vehicle for an old girlfriend tour. It's an opportunity to present myself as the heroic protagonist in the epic story of my life. (My profile photo has me at the helm of a sailboat, but it's just a rental.) Facebook can also work like a kind of glass elevator for social climbing. (With careful networking, and some public chit-chat, I could become well known in the Facebook group: Helps Homeless People Up From Sidewalks.)

But to start with, you have zero friends on Facebook, which tweaks your deepest social anxiety, the you-may-have-to-spend-the-night-away-from-the-fire-and-out-of-the-cave anxiety. Two primary impulses ensue: (1) to swing the doors open wide to all and sundry like some kind of Facebook slut or (2) to be selective and Machiavellian, stealing friends from those loud guys I once knew in college (or, in my case, from my sister).

Somewhere between those two extremes I find myself balancing two basic needs: the need for friends and the need for privacy. Facebooking often begins with conversations that ended, and perhaps should have ended, long ago. But it also brings you to old friends who accepted you for who you were, on the street. Maybe you drifted together for mysterious reasons, and then drifted apart for no other reason than that your parents stopped paying your college tuition. Maybe you made a break to some wild blue yonder of the future.

In any case, running the gauntlet with my old crowd on the true landscape of my life reminds me that I had to go then and there before I got to the here and now. There are no shortcuts to growing up, and lasting friendships will always be more than a click away.

How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This

2009-03-21T07:59:00.001-07:00

http://www.geocities.com/nastymcquickly/articles/standard.html

2009-03-19T15:52:00.000-07:00

World-shaking Shakespearian Synchronicities

Over the last moon, I’ve spent considerable time reflecting back on clocks and this Synchronicity post. Recently, a friend pointed out that I would have a ‘magic birthday’ coming up relatively soon, and this would be 12-12-12, when I would turn 53.

While thinking about this, for some reason, I felt compelled to look back at some William Shakespeare. Throughout most of school, I felt as if his work was high over my head, although perhaps I didn’t invest my time wise, trying to understand the great bard. While reading countless intriguing references to Shakespeare since school, I felt like I was missing something and should at least shortcut through Wikipedia to gain a rudimentary Shakespearian appreciation.

One of the first fitting things I discovered is that “Am I a weakish speller?" is a perfect anagram for William Shakespeare. The second thing that caught my attention was that Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, his 53^rd birthday. This started to hit home even more, when I read somewhere that my magic birthday (when I, too, should turn 53) is also a day predicted by many to be the end of the world, as we know it. However, I soon discovered this information was partly backwards, because whenever I Googled “12-12-12” the search engine automatically redirected me to 12-21-12 – the celebrated end of the Mayan calendar. Determined to investigate more about obscure meanings regarding twelve-twelve, I continued on; finally discovering a problem-solving book regarding 12-12-12. Among his many innovative suggestions, the author says,

“I direct clockwork radios with inbuilt torches be distributed to
as many poor tribes
as possible so that they can be informed of the truth and can follow the 12-12-12 initiative wherever
they may live. It is more efficient than dropping leaflets to illiterate people
and there are no batteries to ‘borrow.’”

Therefore, with many 12-21-12 seers predicting doomsday, while the 12-12-12 book mirrors vast solutions for humanity, perhaps when the clock does strikes a final twelve knell, it will also be signaling a powerful new beginning.

Dolphin Bubbles: Science Behind this Amazing Behavior

2009-03-17T02:28:00.001-07:00

The Prevalence of Hobbits

2009-03-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

Tolkien interview from 1967

http://www.nytimes.com/1967/01/15/books/tolkien-interview.html

HOWL-GINSBERG

2009-02-10T19:44:00.001-08:00

Idaho's trail of tears

2009-01-19T02:16:00.001-08:00

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2009/01/18/opinion/centerpiece/153131.txt

Greg Stahl: The time is right to find a way to help fish and the economy

2009-01-19T02:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/story/636286.html

Reader's Opinion from Saturday's Idaho Statesman:

A new day is dawning for salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest. In the span of two weeks last November, the complex chessboard that comprises salmon recovery in Idaho began to look more optimistic for the first time in eight years.

The November elections, pending court verdicts and the recent settlement to remove four lethal dams on the Klamath River in California and Oregon, paint a brighter future for species that have been teetering on the brink of extinction for decades.

However, focusing solely on studies like the one touted in a Reader View published in the Dec. 12 Idaho Statesman is misleading. While the study cited is an important piece of the puzzle, it is only a fragment of a complex issue.

Common sense, to use author Terry Flores' words, suggests that residents of the Pacific Northwest might begin looking forward to a more free-flowing, optimistic era that includes more jobs, restored fisheries, a modernized energy infrastructure that isn't lethal for salmon and a refitted transportation system. Common sense also suggests that many juvenile Idaho salmon that have to survive four dams and reservoirs on the lower Snake River, and then four more on the Columbia River, will die in the process.

While the study's underlying premise that ocean conditions are a major factor in salmon mortality makes sense, a sweeping conclusion that dams make no difference in survival rates is not supported by its authors and is at odds with a long history of independent, peer-reviewed science that says exactly the opposite.

The study, published in October in the open access journal PloS Biology, compares salmon migration and survival in the Fraser and Columbia-Snake river systems. Bert Bowler, a 30-year fisheries biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, maintains the study lacks scientific rigor for drawing such conclusions from two completely different river systems. The tagging mythology used in the study to make the survival comparisons between river systems is precarious at best, Bowler said.

One of the studies' authors also does not negate dams as a major factor.

"Despite the obvious comparison, it would be overly simplistic to say that dams have no impact on smolt survival, because we know they do," said Carl Schreck, a professor of fisheries and wildlife at Oregon State University and the U.S. Geological Survey and an author of the study. "There also may be some additional delayed mortality of Columbia River smolts caused by the stress of passage through the hydrosystem that is not manifested until the fish reach the ocean."

The Fraser/Columbia study has been used in the media and by Flores to argue that a focus on Snake-Columbia dams is misplaced. However, previous studies have established beyond doubt that Columbia-Snake salmon suffer delayed mortality due to dam-related stresses that the fish experience as they pass as many as eight dams on their way to the ocean.

While it is unclear what kind of ocean-related projects could benefit salmon survival rates, it is clear that improving the migration corridor in fresh water will give salmon runs the boost they need most.

With lower Snake dam removal, the critical issues become clear. The key issues are economic, engineering and political. At Idaho Rivers United, we believe that people can find a solution that benefits fish while also helping wheat growers, electricity users and communities. A win-win solution is possible if the new administration and the Northwest's members of Congress seize the new opportunity to create a process in which all stakeholders can sit down to find common ground.

We need all stakeholders involved, including those whose jobs, towns, families and values depend on restored salmon runs.

Greg Stahl is the assistant policy director for Idaho Rivers United.

Down economy hits local recycling

2009-01-19T01:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005124381

Recycled stories like in the above link, often remind me of this article from the Misanthrope's Corner - facetious examination of the politically correct recycling movement:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_8_51/ai_54391027/print

2008-12-04T02:49:00.000-08:00

Elaborations on vision for Statewide Movie Signage proposal

When ITD amended the Wood River Mines sign to include a tribute to Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider it was not as much as we had hoped, however, they did recognize the historical significance of the movie. From my previous experience with Idaho Transportation Department personnel, I sense they have some technologically savvy leaders aboard who embrace innovativeness, and would likely be open to a proposal that better honors Idaho films.

We should start with a prototype interactive movie sign, sticking with Pale Rider. After developing it, we then present it to ITD and the Idaho Historical Commission; perhaps even the governor. Besides the gimmick, I suggested earlier, by utilizing Clint Eastwood’s stern voice; we could design the sign to be vandalism resistant. Although millions of tourists have driven by the mountain goat observation telescopes near the same highway area as our proposed Pale Rider tribute, those instruments have been left mostly unscathed, since installed a decade ago. Interactive kiosks featuring short movie clips, designed in a similarly excellent manner, would automatically gain respect from most passerby. An editor I spoke with recently mentioned that arts and humanities grants are readily available to help jumpstart such projects.

Although Idaho faces a budget shortfall, I strongly believe this is the kind of project we need to embrace to enrich Idaho’s future. The team at the Idaho Film Bureau is already aiming to do this, albeit on a larger scale. Although I’ve lived here 16 years, I’m unsure whether Idaho has a technological czar or anything like that. If not, maybe the governor should consider appointing one, along with a research and development team.

Once we install the first interactive sign, we should have a press release. The movie industry will take note and want more of the same. This might be all we need for the project to take on a life of its own. Once the movie signage proposal merges better with Idaho’s already successful Historical Signage program, we can enhance its evolution by doing several things. For one, the film bureau could develop a ‘donate to your favorite movie’ button on their website. Idaho’s Historical Society, Transportation Department and The Internet Movie Data Base ought to consider a similar donation option. After reading a few items about Idaho movies, some fanzines will likely find themselves wanting to contribute to a cool commemoration. Another timely follow-up would be to commission someone to write a guidebook to Idaho movies, including a map of the landmarks. The signs themselves could direct film buffs to other nearby movie signs.

If this highway project takes off, eventually the Idaho Tourism Bureau could develop Idaho or Northwest movie tour packages, including visits to movies under production. After tourists enjoy brief clips or holograms of the movie near the same site where it was filmed, an educated tour guide could speak more about the movie and answer questions. Questions and answers could also be programmed into the interactive signs, along with a suggestion box that sends e-mails to the pertinent film bureau manager, etc.

Anyhow, these are some more of my random thoughts, regarding the Statewide Highway Movie proposal. I hope that we’ll have some more to follow soon.

