tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53231050522591081582024-03-12T21:25:11.965-07:00Morning DonutGrab your coffee and get yourself a donut. Simple musings for thoughtful folks... (or is that thoughtful musings for simple folks? hmmm...)Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-53149744950553628702019-07-05T14:46:00.000-07:002019-07-05T16:36:21.470-07:00love and forgiveness-<br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><i style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Every being has an identity and a purpose. To live up to his purpose, every being has the power of self-control, and that’s where spiritual power begins. When some of these fundamental things are learned, the time will be right for more to be revealed and spiritual power will come again to this land.</i></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Tantay relatives!</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">This post is for the many good hearts I was lucky enough to meet and share 5 days (for me) "camping" in the wilds of New Mexico.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">First, thank you to you all (and you know who you are;) for one of the most profound weeks in my life (I'm 67teen). Seriously...</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I was honored to be asked and delighted that creator provided me with another opportunity for an adventure in my life. Opportunity often won't wait long for a reply so I'm glad this came together so quickly.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Way back when, I was breaking up with a woman I had lived with for years. It was a really foggy day (San Joaquin Valley tule fog) in Fresno and I knew if I headed east to the foothills I could get me some sunshine.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I know a spot that has some fine rock gardens on one side of the road and on the other side a cluster of bedrock mortars - maybe 100 or so - were perched on this fine, oak studded knoll. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">It always saddens me to visit these old family sites knowing that once families lived on and near this beautiful spot. A small creek flows nearby all year and the oak grassland landscape is like home to me. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">But even there that day, the fog didn't want to clear. And I could relate. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">So I sat down on a rock and soon started to talking to those that aren't, but are, there. And then overhead a patch of blue opened up and a bald eagle flew through the opening and I made a mistake, one probably more than a few us have made, I asked for something.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">Lordy. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">My life was in turmoil, not in a bad way but just... well, tumultuous.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">And what I asked for? Change.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I know, "oops."</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">But...</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">... it all has worked and here I am in a place that my need for change has lead me. I've moved from Oregon after 30 years and I'm now living in California with my family in an inter-generational household, from 1 to 71.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">And it is here and the change it took me to get here that lead to my being at that ceremony in New Mexico. And it was there that almost all of y'all came into my life. From my first meeting of Grandfather Semu at Redwind until now I found myself totally at home with strangers that were almost instantly not strangers but family. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">What I know of the native people of Turtle Island I know both from book learnin' and life experience.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">I am a far different man today precisely because I took the step of introducing myself to a man I didn't know and found myself with another brother. I usually say 1/2 brothers because we <i>do</i> really have the same mother... I mean <i>really</i>...</span></span><br />
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and here's the shot I was bragging on to some of you</div>
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<span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">To ALL my relations</span></div>
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<i style="background-color: #fff2cc;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">A well-known scientist (some say it was </span><a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bertrand_Russell" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: none; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #0b0080; font-family: inherit; text-decoration-line: none;" title="Bertrand Russell">Bertrand Russell</a><span style="color: #222222; font-family: inherit;">) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the Sun and how the Sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our Galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said, "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady, "but it's turtles all the way down!"</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "vollkorn" , serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-84616696076960340762019-03-02T10:41:00.002-08:002019-03-02T12:48:36.045-08:00Landing on Revis-<br />
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<i>Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit.</i><br />
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~ Edward Abbey<br />
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This is just a drive-by posting...<br />
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... and I will return with more about my current situation but wanted folks to know that yes, I'm still kicking.<br />
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I'm back in Califas after spending 97% of the last 30 years living in Oregon. I had no idea when I left CA in 1990 what a trip that would be. And then some!<br />
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I am currently situated 300' below the 2080' summit of Revis Mtn in the Sierra Nevada foothills. I hike the mountain nearly daily and have fallen deeply in love with this little island of wild California. No cows. No off-road vehicles.<br />
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I must say that hiking California's foothills without cows is a rare experience but the thrill of no cow pies and the attendant hordes of flies makes this spot a true delight. And, as I've declared more than once while watching the day's light play across the trees and rocks, this place is crazy beautiful.<br />
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Well, here, have a look for yourself:<br />
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And please, have a visit to my photo art for sale over at <a href="https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/allan-erickson.html" target="_blank">Fine Art America</a> and maybe you'll be inspired to spend a few bucks and help support this old phart in his dotage.<br />
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L<i>ook deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.</i><br />
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~ Albert Einstein<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-77471963983349188232018-09-13T12:57:00.000-07:002018-09-18T08:07:33.994-07:00saying goodbye...-<br />
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<i>Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.</i><br />
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<i>- </i>Will Rogers<br />
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Well, my run here at the old farmhouse has come to an end.<br />
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I've live here for 13 years, longer than anywhere I've ever lived. Unfortunately I ran into some medical issues last summer, both to me and one of the dogs.<br />
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Then my roommate lost her ability to pay her share of rent last fall after she lost her job. She stayed on thru to the spring of this year with her newborn son. Because she had no work I was left with keeping the utilities paid, plus all my other bills (including the medical bills) and I was lucky I was even able to afford food.<br />