2008-11-26T17:16:00.000-08:00

"The Only Tough Part about Having To Film in Idaho Is When You Have To Leave" (Clint Eastwood)

Enlightening Eastwood’s Pale Rider

With a Statewide Movie Signage Proposal

By Jim Banholzer

With special lights from Brad Nottingham & Professor Tom Trusky

Watching Clint Eastwood movies, particularly his well-crafted Westerns are almost like enrapturing religious experiences for some big screen buffs. Each of his movies project priceless lessons, even when he portrays an antagonist, such as the callous elephant hunter in White Hunter, Black Heart. Astoundingly enough, Clint filmed much of Pale Rider right here in Idaho, with a theme as ageless as the Boulder Mountains. Clint plays a nameless preacher protecting a poor prospecting town from a gang of ruffians sent by a greedy mining corporation, to intrude on their claim. This striking film, the first of Clint’s that he produced, was created in 1984 around Boulder City north of Ketchum and over by the Vienna Mine near Smiley Creek. Pale Rider was the predecessor to Clint’s 1992 Academy award-winning gem, Unforgiven.

Each time I watch Pale Rider, I focus on the recognizable background terrain, sometimes freezing specific frames to find my way around the mountains. As my friend Brad Nottingham was a local then, he reminds us, “For Pale Rider, there were some filming issues evident in the film as you see it today, which brought comment: it was filmed in our typically beautiful late Indian summer, and some of the riding scenes were filmed just before and after an unpredictable early season snow, which frosted the upper parts of the ranges, while quickly melting off the lower elevations. As a film viewer, a period of time that seemed to be about a week, appeared to toggle from summer to winter, which brought some criticism, I remember, but any of us mountain folk wouldn't give it a second thought.
In addition, Clint made tremendous effort to restore the site that was disturbed by the building fronts, construction crew, and later the feet pounding of the actors and production crew on the little ridge and river drainage near the quaking aspen groves. Winter seemed to come quickly that year and for a bunch of us, it was hard to spot evidence of the film set trampling that next spring, though we tried. We also tried to find some kind of film crew item or something. Lon and I located "the rock" that one of the miners was chipping on in an early scene from the film.
When it finally came out, Pale Rider sort of stunned people, because it was a break from the Eastwood tradition. He played an even quieter, low-key character, and I remember people being confused about connecting a "preacher" role to him. Others, expecting the active dashing and violent Dirty Harry traditions found this movie kind of slow and spacey, features I didn't mind at all this time. I just soaked in the scenery that I knew was almost in my backyard. I had driven my old Buick Wagon up there, and forded the rocky river crossing half a dozen times, hiking up to some of the "real" old mining cabins and diggings.
Soon afterward, a local man, David Butterfield had us typeset and produce an exhausting field guide to good locations across Idaho, including information about accommodations, prices, in order to drum up more filmmaking interest from Hollywood. After the book was published, I remember that there wasn't much response, until the Bruce Willis engine began churning up sleepy Hailey in the 90s. I still have not rented that weird, forgotten-about movie (Town & Country (2001)) filmed in Bellevue that included Warren Beatty that had a fly-fishing connection, nor the one about Hemingway, but I did see that odd Twin Falls picture(Breakfast of Champions (1999)) that Willis was working on when his marriage to Demi was fast unraveling.”

While reading Brad’s insights, it occurred to me that the filming of this motion picture was a significant enough event that we should commemorate it with a historical sign. Folks at The Idaho Transportation Department were receptive to this idea and revised the Wood River Mine sign to include such a tribute.

While relaying this information to Boise State University English Professor Tom Trusky, head of the Idaho Film Collection, Tom became enthusiastic about the Pale Rider tribute and expanded the idea with a “Statewide Movie Signage Proposal”. To quote Professor Trusky, “The tourist / publicity value of such signage is apparent – and locals might appreciate such knowledge, too, if they are unaware of their cinematic heritage. As well, given the recent interest in bringing film production to the state, such signage would not only be public acknowledgement of Idaho’s considerable contribution to the film industry but also serve as a reminder to contemporary filmmakers of the Gem State possibilities.”

Although we now face uncertain economic times, and are unsure where money will come from to fix and maintain highways, it would be nice when better times arrive, if the Idaho Department of Transportation expands Tom’s Statewide Movie Signage Proposal. By merging the information superhighway with our back road signage, Idaho could show the world how we stand proudly on the cutting edge, as well as being able to cut through bureaucracy.

As technological capabilities continue to advance in affordable ways, it would be uplifting to see Idaho embrace the techno generation by attaching to our already successful historical signage program, interactive items. For instance, when traveling up Highway 75 past the North Fork Store, when reaching the perimeter of interest where Marilyn Monroe starred in Bus Stop, we could make an alert available for interested traveler’s digital devices. A short holographic film of Marilyn hypnotically dancing with a billowing skirt on driver’s dashboards would keep dozing dad’s chipper and alert, lending to driver safety. Then, for the next fistful of history, when reaching Pale Rider’s Phantom Hill, the sound of bullets whizzing by your ear could be the subsequent alert. After a quick Galena Lodge pit stop for perusal over photographs rich with Idaho’s silver history, proprietors of the Sawtooth Valley could smilingly profit by making related material available to satisfy recently whetted traveler appetites. Eventually, we could develop inexpensive solar powered information kiosks for these pullout areas. Our transportation department’s research and development teams could even further engineer the signposts to include emergency communication devices. A camera-eye imbedded within the untouchable hologram could thwart vandals and when tampering is detected, and could be programmed to announce in Clint Eastwood’s best stern voice, “Go ahead! Make my day! Because you are now being filmed by an interactive sign commemorating Idaho Films!” Stranded drivers in remote areas where cell phones don’t work could come to know these signposts as secure places. Drivers passing the Pale Rider signpost might even be inspired to take after the nameless preacher’s lead to assist marooned travelers.

Certainly, ITD already has some technologically savvy leaders aboard. This is the third time I have had a positive experience with ITD leadership, which leads me to believe they embrace innovativeness in their daily working environment. I hope that someday soon, these leaders will advance these landmark ideas past the incubation stage to show how signpost pullouts can transformed into something that truly enhances our Idaho landscape.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

You can read more of Brad Nottingham’s insights on the “good guys” in the Idaho Film Archive on Pale Rider: http://www.boisestate.edu/hemingway/film.htm

Complete text here:

http://privateidahoconversationleague.blogspot.com/2008/03/brad-nottinghams-pale-rider-memories.html

Lastly a related poem:

The Rock

I know about where it is
This big rock with a candy vein of gold in it
Scintillating under the stars

I want to find this Idaho Sword of Shannara
and lay me down under the silver fruit
Press the gold of my ear to the vibration
to sense if I can detect the echo of
when Lurch -or was it Jaws?
Split this baby in half
with an old 1863 hickory stick sledgehammer

Yepperdoodle
I'll bend up over the hill tonite
a-foot
Too itchy and scratchy for a truck in that rough spot
to see if I can't see how these hills have changed

Yeah that's it
I'll pack up the DVD player
better bring a spare battery juice-pack
Cause it's cold in those Idaho hills
I'll freeze frame on the DVD
sections of Mountains in that backdrop
and compare it to our current status

I think of the nameless preacher in the movie
and for some reason the Beatles real nowhere man
jangles my juices like Satchel Paige on opening day

On spectacular evenings like these
Sometimes it feels like we'll still be standing strong
long after these hills have fast eroded away

Original URL for Enlightening Eastwood story:

http://greenvanholzer.blogspot.com/2007/04/enlightening-eastwoods-pale-rider-by.html

Footnote: Soon after posting the earlier missive to my personal blog, I noticed that it was getting twice as many visits as the rest of my stories combined. About a year ago, Dave Worrall from the U.K. contacted me and mentioned he is working on a book for Solo Publishing about Clint Eastwood’s Westerns and was looking for some old photos of the Boulder City territory. After we exchanged a few e-mails, including a photo of the Wood River Mines sign, I suggested that he subtitle his book “Clint Eastwood = Old West Action” since they are anagrams of each other. Furthermore, with a little photoshopping, he could design the equals-sign to resemble a smoking rifle barrel!

Footnote 2: With the Senate recently passing a bill, to create a fund to offer incentives to film movies and TV shows within the state, and with the newly created Idaho Film Bureau ready to offer these incentives, perhaps portions of this funding could help with such a program. Maybe the Idaho Film Bureau could even ask for donations on their website, from those who have favorite Idaho movies and would like to see those specific movies commemorated in such fashion, as the next logical step in the popular Idaho Highway Historical Marker program.

2008-11-26T17:01:00.001-08:00

Half-thought out wars constitute horn-honking emergencies

The Raging Ferndale Grannies are a Michigan group of grandmothers who have been feverishly protesting our wars. While standing out on street corners, they hold up signs that say, “Honk if you are against the war, etc”

However, in some areas they came up against horn-honking laws, so the wise elders edited their signs to read:

Don’t

Honk if

You are

Against

Wars!

This new peace-seeking missive resulted with even more people honking their horns.

Whereas attuned law enforcers say that horns should be honked for emergency purposes only, I couldn’t agree more; and what bigger emergency is there now, than what we face, with heavy cost of our troops hopelessly quagmired overseas?

Therefore, rather than being given citations for disturbing the peace, the devoted Raging Granny Ferndale protestors led by Nancy Goedert should be given commendations for promoting peacefulness, with their diligent efforts to awaken us about how we’ve been wrongly ‘war shipping’ our good mother earth.

Good poems Haiku

2008-11-24T01:14:00.000-08:00

Good poems were not meant

To stay in the top seed drawer

No, they should be shared

Haiku for Tammy's dog

2008-11-17T10:29:00.000-08:00

Coffee Cloud Connection

It quite stunned me when

I saw your dog dash out of

The rainbow, not so

Lost in space, soaking

On the corner of West Croy &

River Street mud cakes

Reflecting puddles

Where a friend saw, you dip-ping

Ov’r united with

Slow section of the

Waterfall, which reminded

Me of my own Tinker

South’rn Belle w/ mystic

Beasts of the sea, future like

And past grasping at

Silly straws in chorus;

You see these hot dogs wag off

On great adventures

When they scent its ov’r

Almost on this sanctified

Earthly seaplane plunge

Yet quite tethered too

The vast enduring unknown

Smile from colorful

Connection was you

Ov’r backstreet clouds wisping gray

Vimana cloaked blinds

2008-11-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

I wonder what percentage of Pythagoreans would have laughed at the old Woody Allen joke, “I was talking with Isosceles the other day about an idea for a new triangle.” It’s best told by substitute math instructors who don lively Copernicus costumes in efforts to hold class attention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa's_Substitute

A good example of underlying mathematical patterns of harmonious music reflecting an inner harmony of the spheres is here:

http://privateidahoconversationleague.blogspot.com/2007/09/harmonics-salt-on-vibrating-table.html

Regarding our outer spheres: science currently has offered limited elucidation for why certain radio waves become disrupted when specific planets conjunct. Not only that; but also, some sky-watchers religiously claim that we are receiving voices from the heavens:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGeWBiLVn8g

Newly discovered newsblog

2008-11-13T03:46:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.kivitv.com/inside_todays_6_news_the_/

2008-11-13T03:32:00.000-08:00

The Statesman should test market edible information products

After delivering millions of sometimes-bland newspapers, I finally came up with a recipe ripe to compete with the Internet; via products you can simply eat, rather than wastefully toss out or recycle:

Start out small, like at the food mall, and then mix nutritious soy based ink with cellulose news columns. Wrap into hermetically sealed rice paper, stuffed with ads. Organically orient the A Section to include everyman’s essential waking vitamins, with a whiff of caffeine providing the Buzz for B. In winter, Lifestyles could supply Vitamin C, to lick the dark.

Occasionally articles come along that are so well written, such as Zimo’s Overlooked diving ducks, that they don’t need extra spices to whet readers hardy appetites.

To alleviate rogue dogs from snatching the tasty wraps from the ground, require home subscribers to maintain a sanitary Statesman box, modified in the form of a child’s toy oven. When neighbors see subscribers pull out steamingly nutritious news wraps, they, too, will greatly desire your munchable broadsheets.

Your first edible edition could proudly proclaim, “Newspaper naysayers eat their words.” To prove this is not a half-baked idea, you could swiftly upgrade your Internet version to include text-message toast. (This is credible)

P.S. When the day comes that you can strengthen your rice paper by bonding it with edible hemp fibers; that too, will be a newsworthy event unto itself.

Well View

2008-10-31T04:21:00.000-07:00

Gee, ever since a handful of vacationers bought second homes in Bellevue, they have become quite uppity down there. Next thing you know, they will pass a pallet ordinance, to inspect everyone’s deck for quality woodsmanship.

So somebody please tell me; if you are secretly living off a well in Bellevue, connected to ancient waters spurting up from pristine Idaho batholiths, instead of attached to metered city services, does that make you an awful grid sinner? And that you should shift to sip meekly from the consecrated city waters?

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005123407&var_Year=2008&var_Month=10&var_Day=31

Seems that living off the grid or being homeless now, is either against the law, or on the cusp of being against the law, in so many communities. In some areas, we now have more foreclosed homes than we do homeless people. Fortunately, community leaders in a handful of places have seen what a crisis our nation is in and have thus gained enough empathy to lighten the laws and/or enforcement of laws regarding squatter's rights, etc.

Of course, a few bad squatters, or actors portraying troublemaking destitute, could perceivable tarnish the name of every person trying to live in closer earth harmony.

And when did living in Tipis become more unsanitary than some of the trailers already trashing Bellevue? Does anyone see the underlying racism inherent in this propheteering gridmeister ordinance? Why not just come out and clearly say we don’t want any dirty Injuns-types living in our town?

If this country continues on the path we are on, soon everybody will need to learn more off-grid living.

My gosh, why doesn’t Bellevue just jump in and force shop owners who sell Tipis to make customers fill out a form, asking in great detail what the purchaser’s intentions are and whether they propose to use the tipi within city off-grid limits?

Better yet, hook into an international RFID chip-warning database, which red flags Tipis and yurts coming apart at every seam. Then hire Homeland Security to outpost Bellevue’s ends. (Don’t forget Muldoon and Broadford) with infrared tent auditing equipment, and utilize face scanning equipment that detects - without a doubt – suspected squatters’ intentions.

Or best yet, why not create an exemption for hemp woven structures, to assure every wikiup will meet building codes for structural integrity, snow and wind loads, and the 2006 energy code for insulation requirements.

Wassup 2008

2008-10-27T14:07:00.001-07:00

2008-10-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

U.S. Slaughterhouse ban creates new dilemmas…

…is what I originally titled this letter to the Times-News, last winter solstice; until the editors improved it, to the more aptly titled “Horses need our protection.” Here is the jist of it:

After 1986 Kentucky Derby contender Ferdinand overcame 18-to-1 odds to become champion, he was later sold to stud in Japan. Then in 2002, the victor was evidently sent to slaughter, prompting a “from winner to dinner” hearkening slogan used by the outraged thoroughbred community in its successful campaign to ban the last of U.S. horse slaughterhouses meant for human consumption.

They still kill U.S. horses for food, you know. And a bad hitch is that many of these once-beloved creatures are beginning to face horrifically longer transports to Mexico and Canada, which excludes federal jurisdiction, from our monitoring for humane treatment. Deplorably overcrowded trailers and more obfuscated slaughterhouses continuing with questionable sanitary practices are hot concerns.

Another problem facing new West ranchers are higher hay prices which, coupled with the slaughterhouse closures, has impelled some to abandon their (mostly unbranded) unaffordable horses onto neighboring ranch and public lands.

For those who haven’t heard, it may come as a jolt to the head, that our championed horses now face even murkier final finish lines before export to lucrative overseas markets where horsemeat has long been considered a delicacy. Some horsemeat, after beyond-border-butchering, makes the long haul back into the United States for exotic animal consumption at a controversial zoo near you.

After this letter posted, we had some interesting follow up discussions. Naturally, such a sensitive subject could be easily misconstrued as my meaning, “it’s just awful to send an old crippled horse to a packing plant.”

Sure, there’s nothing wrong with people who eat horsemeat. As far as I can remember, the same thing goes for robust ham & buffalo-burger munchers - hidden connection between Mad Cow and misdiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease notwithstanding.

Friends have called me a carnivore before. If offered, I might test a tiny bit of horsemeat “to sate my academic curiosity,” like Commander Tibbets, in the spirit of inspecting dark Nagasaki this time of year, back in ‘45. On the other hand, I might change my mind at the last second and turn away disgusted from the holiday dinner table. Afraid I can’t say for sure, til it actually happens to me.

People from PETA poles apart (People Eating Tasty Animals and People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) might agree; that if there’s something more awful than wasting perfectly good meat; it’s the unnecessary harsh treatment, some of these animals are stricken with on their way to slaughterhouses.

Even with the large amount of questionable burgers I’ve madly consumed over the years, I still vividly remember the chapter from FAST FOOD NATION that reveals how the processing plant in Greeley, Colorado slowed production down to a safer level, on days that meat was being shipped to Europe, because they had to meat higher standards!

For those who believe that the term “Humane slaughtering” is oxymoronic, please reflect upon this quote from visionary Temple Grandin; who designed the sweeping curved corrals that reduce stress in animals being led to slaughter and are used for fifty percent of the cows slaughtered in America.

“I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to do, but we’ve got to do it right. We’ve got to give those animals a decent life and we’ve got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal respect.”

And this from Wikipedia:

One of Temple’s most important essays about animal welfare is “Animals are not Things,” in which she posits that animals are technically property in our society, but the law ultimately gives them ethical protections or rights. She uses a screwdriver metaphor: a person can legally smash or grind up a screwdriver but a person cannot legally torture an animal.

In Idaho, horses are considered production animals, whereas in California, the State has deemed horses “companion animals.” This gives horses improved legal rights against inhumane treatment.

However, this is a murky issue, since there are many parameters, which define production animals, versus companion animals. I would be interested in hearing viewpoints from equestrians familiar with this issue, especially anybody who knows about the challenges that the California Humane Society must have come up against, while trying to implement regulations with such far-reaching ramifications.

Every Idaho Agriculture inspector has more than a handful of revolting stories involving severe horse abuse. With the higher price of hay, reports of horses starving in Idaho increased 5% this last year. This summer, The Times-News reported that Horse abuse cases are almost certain to increase and while local law enforcement doesn’t have the resources to cope, the editorial board offered some potential solutions.

State equine regulators and BLM officials fear that in this economic pinch, more Idahoans will dump their horses on rangeland rather than euthanize them. And this has been happening, ever since the closure of the last U.S. horse slaughterhouse meant for human consumption.

Some horse-lovers have wondered how an impact of several thousand horses running newly wild again on BLM lands, compares to the vastly larger number of cows now grazing on Idaho Public Lands. Then again, anybody wanting to speak up against the powerful cattle industry, should probably remember the difficulty given to Oprah.

Truly, the way in which we treat animals, reveals much about ourselves.