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As a single dad I raised my 2 kids here. There was no way I was putting a new mom and her newborn baby out on the street. Plus she was a great roommate, a friend and I loved her and her baby like family.<br />
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When I was raising my children here my daughter was always on me about getting food stamps. Call me stubborn, call me a masochist, heck! call me a hard-headed Swede. But I was an able bodied male and damned if I was going to let Uncle Sugar get into my life any more than it already was.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4447EJLJcd0/W5qzCb8rDTI/AAAAAAAALeo/G82KpHEyXAQHV7rNOl4Jc6LbBsUMfZA7QCLcBGAs/s1600/PICT0021_w1_1000x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1039" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4447EJLJcd0/W5qzCb8rDTI/AAAAAAAALeo/G82KpHEyXAQHV7rNOl4Jc6LbBsUMfZA7QCLcBGAs/s400/PICT0021_w1_1000x.jpg" width="382" /></a></div>
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So it is that at 67teen I find myself once again with major life decisions to make and new changes - in whatever form they take - to deal with.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-muuSspzBT2I/W5q0W_onYoI/AAAAAAAALe0/KkbLJZ1u-B8tpYC9ey04_gi9OKSLAOcOACLcBGAs/s1600/IGP4297_w1_x800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="799" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-muuSspzBT2I/W5q0W_onYoI/AAAAAAAALe0/KkbLJZ1u-B8tpYC9ey04_gi9OKSLAOcOACLcBGAs/s400/IGP4297_w1_x800.jpg" width="397" /></a></div>
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If you be of a mind to help I've started a <a href="https://gogetfunding.com/allan-needs-help/" target="_blank"><b>self-fundraiser to help pay off my medical bills</b></a> and to maybe help my transition into the next phase of my life.<br />
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Ideally... I will find someone, an organization or an individual, somewhere, that will find me the perfect fit for their need of a resident caretaker.<br />
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It's my perfect job. I do carpentry, plumbing, household electric, painting, gardening and I'm a photographer and writer. I've been a medical amateur professional for 2 decades as an events medicine volunteer. I did wildlife rehab in the early '80s. I am a published writer. I am a published photographer.<br />
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And I love the land.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AElBUpUVfdI/W5q7p6CDdmI/AAAAAAAALfU/p1z2WG3_RdQuEgxShtfQR65kriIpFPTHgCLcBGAs/s1600/f798908912_w1_1000x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="265" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AElBUpUVfdI/W5q7p6CDdmI/AAAAAAAALfU/p1z2WG3_RdQuEgxShtfQR65kriIpFPTHgCLcBGAs/s400/f798908912_w1_1000x.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Living in nature is where I need to be. I've lived off the grid. I love isolation and quiet.<br />
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I've spent 60 years being squished and squeezed by the forces of conformance. But I <i>DON'T</i> fit. Sure I've muddled through, going where the universal winds of whim carry me, but "civilization" is all just too much.<br />
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I am not a consumer. I <i>am</i> a warrior for my people (friends, family and community) and for the earth's living beings without a voice. I am a teacher, perhaps even a bit of a healer. I am an artist.<br />
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I am an elder and there is still strength in my wings. I know I shall fly but where will I land?<br />
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-<br />
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<i>“It’s clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it’s not easy.”</i><br />
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- Terence McKenna<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-50494056924380708882017-11-14T20:00:00.000-08:002017-11-14T20:00:57.548-08:00faces-<br />
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<i>Learn the sweet magic of a cheerful face.</i><br />
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- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.<br />
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for the couch:<br />
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Pete and Allan</div>
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Allan and Jim (NCN )(had to do this one all Nor'westy like...)</div>
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_</div>
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there once was a life I sailed the wwwebly seas<br />
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on ocean often calm<br />
but sometimes not<br />
with a motley crew<br />
all wisey-kind in cleverish ways<br />
we fought, often for days<br />
against them blarney types<br />
or, against each other<br />
all-friendly-like o' course<br />
and we'd gather<br />
from places far, far away<br />
strangers some<br />
but then not for long<br />
for a brisk skirmish<br />
made friends of those<br />
who stand side by side<br />
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those days I sometimes miss<br />
when asses we'd kick<br />
when Malcolm would cry out<br />
"heave to boys!"<br />
and Nemo would point<br />
"thar she blows!"<br />
characters all<br />
would stand as one<br />
(well, maybe 1 1/2...)<br />
dark and bb, ddc<br />
hope and all<br />
I salute yer raggedy<br />
piratical anarchal arses<br />
<br />
thanks for the memories<br />
Huzzah!<br />
<br />
-Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-68801031007200370372016-02-01T15:31:00.000-08:002017-10-22T17:50:08.640-07:00Bundy, Malheur - and reality<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>It does not require a doctorate in economics to guess that the feds would </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>have </i></span><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>come out </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">well ahead in 1969 if they had simply paid ranchers the </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">full market </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">value of the animals </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">supposedly killed by coyotes and let it </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">go at that. This </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">conclusion becomes still more </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">attractive if one accepts </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">Cole's calculation that </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the hundreds of coyotes bagged in 1969 </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">by traps, </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">snares, baited cyanide </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">canisters, hunting dogs and bullets would have </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">dispatched approximately </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">55,000 jack rabbits, had they been permitted </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">to live to </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">perform this service </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">for the ranchers of Arizona. Because 150 </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">jack rabbits consume </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">enough forage </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">to support one cow or five sheep, </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">the coyote carnage in 1969 cost more </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">than </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">$50,000 in lost cattle </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">production.</i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>
- John Alcock, Sonoran Desert Summer
-
I have been closely following the "standoff" at the Malheur Wildlife
Refuge, near Burns, Oregon. I have not been one to apply the label of
terrorist, activist, or any descriptor really to these people following
the Bundys and their "friends."
For surely it is (or was, it is near it's end) at best, a protest. At
worst - politically - it is sedition, acting with arms against the
government.
But that is not my fight. Stop telling me I am "misinformed" and refrain
from calling me a stooge of the government because I think Harney Co.