This summer solstice, Cassidy Friedman wrote a brilliant front-page article for the Times-News, which encompassed many of these same high horse concerns.

Since then, a new horse rescue operation opened their gates, led by some local concerned citizens. While it took a lot of hard work, their first mission was highly successful, and they found homes for almost all the horses. (I’d be happy to update in greater detail, where this group’s rescue efforts now stand, as soon as I hear back from them)

Meanwhile, here are two stories about “Betty’s Girls Rescue” written by Katy Moeller for the Idaho Statesman:

“Rescued Paint horses in Wood River Valley need homes, help”:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/ourtowns/story/484403.html

And “Paint horses find new homes inValley”:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/ourtowns/story/510809.html

Another Idaho group supporting equine rescue, of older, abandoned and troubled horses is the non-profit Orphan Acres. Twin Falls photographer Scott Sommers has a plan to try to sell 2 million calendars featuring horses, to help support Orphan Acres.

I think the Ag Weekly article “Abandoned horses pose dilemma for ranchers”, describes best the slaughterhouse dilemma many New West Ranchers face, when it says: “There is no perfect answer to this problem, and the horse processing thing certainly is not a solution for a lot of people. But it is for a lot of others.”

With the shift in horse slaughterhouse laws, it’s nice that these rescue operations are giving people one more option to choose from, while they are facing the difficult decision of what’s best to do with the beloved horses they can no longer afford to keep.

2008-10-16T08:29:00.000-07:00

Ginormous Whale Tale

A dozen years back, a whale beached itself directly in front of my Brother David’s seashore apartment. This uncanny event occurred on one of the rare occasions that he was out of town. We considered this symbolic, since David is a top-notch wildlife protector for the State of
North Carolina. While he has a rascally background, Officer Banholzer takes his job as seriously as I do mine -as if our lives depended on them.

Once a whale beaches itself; that’s about it for the creature. The weight of its body, adapted to buoyancy, crushes itself without the encompassing ocean-water to buttress its gravity. Many people wonder why so many of these creatures continuously thrust themselves onto our sandy shores.

Some say that whales are becoming disoriented by modern sea vessel sonar and other mitigating factors –known and unknown. Ever since TV first radiated, we have placed technology on fancy pedestals, while allowing vital nature impact studies to become mostly burning afterthoughts. After all, consider the astronomical disparities between clean oceanography research and NASA’s luxurious ships shuttling through our drone-filled skies.

Could it be that the whales are sending us a bottled text- message from the once crystal seas, that they now mourn the earth we all share? Some look at their giant sacrifice as a clarion call for better caretaking, while others laugh this off as meaningless myth.

Occasionally I browse the North Carolina newspapers where Brother David lives. In fact, a “Mountain Xpress” comes out every Wednesday in the enlightened mountain town of
Ashville. When the entire hullabaloo came into our hollow, about a rancher in Mackay who legally shot a local man’s dogs that were chasing his cows, I found a fascinating story in this seemingly parallel paper. It shows that the ways in which we treat animals, reveals much about ourselves.

See: http://www.mountainx.com/news/2000/0503cruelty.php

After serendipitously discovering this story, I remembered a similar passage from
Carson’s / Sam’s Medicine Cards, which testifies to the loyalty of dogs:

“If Dog has been yelled at or paddled, it still returns love to the person who was the source of its bad treatment. This does not come from stupidity, but rather from a deep and compassionate understanding of human shortcomings. It is as if a tolerant spirit dwells in the heart of every canine that asks only to be of service.”

David gets to bark up all sorts of trees as a Wildlife Officer. In the cover of night, when citizens hear gunshots of unknown origin, police dispatchers page him first, under the assumption that poachers are out spotlighting again and David is the man who knows this territory best. Occasionally he rescues stuck deer, by gently unwinding barbed-wire fences from around their forepaws, using the same strong wrassling moves, I was only too eager to use on him, before he joined the Marines. In between teaching hunter safety courses, David occasionally captures and relocates wayward alligators away from Golf Course Links.

One dark night, David caught a preacher illegally taking deer from a marsh area. The preacher shrieked, in an inhuman voice, “I can’t help it; it’s a disease!” After his court date, the preacher continued crying shrilly from his pulpit, that his parishioners “may have read some things in the local newspaper, but that they are all fallacious.” Soonafter, people attending worship came to David and asked, “What is the truth?” David told them that in this case they should be believers –of the news of record accounts, of their preacher’s poaching conviction!

David has discovered that half the populace will try to take the easy way out, when they think there is no watchdog. Many do not abide by the simple rules. David says that of the potential “violators” he surveils; fully one-half eventually litter something during the course of a typical afternoon. I have often asked him about this and he says that this statistic remains stagnant. Ironically in North Carolina, newspapers and political signage are not considered trash, even if they are stained full of things more unseemly than bloody poaching convictions; before being tossed aside into un-receptacled areas.

Imagine the sausage-like mechanisms that went into passage of a law like that.

Sometimes Brother David finds fish choked in plastic, discarded from six packs. Some wormy anglers find this funny. I suppose then for them, a keg of beer gone overboard, to block up a whales blowhole, is about as good as it gets.

Perhaps the true reason the ocean is so saline, is that every animal on earth has been filling it with saltwater tears, trying to rinse clear their eyes from how diseased men have wrongly war-shipped good Mother Earth; ever since we tossed the first rotten apple core aside; violating that archetypical preacher’s foremost snaky riparian area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lAmUpKzRrg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zho0rS6m7o

2008-10-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

The little collider that could dance

Friends asked me to try to determine what the secretive construction project at the old Drug Store is, so I spied up the hill and saw right away that they appear to be building an extension of the Great European Hadron Collider, in the subterranean tunnels beneath Hailey’s streets! The reasoning behind this is that European dance floors close their doors, around the same time that bands in the Western U.S. are beginning to warm up. In this manner, we will be able to transport our European partying pals here and decompress them in time, so they may buy dinner at a local restaurant, before dancing the night away.

The ambitious project will soon extend into a great zero beneath Hailey’s busiest streets and will be a positive boon for our fledging economy. Sworn-to-secrecy archaeologists will take great care overseeing documentation of every opium pipe and historical artifact unearthed from the ancient Chinese tunnels. An extra benefit to Hailey’s Hadron collider will be a radiant heat effect, cleansing Main Street of pesky ice, while enhancing the lifesaving effects of our innovative LED crosswalks. This will also make it more suitable for waltzing around town in dance shoes.

While it’s true that we are not yet officially up to snuff for instantaneously transporting humans on a regular basis, by the time construction is complete here, say December of 2012, the greater scientific community will have by then become more enlightened of the psychical similarities between photons spiraling and angels dancing on their respective high-speed atomic pins.

This will become a frequently pinpointed topic of conversation at Chester’s & Jakes.

After the freewheeling Euro-spending patrons finish their nightly dancing under Hailey’s mighty stars, some will desire immediate transport over to Tokyo or Hong Kong, where the fanciest dance palaces there, will just be opening. As Hailey will mushroom into a major dance hub, entrepreneurs will demand space for more local nightclubs. Heavily pressured council members will then convert part of the mostly obsolete Friedman airport into a wide dance hall. As a backup plan, a short runway will still be made available for emergencies, such as the rare occasions when the collider might break down, to the point that replacement parts cannot be drop-shipped directly through the transporting collider, to itself. Although private aircraft hobbyists will still occasionally land at Hailey’s shortened runway, a larger portion of the old airport will transform into a Choo-Choo station, as town sentimentality for nowhere going Mountain Express trains will win out in a hard-fought compromise.

A strong selling point of the meteoric transmogrifying collider was that it would bring humanity some of the peaceful projects we’ve been starving for, perhaps even ending all wars! However, on the offbeat chance that our Eurasian and Eastasian conflicts will continue past 2012, farsighted City official’s should set aside specific sections of the valuable airport land for relevant projects.

2008-10-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

I have a Disc-Golf Dream

By Jim Banholzer

Men spend their time in following a ball or a hare; it is the pleasure even of kings. - Blaise Pascal - The Penses: 141

Ever since my friend Colt - who we sometimes call the Dick Fosbury of Disc Golf - turned me on to the sport two decades ago by showing me some thrilling trick shots, I felt that Disc Golf was going to have a great future, perhaps someday even evolving into an Olympic demonstration sport.

For those who don’t know much about Disc Golf, and would like to learn more; perusing through a few linked websites is informative; while even more instructive are several in-depth YouTube demonstrations. A common theme is that courses can be found in almost every city, with the majority accessible at no cost. Unfortunately, our area of Idaho is one of the rare exceptions. The good news for disc-enthusiasts, though, is that this could soon change, with a recent Sun Valley Online poll indicating that our community has more than a passing interest in the inventive sport.

The inexpensiveness of installing and maintaining disc golf courses makes a good argument for more recreation districts, schools and cities to embrace and construct them. A new disc-golf course would greatly complement our other excellent recreational amenities, especially our destination skateboard parks, to which world-class athletes have already flown for the singular purpose of using.

Most Disc Golf courses are wheelchair friendly, while injuries are seldom. The receptacle baskets are designed, so you can easily move them out of the way when multipurpose field needs arise. The baskets also lock down onto non-protruding metal bases to prevent theft. You can even shift the poles into different positions to avert soil erosion and to make the courses more interesting. Seeing that this sport attracts users of all ages, our abundance of public lands, should offer plenty of options for courses where kids in their single digits could share lighthearted smiles, alongside easygoing Idaho old-timers.