Sheriff Dave Ward has done fine work under difficult circumstances.
I've thought long on this (which is why I'm a day behind on putting this
blog together). In fact yesterday morning I took a long walk thinking
about all the strings I need to tie together to make my point.
Ok... sigh... grab your coffee, sorry there are no more doughnuts (my </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>cop </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">friends ate the last ones) but hopefully I'll give you something </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">(or a few </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">things) of substance to chew on. Oh, and no photos today.</i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>
What I'm NOT going to do? I'm not going to talk about the Constitution,
or guns.
No... I'm going to start this with some words I posted on Facebook the
other day:
Whether you are right or wrong on your issues is a moot point because
your tactics MAKE YOU WRONG!
You came into my state and took over a resource that is open to us ALL
and shut it down so NO ONE could use it.
When we approach righteous grievances for redress, we cannot go </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>armed and paranoid, prepared to commit violence. Rather - as MLK </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>and many, many others have taught and done - only thru non-violent </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>civil disobedience </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">can we be effective. We can blockade. We can hunger </i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">strike We can speak, </i><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">using our big people words.</i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>
As a long time activist on many issues I've always shunned any advocates
for violence in my circles. Advocates for violence are (imho) one of 2
types - 1) they are agent provocateurs, undercover plants from the
police/govt intending to create a situation that involves criminal
activity, or 2) they are crazy and dangerous.
And if you want to be warriors, "defending your people"... ?
... be like the 200 or so warriors that fought off damn near the whole </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>US Army when Chief Joseph attempted to take his people to Canada. </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>THAT is how WE roll here in Oregon.
The world needs smart. The world needs cooperators, not conspirators.
The age of conquering and conquerors is over. It's dead. Swords into
plowshares. It's time for the One Straw Revolution
That last part - the age of conquering and conquerors is over - is </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>veryimportant. Weaponry has come to a point that makes violence, </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>especially warfare, obsolete. There is no longer any end served from </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>war other than </i></span><i style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif;">a maintenance of chaos and tyranny.</i></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>
What drives the engine now is not territorial expansion. With </i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i>economicsnow a global enterprise and consumerism the be-all and</i></span></pre>
<pre style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: georgia, times new roman, serif;"><i> end-all of modern civilization...</i></span></pre>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">...</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">sorry! Had a coffee snort on that one...</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 20px;">... now it is a drive for extraction of resource. Yes, natural resources have always been extracted and yes that's how the world was built. Great. But the house that was built is on fire, the foundation is crumbling and the cupboards are near bare.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 20px;">All resource extraction to this point has pretty much relied on the myth that we can do this forever. We can't. And we've been so sloppy in our going about all this consumption that we've once again soiled the nest. So not only can we not going about doing things the way we have been but we must also begin undoing our calamitous system and rebuilding a system that fits with some basic natural laws.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="line-height: 20px;">Like... </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i>... resources are finite</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i>... we don't shit in our own well.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i>... nor do we shit in our neighbor's well.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">And that is what the Bundy cabal did. They came into Oregon and shit in our well. We certainly don't have everything right but damned if we don't try. Sometimes we get it right (saving our entire coastline for all of us). Sometimes we need to be creative. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Like that time when Richard Nixon was supposed to be coming to Portland but fears of tens of thousands of hippies and yippees coming to town to protest prompted Gov Tom McCall into action! Yes, something needed to be done. So what did this <i>Republican</i> governor do? Why, what any common sense individual would do, he threw a free rock festival.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.opb.org/television/programs/oregonexperience/segment/vortex-i/" target="_blank">The Vortex</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Yep. A republican governor threw a free party, kept the cops away and let the hippies play. There were no hippie riots and I don't believe Tricky Dick made it at all.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">The "hippies" have earned their spot in Oregon. They came, they worked, they spent money, bought land and homes and raised families. <a href="https://robertheilman.wordpress.com/2013/02/23/with-a-human-face-2/" target="_blank">Read about the Hoedads</a>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i>Planting trees is the sort of mind-numbing stoop labor that most people go to college in order to avoid. Loggers shudder when they contemplate the rigors of tree planting. It is winter work, cold and wet and mud-spattered grubbing on steep mountain sides. It has always been done by those at the very lowest levels of the Northwest social order, hillbillies, drifters, derelicts, migrant farm workers and illegal aliens. And yet, a survey of the Hoedads Inc. membership in the late 1970’s found that planters with post-graduate degrees were more common among them than high school drop-outs.</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">In it's beginnings Oregon was also pretty damn racist. White was right. And the Malheur was treated no differently. Why? Because it was Paiute land. And what ruined it for the Paiutes?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">[<a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/4/1465963/-Eastern-Oregon-once-had-a-Malheur-Indian-Reservation-Guess-what-happened" target="_blank">from the DailyKos</a>] <i>For most of the 1800s and earlier, Eastern Oregon was largely the territory of the Northern Paiute. The Malheur Indian Reservation was created in 1872 to set aside a small part of their former territory exclusively for Native Americans. The reservation was established by executive order of President Ulysses Grant. This was necessary since Congress refused to ratify the 1868 treaty negotiated with the Paiute (there’s rarely been any political benefit to treating Indians fairly).</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Ok, sounds good right? Give the indigenous folks a spot of their own? </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">[<a href="http://www.oregonhistoryproject.org/articles/historical-records/malheur-indian-reservation/#.Vq_MUbIrKUl" target="_blank">from that bedrock of liberalism, The Oregon History Project</a>] <i>By 1875 more than 700 Paiute and Bannock Indians were spending their winters on the reservation, an agricultural school had been established, and several dozen Indian men were learning how to farm. The administration of the reservation, however, was severely hampered by a steady reduction in federal appropriations. Agent W.V. Rinehart complained to his superiors that “it is the avowed policy of the Government to make the Indians self-supporting, and yet I am left without the means to make the initiatory steps for the furtherance of that policy….I ask if it is fair or reasonable to circumscribe the already limited energies of a people whom God made as free as the deer on their mountains; to curtail their natural means of subsistence by herding them upon reservations, that the dominant race may enjoy their territory, and then expect them to support themselves without assistance?”</i></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><i>Rinehart’s complaints fell on deaf ears. Appropriations were reduced again the following year, medical supplies arrived nearly a year late, and to make matters worse, local stockmen had begun encroaching upon reservation lands. Some were so bold, Rinehart wrote his 1878 report, “that</i> <i><b>they have even taken up their residence within the limits of the reservation, and make no secret of their intention to occupy and use the land.”</b></i> [emphasis mine - ae]</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Ahhh... there is Ammon Bundy's historical context. Except instead of the gubmint, the Bundy's gang occupied the Paiute's land. Right, it's all coming clear... we were assholes then and we're still assholes.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">But, I don't equate the Bundys with the folks on the east side of the state. I've met them. I lived with them down in Adel. And for me and my family it was a journey into "hostile" territory. I was a long-haired hippie working for a locally despised environmental organization, The Nature Conservancy.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">But you know what? I worked hard and the ranchers and other locals saw the changes to the ranch I'd been tasked with renovating. They became our friends, especially John Lane, Earl and Jean Rogers and Bill Hickey and his son. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">And THAT dear friends and readers, is my point. The local folks in Lake County treated us with respect and let us prove ourselves. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Coming into a community and holding a part of it hostage shows no respect and deserves no respect.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">And it wasn't like these Bundyites just suddenly showed up. Oh no... they had been in the area in the fall:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">[<a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/oregon_standoff_bundy_occupati.html" target="_blank">from the Oregonian</a>] <i>On Nov. 5, a Thursday, Ward met the men who would cause him so much grief. They gathered on the second-floor law library at the courthouse, more often used for researching legal precedent than setting the stage for rebellion. Among those there were Ammon Bundy and a self-styled militiaman from Montana, Ryan Payne, and two self-described patriots who head organizations in Bend and in Idaho</i>.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">There once was a time early in the 20th century when the Sandhill Crane (over 200 pairs breed at the Malheur WR) was in trouble. Through actions to save habitat and protect the birds Sandhill Cranes have a strong population. And in many places cranes are revered and/or celebrated.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Heck, Nebraska has their own party to celebrate the Sandhills, <a href="https://nebraskacranefestival.org/" target="_blank">Audubon's Nebraska Crane Festival</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">Japan almost lost their crane population, <a href="http://www.japanvisitor.com/japan-nature/red-crowned-crane" target="_blank">Red-crowned Crane: Sarurun Kamuy (God of the Marshes)</a>, but took strong measures to protect their surviving populations.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><a href="https://www.savingcranes.org/largest-protected-environment-in-south-africa-declared/" target="_blank"><br /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><a href="https://www.savingcranes.org/largest-protected-environment-in-south-africa-declared/" target="_blank">And in Africa... Largest Protected Environment in South Africa Declared</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">All of that leading me to this... what would have happened had the Bundy's been creative instead of creepy? What say, oh.... they came to Sheriff Dave Ward, the BLM, the ranchers and townspeople of Burns and said, "we need a forum where we can present our case and hear from others with interest in how we as a community deal with the feds and this bloated bureaucracy that has grown around use of public lands."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Suppose they had said, "we want to create an event, maybe say... a Crane Festival! With artists, politics, forums, education, music. Something that can draw a crowd of friendly people to Burns and the area that will come, spend some time and money, mybe get a little education and then leave."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">But no, Allan's fantasies remain Allan's fantasies. A world where cooperation, compassion and some good-neighborness have higher priority than armed thugs screeching about their version of the Constitution (which, like the Malheur, belongs to all of us) remains a pipe dream.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">These were no heroes. Men on a mission? perhaps, but an errant one. One that wasn't inclusive of basic human dignity and respect for others had no chance of success.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">The world of man is at a crossroads. We can become true planetary stewards (save the rhinos, save the elephants, save the whales, the orangs, etc, etc) or we can continue our slide into a hole we ourselves dug. A hole that only cooperative (not coerced) action can bring us out of.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">Cooperation, what a concept. Asshattery unwelcome. Solutions, not more problems. Let's use our big people words and put the guns down.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">I'll give the last word to Jim Caswell (served as director of the Bureau of Land Management under Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne)</span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif; line-height: 20px;">, writing in the Jan 27,2016 opinion pages of the Idaho Statesman:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "lyon" , "georgia" , serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 25.5px;"><i>Frustration around public lands is real. But that doesn’t make violence the right response or land transfers a realistic solution. The best answer to our problems is to join hands to fix the management, and to keep the truly greedy hands driving this debate off our public lands.</i></span><br />