A few years ago, some outdoor disc fans cobbled together a makeshift course up Ohio Gulch. However, a Bureau of Land Management agent soon informed the players that they needed a permit to continue and the course was dismantled. It could be that a few bad apples here ruined a good thing, but I don't know the full story. For a while, there was talk of procuring a permit, with the BLM officer offering advice, but then those efforts seemed to float away. It would be interesting to hear from any readers linked with that course.

We local disc-golf-enthusiasts should be able to map out a handful of potential sites and then present our case to the relevant authorities. If the permit-issuing powers-that-be are indecisive, we could ask them to allow a demonstration course and then let the public use it for a season, before gathering more useful public input.

It would be nice so see us lay out some snowshoe disc-golf courses around South Idaho this winter. Perhaps we could start with a prototype in the wide-open area by Billy's Bridge. This would require taller poles, especially in years when local bees build higher nests in anticipation of heavy snows.

Other appealing sites that visionary disc golf aficionados have suggested for potential courses are:

The area upstream from Magic Reservoir

Picabo Desert near the lone water hazard

Between the two remote East Fork Campgrounds

Area by the new Woodside Park

Some of the airport sites not chosen for the new airport.

Near the Galena Lodge or Tornock yurts

By the Wildhorse Canyon campgrounds, working your way up to the secret waterfalls, with hole-18 behind the widest fall.

Pole Creek drainage, over by Smiley Creek

Frisbee disc golf courses have flourished in most areas, so why not here? Although I have not yet achieved a hole in one, I sometimes daydream that soonafter we christen a new course here, my friend Colt will witness me score my first Idaho Ace. Chances are though, that this will be flipped the other way around, as he once attained 17 under par, at Virginia’s challenging Burke Lake course.

~ ~ ~

Footnote: Soonafter writing the above, I was able to get in contact with some authorities well versed in how permit processes for projects like this usually work. They reminded me, that a proposal like this in the SNRA (as with the recent Galena Cell Tower efforts) would likely run up against a great deal of bureaucratic red tape. Although, I was looking forward to using my multifaceted cell phone to keep score on a Billy’s Bridge snowshoe course; it probably makes more sense to kickoff a disc-golf project in a recreational area that is openly trying to attract more park-goers, such as Woodside’s brand new Keefer Park.

This sounds like an excellent place to begin shifting this idea past its long incubation stage. So stay tuned to this channel, for more disc golf news. And thanks again Sun Valley Online for your insightful poll!

2008-09-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

In large support of the Galena Cell Tower

I can certainly understand how the Forest Service would not want to give permission for a cell tower very easily; but now we taxpayers are paying for two factions of the government to fight it out. This reminds me of a recent occurrence in Hailey. Also reminds me of when George Carlin said that he was going to buy a humidifier and a dehumidifier for his basement and plug them both in, to see who wins.

A friend from back east, told me there is an American Legion in his neighborhood that wanted to install a cell tower on their property. Many naysayers came out of the woodwork and maybe it is not a good idea to have cell towers in close proximity to elementary schools until we know more, but anyhow, once he resubmitted his proposal with an American flag atop his tower, most of the naysayers flip flopped and began supporting his wrapped in flag tower.

Some readers probably remember that I have made some past statements in strong support of the lifesaving Galena Cell Tower. I still stand by those comments and now since Homeland Security has resuscitated this important issue; would like to repost my earlier Galena tower reflections here:

Cell Towers can be lifesavers:

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005118622

The safety benefits of a cell tower at Galena far outweigh its appearance:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/story/449527.html

And; Cell phones, not cell towers, are the problem:

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2008/08/18/opinion/letters/142510_78.txt

Ann Sothern Dauntless

2008-09-30T05:08:00.000-07:00

Great 1987 N.Y. Times article about Ann Sothern in Idaho

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DEFD61F30F932A25753C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

2008-09-22T08:49:00.001-07:00

How will aircraft avoid the new gondola cable?

I’m concerned with the sightseeing aircraft flying daily around Baldy that eventually one of them could hook this cable, causing a horrible tragedy and wondered what steps are / can be taken to alleviate this uneasiness. After all, aircraft have unstrung gondola cables in a handful of unfortunate incidents in other cities.

Working for a brief period in the airline industry, I have a slight understanding of how NOTAM’s, updated maps and restricted flying areas work, but I wondered if somebody more vastly experienced with such flight issues might explain this in fuller depth. For instance, what will the height of the gondola be when it crosses over Highway 75 and how does this compare to normal altitude ranges of various aircraft flying over Ketchum?

Some pilots do not follow every rule to the tee and occasionally pilots become bewildered, due to inclement weather, fatigue or mechanical difficulty. Locals may remember the crash above Owl Creek about a dozen years ago, when the octogenarian pilot apparently mistook Ketchum for Bellevue and kept flying north looking for Hailey, until he crashed. Also, a couple of summers ago a pilot landed his small Cessna on Hailey’s airport runway, even when there was a large X marked indicating that it was closed due to construction. Locals must also remember that over the years we have had dozens of crashes in the hills around here. So what is to prevent a similar wayward plane from eventually snagging the gondola cable?

Would it help to dye the cable florescent orange for airborne sightseers and paragliders who might momentarily forget exactly where it is strung?

Again, I appreciate any feedback on this that aviation experts in the community can give.

Project Censored's top 25 censored stories of 2008

2008-09-22T06:45:00.001-07:00

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/category/y-2009/

2008-09-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

More archiving thoughts

Being a furniture mover with the secret identity of a writer and vice-versa, I wondered how the Wood River Journal was going transport their 127 years of archives, along with its customized bookshelves into their new building across Main Street.

Someone told me that the new publisher, Jerry Brady took these valuable assets to Idaho Falls; presumably to patch up the books that were falling apart and possibly begin a scanning project, working hand in hand with expert Mormon Church genealogy archivists.

That's refreshing to hear, since there is a chance that the Journal will fold by the end of this year. Evidently, their grand announcement of partner shipping with Sun Valley Online never got past the inkubation stage. It would be a shame to see their historical archives warehoused in a place permanently unavailable to the public.

The other thing that would happen with the Journal’s demise would be the lack of healthy competition, which as Statesman editor Kevin Richert suggests would likely result in a slip in quality at the remaining newspaper.

Last year Shea Anderson wrote a piece for High Country News about a New Mexican newspaper, where he used to work, that recently went to the wayside. I responded to Shea’s story with a fundraising suggestion regarding preservation of archives for newspaper going out of business and later passed this on to the Newseum curators.

They were open to this idea, but at the time had their hands full in preparation for the grand opening on our National Mall.

It’s too bad that libraries and newspaper don’t work in closer proximity with each other. For instance, are librarians scanning newspapers into Pdf’s when they could be better investing their time by having the newspaper production managers e-mail them the same thing? Do they ever even discuss such items with each other? Some communities probably work more streamlined than others do, but newspaper insiders here say that whenever they try to obtain grants for such special projects, they come up against a lot of flack, because the newspaper is for profit. Hard to say but it could be that personality issues are flies in these printers ink ointment frays.

Meanwhile, Google has been raising newspaper morgues from the dead.

2008-09-06T08:25:00.001-07:00

Is the Post Office trying to be competitive?

A few decades ago in most areas, dedicated postal workers used to pick up mail from neighborhood drop boxes in both mornings and afternoons, where neither snow nor rain nor gloom of night stayed those couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Now they’ve uprooted many of these old neighborhood boxes. Of the ones left, they’ve cut their diligent pickup efforts back to afternoons; meaning that if you mail a letter into your neighborhood postal box, it will arrive a day later than previous.

Currently, your post office is considering cutting back Saturday deliveries. If they “succeed” this means whenever we have a Monday holiday, home delivery will be absent for four-day spans. This makes me think that for better service, many people will shift over to UPS, Fed Ex, or txt mssg.

Another thing that chaffs me about the Post Office trying “to save money” is that they are eliminating the stamp machines from their own lobbies. Although they broke down occasionally, those innovative machines were the kind that gave dollar coins for change, and were prime examples of good government efficiency. The dollar coins put into circulation from stamp machines last 10 to 20 times longer than bills, thus lessening the cost of printing more money.

Although there are some indicators that the Post Office is trying to stay completive with its online services, when we see the basic bread and butter services offered for so many decades sink to the wayside, Postmasters in general, are sending us mixed messages.