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Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/opinion/readers-opinion/article56933223.html#storylink=cpy</div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;">more reading:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://dailypitchfork.org/?p=631" target="_blank">Sustainable Cowboys or Welfare Ranchers of the American West?</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.opb.org/news/article/burns-oregon-standoff-militia/" target="_blank">Who Wants A Burns Standoff? Not The Sheriff, The Ranchers, Or Even Cliven Bundy</a></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><a href="http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jan/13/ammon-bundy-montana-militia-leader-had-planned-a-l/" target="_blank"><br /></a></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><a href="http://lasvegassun.com/news/2016/jan/13/ammon-bundy-montana-militia-leader-had-planned-a-l/" target="_blank">Ammon Bundy, Montana militia leader planned land takeover for months</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/01/oregon_standoff_bundy_occupati.html" target="_blank">Oregon standoff: Bundy occupation leaves scars behind</a></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;"><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/01/07/tribe-to-protesters-occupying-oregon-wildlife-refuge-we-were-here-first-get-the-hell-out/" target="_blank">Tribe to protesters occupying Oregon wildlife refuge: ‘We were here first … get the hell out’</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , "times" , serif;">one of the few times I agree with the Oregonian: <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/01/sheriff_dave_ward_the_true_pat.html" target="_blank">Sheriff Dave Ward, the true patriot in Harney County's spectacle: Editorial</a></span><br />
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about Malheur:<br />
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<a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/malheur-standoff-puts-science-in-the-crosshairs/" target="_blank">Malheur Standoff Puts Science in the Crosshairs</a><br />
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<a href="http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/814" target="_blank">The Bannock War</a><br />
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<a href="http://werehistory.org/malheur/" target="_blank">Occupation, Resistance, and History in Malheur</a><br />
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<i>A Man only learns by two things, one is reading, and the other is association with smarter people.</i><br />
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- Will Rogers<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-45992942392917430592016-01-08T10:15:00.000-08:002016-01-08T10:15:46.134-08:00violence-<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-71245790684447481712016-01-07T15:03:00.000-08:002016-01-12T10:22:06.580-08:00crikey mates... who left the gate open?-<br />
<i>Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.</i><br />
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- Mark Twain<br />
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Well, Oregon, you let me down. Somebody left the gate open (musta been one of them city folks, don't know the rules of common sense) and now Cliven Bundy's spawn and his pack of armed whack-a-doodles have snuck in.<br />
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Yeah. The internet is abuzz.<br />
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Me? I think they're a bunch of yahoos with guns.<br />
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The "men" (term used loosely here) that have occupied Malheur Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon are no more than a bunch of fakes and flakes. And Cliven Bundy?<br />
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Cliven Bundy is a racist and a <i>real</i> welfare queen.<br />
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Ignorance at that level does not bode well for his cognition skills in other areas. I'm just sayin'...</div>
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As for his son and the clowns at Malheur (#VanillaIsis) I really don't know what (other than "not") they're thinking. They are not patriots and are far from "heroes." In fact there is a case of some <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3387117/Stolen-valor-Militiaman-bodyguard-ranchers-Cliven-Ammon-Bundy-posing-retired-Marine-served-Afghanistan-Iraq-boost-combat-credentials.html" target="_blank">stolen valor</a> within the ranks of these faux militiamen.</div>
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The young men and women that "occupied" Wounded Knee ("occupying" their own land, go figure) are patriots. <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/04/19/video-dann-sisters-battle-save-their-cattle-stark-contrast-clive-bundy-154521" target="_blank">Mary and Carrie Dann</a> are patriots.<br />
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In the early 1980s a movement that had built momentum from the '60s and '70s began protests across the country against the insane levels of nuclear weapons stockpiled (mostly) by the United States and the old Soviet Union. Over 30 thousand nuclear devices were ready for use by us and the Soviet Union had 20 thousand plus nuclear weapons in their arsenal. And people protested.<br />
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We occupied federal facilities. People like the Berrigan brothers, Wavy Gravy, Starhawk, Daniel Ellsberg - and me and hundreds of others - stood up face-to-face with federal authority. And we did it unarmed. Nationwide there were probably no more than a few thousand of us at several facilities (me at Vandenberg AFB in Central California).<br />
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Key phrase: <i>unarmed and willing to be arrested</i>. Which of course we were.<br />
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We claimed the higher moral ground. We faced the criticism, the name calling and insults. We were arrested and we served our sentences. And we did bring some sense to the issue.<br />
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In 1986 there were over 60,000 nuclear weapons world wide. By 1992 the nuclear stockpile was reduced by a third. By 2002 levels had been reduced by more than 2/3 from the 1986 peak of 65,000.<br />
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"Unarmed and willing to be arrested." That's how human beings being human do it. That's patriotism.<br />
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Go home fellas. Leave and close the gate behind you. You simply are not wanted, nor needed.<br />
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<i>The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.</i><br />
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- Mark Twain<br />
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-Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-34135904620499027542015-12-25T11:45:00.000-08:002015-12-29T20:09:53.291-08:00Christmas 2015-<br />
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<i>You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness.</i><br />
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- Terence McKenna<br />
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For me, over these 6 decades come and gone, this season is a triad of "holidays" (holy days). Dec 21 is both the day I mark as the Winter Solstice and my mother Vivian's (RIP) birthday.<br />
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Of course these days my mom's birthday is kinda sad as I do miss her, very much. She was such a good soul and having to raise me along with my 2 1/2 siblings must have been quite the challenge.</div>
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The Winter's Solstice... aaah... this is me. Long ago I slipped into the life stream of the natural world. And that world is one that exists not just as material but as the core of my heart, mind and soul. </div>
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I love the earth. More than my mom, my family or my friends. </div>
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Nature is all. It is all we have and all that we have has come from her. The life here on our planet is absolutely connected to life everywhere. There is no other, there is but here. Infinite life expands in all directions - macro <i>and</i> micro.</div>
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But Christmas... <i>sigh.</i>.. </div>
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... Christmas was great as a kid. Innocence makes so much believable. But Christmas is like the Kachinas. It dances into the village costumed and caricaturized. Dancing a lie, a myth but telling the story. Only when an individual is old enough are they made aware that the Kachinas are their relatives, their neighbors. The masks come off.</div>
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For me the mask came off Christmas when I started doing sweatlodge and traveling with the plant medicines, the entheogenic spirits. </div>
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I can't in good conscience share the "joy" of giving. Our consumption will be our doom. It's as simple as that. While many of my friends understand this, the majority of modern humans are clueless. For 40 years I've been at odds with the society around me. Heck, I've flung my body at that wall more than once.</div>
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And it's never been easy! I mean I sure don't want to be the Grinch. I don't want to spoil anyone's enjoyment, especially the children's. So my kids were raised celebrating Christmas. But once we moved into the farm celebrating Christmas became an enigma. It was mid-winter, energy bills are high, I'm raising 2 kids (teenagers!) by myself <i>and </i>I don't believe in it. </div>
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Luckily (?) I've never had an issue being a bit different. It was tough maturing into it but the same process was always involved - <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Native-Eye-Contributions-American/dp/0060613122" target="_blank">"how many sheep does it hold?"</a> Because of me being me fighting to save an old growth forest or being a hippie working for an environmental organization in the middle of conservative ranching country or driving a truck with pot leaves painted all over it when pot was still illegal (ughhh, gross!) takes a certain amount of crazy. The rewards tho'... <i>that's</i> the kind.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gWDxYri0HzU/Vn2WAjhhOkI/AAAAAAAAJI8/Kfx1gsc4p9M/s1600/rsz_condetruck1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gWDxYri0HzU/Vn2WAjhhOkI/AAAAAAAAJI8/Kfx1gsc4p9M/s400/rsz_condetruck1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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AND driving that truck (20' flatbed loaded with tons of lumber) for almost 5 years with no violations shows a certain level of skill. </div>
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I'm not trying to change anybody. I do work hard on occasion trying to change minds - and hearts - but mostly I want to enjoy this lifetime's sojourn on a beautiful planet. A planet I call home and mother.</div>
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Merry Christmas!</div>
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(self portrait)</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3fV3ZGYfZ2I/Vn2ciF6q9EI/AAAAAAAAJJU/P4kmJBzhXoI/s1600/rsz_imgp1556_w2_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-3fV3ZGYfZ2I/Vn2ciF6q9EI/AAAAAAAAJJU/P4kmJBzhXoI/s640/rsz_imgp1556_w2_2.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
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Please, if you like this, visit my other blogs as well:</div>
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<a href="http://allanericksonphotographer.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">AE, photographer</a> (my photography)</div>
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<a href="http://cateatsdog.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Good Dog (drug war)</a> (drug war)</div>
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<a href="http://2207emspics.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Eugene Emeralds at Civic Stadium</a> (Eugene Emeralds baseball)</div>
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for those who enjoy my work with Courtney</div>
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<a href="http://myoregonmuse.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">My Oregon Muse</a> (adult content)</div>
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and my Facebook</div>
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Thanks for visiting, feel free to leave me a comment or share with your friends.</div>
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<i>Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.</i></div>
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- Terence McKenna</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-44330611781191211592015-07-29T14:26:00.003-07:002015-07-29T14:28:33.337-07:00aaah... summer - or why the hell are you killing my elephants? (and whales and sharks and lions and rhinos and humans...) Part 1<br />
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<i>And I say the sacred hoop of my people was one of the many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father.</i><br />
<br />
- Black Elk<br />
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---<br />
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Trying times my friends, trying times. Hang on to your hats 'cause this shift is just starting to get interesting...<br />
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... or not. All is illusion. Matter does not matter. At least it must not because we have been such shits as stewards of our little globe of matter.<br />
<br />
Over the decades I've fought many battles, stood with many of my relatives on this line or that. I've made great friends - and few enemies. I've managed to maneuver the morass that is this pit some call civilization with more than my share of luck.<br />
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And I don't like it. When I was a kid outside is what mattered. Lizards and bugs and birds and reptiles and all the critters and leafy ones. My curiosity kept me busy turning over rocks and peering into water and learning about the life around me. </div>
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And I was lucky to have great parents and a world that didn't consider children walking without adult supervision a crime. We came and went. We rode bikes. We played games and sports. The school playgrounds stayed open after school... ice cream was a nickel a scoop.<br />
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Then one day I ran into civilization head on.<br />
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I was probably 10, maybe 11 and collected butterflies and other winged things. I knew their life cycles, their Latin names and where they roamed. I could draw them with skill and a knowing eye.<br />
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Until... the day I was discovered by 3 older boys while I was chasing butterflies in one of our local parks. I don't remember much other than I was scared shitless. I'd been picked on - heck I had an older brother - but this was 3 bullies. And they bullied me of my innocence, shamed me for my curiosity and study and they pushed me around for their amusement.<br />
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I never chased another butterfly. I stopped catching tadpoles and watching them grow to become frogs.<br />
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I mean in one sense it was ok, all cultures have their coming-of-age initiations. Mine was just not ceremonial, kind or honoring. But it certainly filled the bill for the civilization in which I would grow up.<br />
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<i>to be continued...</i><br />
---<br />
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<i>I would rather be a little nobody, then to be an evil somebody.</i><br />
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― Abraham Lincoln<br />
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---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-92150981937089175532015-01-07T20:42:00.001-08:002015-01-07T20:49:49.513-08:00====<br />
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<i>“It’s clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it’s not easy.”</i><br />