Another Ant Tribute

2008-09-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Tony,
I kept thinking about that heroic alpine ant you witnessed and remembered this Anthropik Network special tribute to the ants:
anthropik.com
"I noticed, when she delivered the plate of fruit, that my Balian hostess was also balancing a tray containing many little green bowls-small, boatshaped platters, each of them woven neatly from a freshly cut section of palm frond. The platters were two or three inches long, and within each was a small mound of white rice. After handing me my breakfast, the woman and the tray disappeared from view behind the other buildings, and when she came by some minutes later to pick up my empty plate, the tray was empty as well.
On the second morning, when I saw the array of tiny rice platters, I asked my hostess what they were for. Patiently, she explained to me that they were offerings for the household spirits. When I inquired about the Balinese term that she used for "spirit," she repeated the explanation in Indonesian, saying that these were gifts for the spirits of the family compound, and I saw that I had understood her correctly. She handed me a bowl of sliced papaya and mango and slipped around the corner of the building. I pondered for a minute, then set down the bowl, stepped to the side of my hut, and peered through the trees. I caught sight of her crouched low beside the corner of one of the other buildings, carefully setting what I presumed was one of the offerings on the ground. Then she stood up with the tray, walked back to the other corner, and set down another offering. I returned to my bowl of fruit and finished my breakfast.
That afternoon, when the rest of the household was busy, I walked back behind the building where I had seen her set down two of the offerings. There were the green platters resting neatly at the two rear corners of the hut. But the little mounds of rice within them were gone.
The next morning I finished the sliced fruit, waited for my hostess to come by and take the empty bowl, then quietly beaded back behind the buildings. Two fresh palm leaf offerings sat at the same spots where the others had been the day before. These were filled with rice. Yet as I gazed at one of them, I suddenly noticed, with a shudder, that one of the kernels of rice was moving. Only when I knelt down to look more closely did I see a tiny line of black ants winding through the dirt to the palm leaf. Peering still closer, I saw that two ants had already climbed onto the offering and were struggling with the uppermost kernel of rice; as I watched, one of them dragged the kernel down and off the leaf, then set off with it back along the advancing line of ants. The second ant took another kernel and climbed down the mound of rice, dragging and pushing, and fell over the edge of the leaf; then a third climbed onto the offering. The column of ants emerged from a thick clump of grass around a nearby palm tree. I walked over to the other offering and discovered another column of tiny ants dragging away the rice kernels. There was an offering on the ground behind my building as well, and a nearly identical line of ants. I walked back to my room chuckling to myself. The balian and his wife had gone to so much trouble to daily placate the household spirits with gifts; only to have them stolen by little six-legged thieves. What a waste! But then a strange thought dawned within me. What if the ants themselves were the "household spirits" to whom the offerings were being made?
The idea became less strange as I pondered the matter. The family compound, like most on this tropical island, had been constructed in the vicinity of several ant colonies. Since a great deal of household cooking took place in the compound, and also the preparation of elaborate offerings of foodstuffs for various rituals and festivals, the grounds and the buildings were vulnerable to infestations by the ant population. Such invasions could range from rare nuisances to a periodic or even constant siege. It became apparent that the daily palm-frond offerings served to preclude such an attack by the natural forces that surrounded (and underlay) the family's land. The daily gifts of rice kept the ant colonies occupied and, presumably, satisfied. Placed in regular, repeated locations at the corners of various structures around the compound, the offerings seemed to establish certain boundaries between the human and ant communities; by honoring this boundary with gifts, the humans apparently hoped to persuade the insects to respect the boundary and not enter the buildings.
The maintenance of such boundaries is the essence of magic, but our civilization has lost its magic, and we have violated every boundary. We've been as short-sighted as the man who hated frogs. Could it ever be as simple as just asking the frog to come back to our stream?"

2008-09-01T11:22:00.000-07:00

Sharing a basketball trade secret in the Olympic Spirit

Along with a billion other riveted viewers, it was with great interest that I watched Yao Ming ceremoniously open the first game versus the United States by zinging through a three-pointer. During a break from the game, the T.V. featured a brief documentary of how popular basketball has become in China and as a lifetime basketball aficionado, this also enthused me.

With the economic development of China, incorporating thousands of new basketball-courts into the land, I would like to point out an observation from the viewpoint of aspiring school-ground players. Every bouncing kid knows that when they come upon the court, if the net is torn or missing, it takes some of the wind out of their sails. With the great expense of new courts, poles and baskets, the net is usually first to go bad. And with the nets gone, children will often go off to play a different sport.

Nylon nets attached to heavily used basketball hoops, often wear out within a few weeks. A way to remedy this is to soak the net in boiled linseed oil for a day and then let it dry out for another, before hanging it from the basket. Preparing a net in this way increases its life tenfold. Soaking a net in linseed oil sometimes shrivels it up a bit; requiring maintenance staff to shoot swishes for stretching it back out.

In this manner, the workers will have achieved what many amateur basketball players dream of, as they will then be receiving pay for shooting baskets!

In the course of writing this, I discovered some other solutions:

http://sporting-goods.pricegrabber.com/basketball-court-accessories/m/37652299/

http://www.empiresnowboards.com/B000MKPZPS/Cablenet-Glow-in-the-Dark-Basketball-Net.html

George Carlin - Saving the Planet

2008-08-23T20:21:00.001-07:00

A couple of new interesting websites

2008-08-19T18:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Lauren K.

http://www.interestingideas.com/home.htm

http://www.interestingideas.com/roadside/names/names.htm

george carlin nails it

2008-08-15T20:53:00.001-07:00

2008-08-14T08:50:00.000-07:00

Kudos to Monuments that get it right

It’s refreshing to read that curators will be refurbishing the Boise Abe Lincoln statue, and transporting it from its obscure foliage-hidden-area, at the Veteran’s Home to a more prominent spot, in time to celebrate our Great Emancipator’s 200^th birthday.

This move follows the spirit of Washington D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial, in the sense that our ancestors deliberately installed this monument in a remote area of the National Mall. Although this tied in symbolically with the remote nature of Lincoln’s personality, people wanting to honor the man more, made the pilgrimage to that isolated mall area so much, that we have transformed it into a “destination monument.”

For more about what our historic sites get right or wrong, check out Dr. James W. Loewen’s groundbreaking, Lies Across America, also author of the American Book Award winner Lies My Teacher Told Me.

From the book: “More than any other marker or monument on the American landscape, it continues to speak of later times, even of our time. Its fascinating history offers suggestions as to why some historic sites “work” while others do not.”

2008-08-11T18:10:00.000-07:00

O Stone be not so

In palindromic fashion

Mr. Gee (brashly presenting himself for the first time): Madam, in Eden, I’m Adam

Ms. Stone (thinking): SOS EVE SOS

Mr. Gee: O Stone be not so

Ms. Stone: (referring to pet wolfs) Step on no pets!

Mr. Gee: Too hot to hoot?

Ms. Stone: Ma is a nun as I am

Mr. Gee: Y flow wolfy?

Ms. Stone: Kook!

Mr. Gee: Level madam level!

Ms. Stone: Draw no evils deeds live onward

Mr. Gee: Draw o coward

Ms. Stone: Won’t lovers revolt now?

2008-08-10T10:41:00.000-07:00

Western U.S. to Have Best Glimpse of Next Week's Perseid Meteor Shower

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,400441,00.html

2008-08-08T08:48:00.000-07:00

How powerful is Television?

I’m not an expert on autism, but last summer I took a psychology class for the first time since the 1970’s. I remember reading from a textbook in the previous psyche class, three decades ago, a statement that claimed 95 percent of Americans dream in black and white. That study was made in the early 60's -an era when over 90 percent of TV shows in America were watched through black and white sets.

The textbook from my recent College of Southern Idaho class, claimed exactly the opposite -that 95 percent of Americans dream in living color! What was there to explain for this grand shift? Could there be a correlation between the tones of Americans dreams and the types of TV’s they own?

Is television high definition hypnotism, so powerful that not only is it crucially connected as cause of autism, when used as a primary babysitter; but also that it influences the colours of our dreams?

2008-08-02T22:45:00.000-07:00

Civilizing Cells Bells

While the Galena Summit anti-cell-tower crowd may have a legitimate complaint about the potentially dreadful manners of drivers who might blab on the phone, while distractedly driving over Galena’s slippy slope, when taken in context with the multitude of benefits that a lifesaving tower could provide, they have blown this argument out of proportion.

As with most tools, we can use cell phones for a mix of good and bad purposes. Parents can call to check on their children during extended voyages, to remind them how tenderly they care about them, whereas somebody barreling in the opposite direction might be verbally abusing a victim at the end of their line.

If we become receptive to a Galena cell tower, it will then become drivers choices to use their potentially lifesaving phones in responsible ways - just as in ranges where cell phones already work. Travelers will have the option to ignore their phones if they ring on dangerous curves, or even turn them off, until there is a real emergency.

We can utilize cell phones as lifesaving tools, even on dangerous icy roads. I have worked an abundance of nighttime delivery jobs, where we would sometimes fight the sleepies, driving on mostly barren roads into the wee hours, without much stimulation besides a scratchy AM radio. Soon, my co-workers and I discovered that by simply calling each other to check in and converse for a few minutes, over our hands-free sets, that is was usually stimulating enough, to help keep us safely awake for the remainder of the night.

While some tower-naysayers claim that life-threatening incidents around Galena are exceptionally minimal, readers need simply Google Galena Idaho Crash to discover hundreds of harsh scenarios, which would have likely ended with outcomes that were more fortuitous, had not this zero-reception-bar area, been crippled by non-coverage.

One member of the anti-tower throng claims that if there is an incident, then it’s only ten minutes to the Smiley Creek phones. That zippy statement is shortsighted, as it does not consider one-car rollovers, Forest fires raging over both lanes, head on crashes or avalanches that block both lanes and renders vehicles (and drivers) inoperable, and a dozen of other unfortunate circumstances, “that nobody could have ever foreseen.”

When our miracle technology, better blankets the SNRA’s beautiful woodlands, will drivers use their phones responsibly? Perhaps some will not. It’s easy to envision a few who will pay less than full attention on hairpin turns, while stupidly yammering away on cell phones. Often these types are the same oblivious individuals who, while steering with one finger, might munch on a slippery pickle sandwich, sip a cold pop, apply an emergency splotch of eye shadow, or blast the radio too loud to hear an ambulance coming.

How people decide to use or misuse, the great gift that the Campbell’s and Idaho Tower are trying to provide, is a mostly separate issue, from the tower itself. If we discover that people senselessly chattering away while driving, has become an Idaho epidemic, than we should follow other states lead, and mandate hands-free use for travelers in motion. Meanwhile we Idahoans should be more thankful for the potential of this far-reaching miracle technology and for the great mixture of people who make it possible.