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– Terence McKenna<br />
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As always I get stuck. Where do I start? What the heck do I want to say or point too? Will it even matter? Do I write about the good? Do I point out the bad shit going on?<br />
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Well hell... I guess I just start eh? Kind of like reaching into a closed sack of surprises just letting my brain decide. Could be dangerous...<br />
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Ok, best first.<br />
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Without a doubt I am a child of the '60s. Born in 1951 my teen years happened in the sixties. And good times they were. But the '70s... that was the decade of growth for me. A decade full of reaching into adulthood and expanding the new horizons being an adult offers.<br />
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There was a small, relatively obscure band that I favored back in those days, perhaps you've heard of them. While their beginnings are obscured by clouds, it does take one to meddle a bit, perhaps take one of those journeys to the dark side of the moon or climb over the wall in order to find their tunes. The group is called Pink Floyd. Yeah, I know, but all the bands took on funny names back then - Pink Floyd, Frijid Pink, the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Allman Brothers, Santana... crazy stuff right?<br />
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Now no longer a teen I find that I am once again in the 60s. MY sixties. 63 freaking years old! No one told me when I was young that young-me would become old-me. So be warned! You too shall wither! Hah! so enjoy your youth, live like it does matter. Do cool things, be adventurous (and safe, duh), live life with some gusto. Love like it matters, live like it matters. And in that living after so many decades you will have your soundtracks, those songs and tunes that will trigger memory and emotion.<br />
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So ok... this relatively unknown band - Pink Floyd - does have a small but dedicated following. I suppose that some of <i>them </i>like me, smoke herb. As incredible as it sounds, music can be enhanced by the use of some substances. Pink Floyd? Oh yeah...<br />
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Now that I am on WiFi and catching up with all that I've missed (really not<i> that</i> much) wwwebwwwise, I have both the time and capability to watch videos. And to find a video both awesome and with a Pink Floyd soundtrack? Awesome...<br />
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A friend of mine, one of those people I would know from Adam should we happen to pass on the street, posted this to FaceBook and I love it! Mike is an ex-cop, river rafting guide and a Buddhist monk (nice mix right?) and his sharing a Pink Floyd tune spoke volumes about the man he is... a genuine and unique individual that obviously is a man of finely tuned tastes - obviously because they are so similar to mine.<br />
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So sit back, put the vid on HD, full screen, and enjoy, I'll be back:<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-39764172837314257372014-12-31T19:34:00.002-08:002014-12-31T19:40:41.925-08:00Happy New Year?<i>It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government. But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is not an answer. Neither is resignation. Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment.</i><br />
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- <a href="http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/eliewiesel.aspx" target="_blank">Elie Wiesel</a><br />
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If someone that faced what Elie Wiesel suffered through and witnessed (the epic horror of the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald) is able to live a life from which such sentiments spring then I suppose I have little to complain about.<br />
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But I must say that today's world is entrenched in a spreading insanity far different than the blatant and isolated terror of Adolf Hitler.<br />
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And with the recent suicide death of young <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2014/12/31/3607382/leelah-alcorn-transgender-genocide/" target="_blank">Leelah</a> my beliefs hinge on the hope that it is my children's generation that has the urgent duty and the spirit and resolve to change it.<br />
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It has taken me over a month to actually find a spot to jump back into blogging. So many issues, so much happening on so many levels in so many places in the world. So after some delay, here I am... *waves*<br />
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My old eMac was a workhorse for over a decade. But running a 40G computer in a terrabyte world really put me behind the social/cultural curve. I was seriously overwhelmed when I replaced the old Mac and traded over a decade of having only a dial-up modem to having the high speed capabilities of WiFi, especially when I returned to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/allan.erickson.562" target="_blank">Facebook</a>.<br />
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I mean, like, omg... I was at least several years behind. But once I did start to catch up I found that as much as things had changed... <i>nothing</i> had changed.<br />
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Some things that <i>are</i> new and are deeply disturbing to me?<br />
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- <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai" target="_blank">Men that shoot little girls</a> and call themselves moral authorities.<br />
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- The degree to which law enforcement in the U.S. has gone from Sheriff Andy to any of <a href="http://www.crimelibrary.com/blog/2013/12/31/the-worst-cops-of-all-time/index.html" target="_blank">these guys</a> just boggles my mind. <br />
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- People believing fracking is a good idea.<br />
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- People believing that Fox News IS really news.<br />
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And I'll leave that there, bad news is in no shortage. I have discovered that there are good things happening still - people helping people, good cops still exist and, via a FB post from my son that led me to Prince Ea, the arts aren't dead. I'm one of those that believes that music is healing and that music and the arts are redemptive social movements, exposing both the glorious and inglorious to a depth that lies deep in the human psyche and capable of triggering great change.<br />
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So, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuCyrNxXLcA" target="_blank">dear friends</a>, I shall leave you with this moving piece from Prince Ea.<br />
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Happy New Year!<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="280" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/itvnQ2QB4yc" width="470"></iframe><br />
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<i>As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.</i><br />
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- John Lennon<br />
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====Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-35417262997558353942014-11-19T15:06:00.002-08:002014-12-29T13:34:58.847-08:00the return... da da da dum!~~~<br />
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<i>“Peace demands the most heroic labor and the most difficult sacrifice. It demands greater heroism than war. It demands greater fidelity to the truth and a much more perfect purity of conscience.”</i><br />