2008-07-29T21:14:00.000-07:00

Falls Church

When we finally arrived at the woodland falls, somebody had parked a Toyota there, but they weren’t around. Here, I revealed the note to my companions, but they seemed perplexed as to its meaning. I stripped myself of the extra supplies and emptied all pockets before quietly sunning on a large flat rock. This enormous rock was next to the deepest water hole and it faced perfectly into the best afternoon sun. The rock is large enough to hold one of the families we saw earlier in the day. If I become more star-savvy, perhaps one night I will lug up some simple astronomical sextants and whatnot to measure our nighttime sky from this rock to determine if it orients toward celestial noon.

I located a few sticks to throw in the water for Lucas. From previous experience, I knew he would be careful, because whenever he draws near a dangerous looking area, like the current of the cascading falls; he approaches very tentatively, sometimes waiting for the stick to float upstream to come into easy grasp. After a while, he got used to the slippiness and saw that if he tiptoed across the moss carefully, it was probably safe to pull a thrown stick from any area of the falls where we played.

After splashing around downstream for a while, I finally submitted to the deep immersion. “Cold!” I cried aloud, while quickly bobbing back to the surface. Reflecting above the water, I wondered what the enduring waterfall here looks like in winter. I thought again about the note and remembered that Wildhorse is where; two decades ago, Marcus shot a Mountain Lion with small ears. They attributed the small ears to the coldness and the fact that the Mountain Lion wintered in an area where it sometimes reaches forty-below. The cutting frostbite, shortened the Cougar’s extremities at its ears, and shaved some length off its tail.

I baptized myself in the water two more times. The third time Lucas came over with a high look of concern to ensure I was okay. This reminded me of a time when Maddie-Lou did the same thing at these very falls and pawed at me while my head was underwater. It was a very sentimental moment for me again, as I had been talking about Maddie with Laura only days before at Shorty’s Diner, where a deep sadness came upon me as Laura spoke Maddie’s name aloud. Her words made me think about Maddie-Lou and Dartmoore and the wonderful lives they led.

2008-07-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

Advice from Pythagoras

Do not eat the black-tailed fish

Avoid the flesh of animals that die on their own

Do not polish a seat with oil

Never speak when facing the sun

King Crimson

2008-07-20T17:44:00.001-07:00

2008-07-19T18:37:00.001-07:00

Law of the jungle

by TONY EVANS

http://www.mtexpress.com/story_printer.php?ID=2005121653

Nature tries hard. I was watching a black ant drag a flake of oatmeal through blades of grass at an alpine lake last weekend, thinking what a hero the little guy was going to be when he got home, when it occurred to me how much junk I had to carry to survive for a few days in the wilderness.

A few weeks ago a series of aerial photographs were sent around the world showing a small clan of "uncontacted" natives living in the rainforest of South America who continue to live independently of the modern world, without drug stores, shopping malls or movie stars. A similar group of aboriginals, the Jawara, were photographed by rescue planes above the Andaman Islands south of India after the devastating tsunami of 2004.

Unlike the needy and malnourished millions at the bottom of the first world pecking order, these fourth world people resist outside help, usually shooting arrows at the airplanes flying over them. Do these people know something we don't?

An estimated 500 uncontacted tribes numbering about 100,000 live very much off-the-grid around the world today, relying on an intimate knowledge of, and interaction with, their environments to survive. The mere existence of these people reminds me that we are all very much a part of the natural world. Their animistic belief systems often attribute living, conscious qualities to the forces of nature, and provide myths to explain the interactions of creatures within the jungle. Scientists do this too, in their own way, pushing forward the frontier of conscious understanding with each generation. Some of them see a hidden wisdom in the natural world.

NASA scientist James Lovelock first presented the Gaia Hypothesis in the 1960s, which holds that the living matter of the Earth (everything from ants and plants, to bacteria and humans) functions like one enormous, self-regulating organism. Lovelock's theory places humanity with thousands of other life forms as an unwitting constituent of a larger intelligence, far beyond our own. Branded a neo-pagan weirdo by the biological science community early on, Lovelock's ideas are gaining momentum in an academic world, which is rapidly becoming more interdisciplinary.

Just as Lovelock crossed the boundary between biology and metaphysics, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson joined biology and sociology (sociobiology) to find scientific reasons for human belief systems. He began by studying the lowly ant, which he said outweighs humans in terms of body mass on the planet, and performs vital chemical reactions which make life as we know it possible.

Wilson came to believe that humans, like ants, are genetically designed to live within natural limits. It is becoming increasingly obvious that those limits are directly related to reduced energy use and consumption of natural resources, family planning, and cooperation among societies, rather than competition.

Now that both the educated and the chic are falling all over one another to be greener than the next, perhaps we should contemplate the lifestyle of those last remaining landlords of the jungle and start shooting some arrows of our own at the bad ideas thrown at us by the advertising machines of our post modern age.

2008-07-16T19:06:00.000-07:00

Galena cell tower would have offered great benefits

A friend brought it to my attention that some of the people, who adamantly wrote against any positive aspects of cell phone use in our Sawtooth National Recreation Area and surrounding region, and who won't buy a phone on principal, think it's perfectly OK to borrow other people's phones to make their important calls.
Something else that's not being talked about much is that some people in small Idaho communities still unsecured by cell towers hesitate to speak their true feelings out of fear of being shunned--or worse--by the prevailing Flintstone-aged attitudes of their townspeople.
In one community, this fever reached such a high chirping pitch that even a physician went on public record to speak out against cell phone towers. So far, though, I have not heard any police or emergency medical technicians make convincing arguments about how the potential unsightliness of Galena's cell tower--or any other tower--would outweigh its multitude of benefits.
Some naysayers worry about how the safety beacon on the hill might smear the landscape if pine beetles munch their way over Alexander Ross' ancient pass. If this does happen, it is actually one more reason to install a cell tower on that exact spot, as it will have then become more avalanche-prone in this dangerous area where young sports-enthusiasts have already lost their lives after needlessly suffering because of extended communication delays.
Another anti-cell tower argument is that telephonic technology will soon orient towards satellites, which will render cell towers obsolete. However, what happens when a satellite goes defunct; locks up, or is shot down by our enemies? In the eventual likelihood of one of those events, wouldn't most people hope that we had the foresight to construct a dynamic back-up plan?
Cell towers should complement satellite technology and vice-versa. When we develop an innovative device that operates off both of these great technologies, that's the kind I want. And no matter what the cost, I will happily share my unlimited cell-minutes with any party that comes up against sudden unexpected distress, in our attractive SNRA, when we finally implement the enlightenment of cell phone service here.

Footnote:

http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005118622&var_Year=2007&var_Month=12&var_Day=26

2008-07-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

From PLUM TV:

A Summer Guide for Sun Valley

Editor-in-Chief Michael Ames talks about the summer edition of the Sun Valley Guide & the issues concerning the Wood River Valley.

http://sunvalley.plumtv.com/videos/summer_guide_sun_valley

2008-07-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

From PLUM TV:

Andrew Ross Sorkin, the Chief Mergers and Acquisitions reporter for the New York Times, sat down with Plum to talk about who's who in today's business world, as well as the up and coming "it" boys of tomorrow.

http://sunvalley.plumtv.com/videos/andrew_sorkin_allen_co

2008-07-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

In Memory of Cristina Reed

I found it shocking to hear that on July 4, Cristina Reed decided to plunge to her death by leaping off the Perrine Bridge and into the Snake River . Although I only knew Cristina from delivering her products, while I was a cab driver, the kindness she exuded towards those of us living on the edge of society became legendary. For some reason she strongly identified with us. Without question, Cristina was our best customer and most generous tipper and for years after I ended my brief taxicab stint, the drivers occasional mentioned that her sincere kindheartedness never waned.

Another reason that Cristina’s death hits home so hard; is that back in 2006, I sent in a well-received suggestion to the Idaho Department of Transportation, regarding the importance of considering a feasibility study for improving suicide prevention measures on this very same bridge.

Writing the above linked letter was literally a dizzyfying experience. Halfway through it, I had to pause to catch my breath, and stood up to walk around and regain my bearings. Finding yourself up on that high bridge to imagine what is flashing through a troubled person’s mind can be electrifying and intensely sad. I wonder what other writers’ feel, when they report on horrific stories like this.

When I was a newspaperman, the chief editor explained why we sometimes go into detail, when a distraught person decides to end their life and it doesn’t go off exactly as planned. As hard as it is for that person’s family to hear, by reporting on the extended pain they felt, crawling with a broken back below a cliff, or suffering in a crippling death swim beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, may prevent other distraught people from making the same rash decision.

In addition, when someone shoots themselves in the head, we name it “self-inflicted gunshot” rather than suicide, since they might have changed their mind at the last millisecond, but too late because they already pulled the trigger. By the same token, in SFGate’s seven-part Lethal Beauty series; some of the jumpers who decided to take the drastic plunge off the Golden Gate, and actually survived, say that as soon as they jumped, they gained a completely new perspective, by realizing it was the wrong decision and that none of the problems in their life could have been that bad compared to this brand new problem.

Back to Cristina and the cab service: I remember those hard November days of slack when the evenings were so slow we would wish for any type of call, to make a couple of three bucks to relieve our cursed tedium. Then Cristina would sometimes ring our dispatcher to become our savior. For her friends, she sometimes enjoyed ordering a wine, called Chalk-Hill Chardonnay. I believe it was around 27 bucks or so, back then at the Circle K. It was the most expensive wine they carried. Once, while delivering a bottle, a friend of hers, sensed my curiosity, as Cristina went downstairs to retrieve her purse, and the friend remarked that yes, deep down Cristina was an extremely kind person.

Those Chalk-Hill experiences left enough of an impression, that a few years later, when climbing Mount Borah, I secretly packed along a jug, lugged it up the steep hill and hid it among some glacial-like ice, beneath a long gnarled tree stump, below Chicken-Neck Ridge. During the return from our victorious summit, I surprised my co-hikers, by revealing the perfect-temperature bottle and ceremoniously whisked it from a vortex beneath the ancient log.

It was such a good experience that even now I can still taste that everlasting wine on my buds. And since we never proposed a toast that day on our way down from Idaho’s tallest peak, I would now like to dedicate that precious moment in our hike posthumously to a wonderful woman that so many of her friends and family must now miss –Cristina Reed.

2008-07-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Subject: DREAM ABOUT TIM RUSSERT:

URL: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=127094

Posted By: Rayelan
Date: Saturday, 28 June 2008, 10:23 p.m.

Over the years I have read many articles about the ability of
the dark force to enslave souls and force them into "slave bodies"
lifetime after lifetime. I think we have all seen or read science
fiction films and/or books that talk about souls being kept in jars,
space ships, and other holders that hold them in prison until they are
punished enough or cycled back into a slave colony.

The day Tim Russert died I had a dream that was so profoundly
disturbing to me that I quickly forgot all about it...

I had the dream the day he died. I didn't remember the dream
until the next day... Saturday, the 14th.

Guraded Optimist posted some thoughts on the death of Russert in
our Lounge. It was while I was adding some comments to what G.O. had
written that I remembered the dream I had.

I had the dream about 5pm on Friday the Thirteenth, the day that
Tim Russert died. Tim had been in Rome with his wife and son. He and his
family had had a private meeting with Pope Benedict. He flew back to the
US at about the same time that Pope Benedict and President Bush were
meeting... leaving his wife and son in Italy.

He died later that morning of a sudden heart attack. A heart
attack is one of the easiest ways to get rid of someone without leaving
a trace. The substance that caused the heart attack disappears within
hours. By the time the ER doctors stop trying to revive the person and
the autopsy is conducted, there is nothing left to find.

Here is what I posted in the Lounge. I left the top part, which
was a reply to G.O. in place. G.O. comments are below mine:

Russert had a private meeting with Pope Benedict while
Benedict was here in the United States... (with 10 others from a
Catholic College that gave Russert an honerary degree) --

Russert had lobbied to be included in the meeting. Wolf
Blitzer, who grew up in Buffalo as did Russert, was also at the
meeting... Blitzer said that Russert was just like a kid waiting to see
his first movie star.

Russert was a devote Catholic and he loved Pope Benedict.

The fact that he dies today... on Friday the 13th... is so
puzzling...

Unless someone knew that Russert would be the one that Pope
Benedict would go to for an IMPORTANT interview...

when the time was right for B to say whatever he is going to
tell us.

I am not sure that any other interviewer could have had
the reverence for the position of Pope and the trust of the American
people that Russert had.

I was called to "nap" the afternoon that Russert died...
what I mean by that is I had an overwhelming feeling that I had to lie
down and sleep. In the past when I have had these "nap attacks",
something amazing has always happened. I have learned to heed my "nap
attacks" and lie down immediately.

I lay down and was asleep in seconds. This never happens
except when I have a "nap attack".

While I was asleep I saw the soul of Russert.

...

Below is what G.O. wrote that caused me to remember the dream about Tim.

He was a golden light about 5 feet high or higher... and two feet wide.

I saw him float into an old decaying tree that had fallen in a forest.

He started getting smaller and smaller until he was small enough to curl up in the rings of the tree.

The moment Tim was completely curled up in the tree and had stopped moving, the tree began to petrify.

At that moment, I knew that Tim was being "jailed" for something... and I KNEW that it was the bad guys who were jailing him. They knew that he had the ability to communicate with those of us on earth and they didn't want to take the chance that people on earth might just believe what he was telling people.

In a frantic voice I yelled at him... "No... you can't do that. You have to wake up. You have to stay with us and fight. Get out of that tree now."

At first he didn't budge. The tree kept petrifying. I knew I had to wake him up and get him out of there before he was trapped forever. I yelled at him again and again. I sounded like a shrew screeching at him. I kept this up for an indefinite amount of time.... screaming and yelling that he still had important work to do.

Finally I saw him get out of the tree and resume his full golden soul body.

For some reason I told him there were millions of people that he could influence or even work through. I told him that now he really knows the truth and he has to REPORT it from the other side.

Did I really talk to Tim Russert's soul???

As soon as it was all over, I awoke with a start... I remembered everthing completely... but for some reason... as soon as I awoke and remembered it... I forgot all about it until right now.... (Saturday, 14 June 2008, 12:04 a.m)

Added comments today... June 28, 2008:

There hasn't been one day since I had this dream that I haven't remembered it in it's entirety.

The dream was so very vivid. For the next few days I had the feeling that Tim was with me. He was devastated that he died. It was sudden. It was NOT planned. AND... it was NOT on his schedule. He had so much MORE work to do on earth!! At least those were the thoughts I was picking up from him.

During this time, I was in what I referred to as my dark night of the soul. I mentioned this "dark night of my soul" on June 20th, in this post.

HINTS FOR A (MOSTLY) PAINLESS TRANSITION - IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW - PLEASE READ
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=126597

I had been immersed in blackness for almost a week at the time I posted the above information. I still don't know what I was going through that made me feel so hopeless for so many days.

I am still not completely out of this black hole I am in and I still don't know if it relates to the tremendous grief Tim Russert felt at being knocked out of life when he had so much to live for.... or if it relates to my own financial problems and knowing that if a miracle doesn't happen in my life soon, that RMN and all the rest of the work I have poured my life into... may not be around.

I don't know. I think many of us are in transition right now. For some, the transition is major... for others... like me... it's about losing things that are only things... houses... credit cards... businesses. We are all going through it. Isn't it wonderful that we are all going through it together so we have each other to lean on???

One last thought... I wrote about the smell of death that I started smelling about the same time that Tim Russert died.

HAS ANYONE BEEN SMELLING DEATH? AN ODOR LIKE DECAYING BODIES??
http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=127093

I do not know if the smell of death has any connection to my dream or to the black hole I have been going through. I do know that it hasn't made this time any easier for me.

Below is what G.O. wrote that caused me to remember the dream about Tim.

***********************************

: TIM RUSSERT - DEAD AT 58
: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=126147

: We may have to wait until some of Raye's sources step forward
: and offer some hints and clues. In the meantime: 1. There
: are many ways to induce a heart attack and leave no traces.
: Many are convinced J. Edgar Hoover and many others died of
: an induced attack. During the 1970's, it became a joke that
: so many people were dying of heart attacks that the CIA
: must have killed them. Are we going back to those days?
: Again, may be too early to know.

: 2. Tim Russert was a Catholic and a Jesuit. Bush and the Pope
: were to meet at the Tower of St. John this day. Russert was
: known to Bush, and presumably to the Pope also. A message
: to both men in relation to their meeting today?

: 3. This being Friday the 13th, also 13 is a key Masonic
: number. Some have been predicting negative vibes for this
: day and for a number of days afterward.

: 4. Russert had some connection with the percolating Valerie
: Plame situation, which some of us thought might eventually
: unseat Cheney and/or Bush. Russert testified during one of
: the Plame-related trials.

: 5. Last year, when Don Imus got angry on the air about the
: medical treatment of our injured troops returning from
: Iraq, and then threatened to bring out secrets he knew
: about 9/11, the person he said that to was -- Tim Russert.

: 6. Falling cranes in Dallas and Arlington, Texas (to the
: Dallas Cowboys) the past two days seemed to be harbinger of
: assassination or death. Dallas echoes of JFK, and Arlington
: echoes of the famous DC cemetary.

: 7. Is Russert's death also a warning to other prominent
: journalists and politicians to watch their steps, or else?

: At the moment, I can't offer much else. But things aren't
: stacking up too well over here about this untimely death.

What will happen to us when cadres of the soulless are unleashed here?

2008-06-30T02:06:00.000-07:00

http://earthboppin.net/talkshop/national/messages/75763.html

View entire thread

Author: Brian Steele

Idaho Conversation League

Old post from the Anthropik network

This Difficult Individual Eustace Mullins — and the Remarkable Ezra Pound

lovin those acronyms

Wht Schools Don't Educate

A Mayonaise Jar & Two Beers

The Loneliness of the long distance runner

It made me stop and think

Beautiful Minds: Stephen Wiltshire

Setting Boundaries

Bob Dylan - 2004 - "60 Minutes" interview pt.1

Congratulations to Tony!

PASSACONAWAY IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS

Rod Serling talks about Writing for Television (Part 16)

Emmylou Harris 'Wrecking Ball'

My friend

Prisoners of Gravity: Tolkien (Part 1/3)

Facebooked

How Does a Beatle Live? John Lennon Lives Like This

Dolphin Bubbles: Science Behind this Amazing Behavior

The Prevalence of Hobbits

HOWL-GINSBERG

Idaho's trail of tears

Greg Stahl: The time is right to find a way to help fish and the economy

Down economy hits local recycling

Good poems Haiku

Haiku for Tammy's dog

Newly discovered newsblog

Inside Today's 6 News; The News Director's Blog

Well View

Wassup 2008

U.S. Slaughterhouse ban creates new dilemmas…

Ginormous Whale Tale

The little collider that could dance

Ann Sothern Dauntless

Project Censored's top 25 censored stories of 2008

Another Ant Tribute

George Carlin - Saving the Planet

A couple of new interesting websites

george carlin nails it

Western U.S. to Have Best Glimpse of Next Week's Perseid Meteor Shower

King Crimson

Law of the jungle

What will happen to us when cadres of the soulless are unleashed here?