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- Thomas Merton<br />
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~~~<br />
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Well, gosh. I've been away from blogging because technology passed me right by. The world of course hasn't gone away, I've just had to step aside for awhile so I didn't get run over on the information highway. What does Info Hwy roadkill look like? See, the questions are just boundless!<br />
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First some shout outs:<br />
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To my classmates from San Pedro HS, class of '69, I swear I'll make it for the 50th! I'm really curious... :)<br />
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To my couchmates over at <a href="http://www.drugwarrant.com/">Pete Guither's Drug WarRant</a>. If you are interested in drug policy that's the place to go. If you support drugs prohibition, we'd love to have you, be it for breakfast, lunch or dinner/supper. I've been hanging out with some of these anti-prohibition scalawags for over a decade. <i><b>End the drug war</b></i>, Damitol!® <br />
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And a shout out to a young woman that provided inspiration to me for months while she rented a room in my house here at the farm. <a href="http://myoregonmuse.blogspot.com/">Courtney Appleseed</a> is a gorgeous and talented young woman and it was truly a pleasure to have her in my home. I had no idea that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse">muses</a> are real, but they are! I had one and I will forever be in her debt for her friendship and her inspiring work as a model.<br />
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My first digital camera went belly up (more than less) and I had to find me a new one. Bought a Pentax K5II. Lovin' it. As always I'll be sharing images once I hit my stride on this blogging thing. <br />
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Oh and a shout out to Kevin Sabet and Calvina Fay... <i>NANNER NANNER!</i> It takes a real creative loser to call an ass-whupping a victory. But Prohibition IS coming to an end, again.<br />
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I'll be having a whole lot more to say on a lot of things, so please, grab your coffee, pull up your chair and share with me in hopefully providing something of value to our world.<br />
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-52411477664408230262014-11-18T11:38:00.001-08:002014-11-18T11:39:45.008-08:00*cough* whew...good golly! look at the cobwebs in here...<br />
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It's funny (not) how modern technology just zoomed right by me while I was raising two kids as a single dad. Decisions were easy, <i>do I feed the kids, or buy a new computer?</i><br />
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Well Damitol!® After almost 20 years on dial-up and over a decade on an old 40GB eMac I've entered the world of the high speed wwweb! Yay for me!<br />
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So stay tuned, I will be back shortly, need to get this place aired out and swept and mopped, then I can get back to coffee and donuts.<br />
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aUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-24104234625154107712012-09-17T16:04:00.003-07:002012-09-17T16:57:42.525-07:00Help save Toby! or, it must be Puppy Love...---<br />
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<i>“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's”</i><br />
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<b>~ Mark Twain</b><br />
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A few weekends ago I received an email from an old friend (maybe I said that wrong, how about <i>from a long time friend</i>...) with "help needed" in the subject line. Now I knew this wasn't a job opening so what could it be?<br />
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Well, I was right and wrong... it wasn't about employment, more to do with <i>deployment</i> really.<br />
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This friend has a daughter and this daughter (whom I have known since she was 3) is stationed with the US Army in Afghanistan.<br />
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The soldiers in her company found a puppy, discarded in the locals' trash/burn pile. And needless to say, they rescued the pup. They nursed it back to health but now Toby's caretaker is leaving and my friend's soldier-daughter asked her to help rescue the dog back to the U.S.<br />
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That's where the "help needed" email to me comes in.<br />
<br />
So I spent my Saturday reading about and researching Afghanistan dog rescue. Some of the stories had me all weepy-eyed... I love dogs. 99% more than I do people, generally speaking. Being an old Wildlife Rehabilitation guy I know how rough critters can have it out there. Owning dogs off and on throughout my life established an appreciation for our canine friends that is now grown to genuine love.<br />
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My work takes me in an out of people's homes. A lot of those people own dogs and I have to acquaint myself with their pets because I'm spending time working in their houses. Some of those dogs I've been seeing for years and they're always tail-wagging happy to see me when I return. Heart warming... truly heart warming.<br />
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Anyways... I tracked down the two orgs I would need - Guardians of Rescue and Novzad.<br />
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Guardians of Rescue is getting the dog back to the states where he will stay with them until daughter-soldier returns to the US and then Toby will be her and her 3 sons' dog.<br />
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But rescuing dogs from logistically challenged locations isn't free. We need to raise $3,000.<br />
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Do you love dogs? Do you love or support our soldiers? then think about donating to Toby's cause. We've come this far, Toby is in Kabul now, in a kennel. He's a big boy and in the world of shipping and receiving that means weight...<br />
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And consider... if you donate you'll be helping the kennel in Kabul -<br />
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<a href="http://www.nowzad.com/">Nowzad</a> and the good folks at <a href="http://www.hyperlinkcode.com/">Guardians of Rescue</a> who are handling transportation logistics, will house and train Toby until his soldier-friend comes home sometime this winter.<br />
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So please... help Toby, help our GIs with something that very much matters as something very important to the quality of their lives in the midst of war. Please donate what you can, whether it's $5, $10 or $500...<br />
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<a href="http://guardiansofrescueforourtroops.chipin.com/save-toby">Save Toby!</a><br />
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Oh... and I mentioned Toby's a big boy? Take a peek at exactly how big this 6 month old is: <br />
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Now if that's not a whole lotta puppy love...<br />
---<br />
<i>“A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>~ Robert Benchley</b><br />
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<a href="http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/3388_404635716256918_773050182_b.jpg">Toby and his friends</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-43964155357247742942012-09-14T17:17:00.000-07:002016-05-22T14:22:21.614-07:00So...---<br />
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<i>The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance</i><br />
<br />
<b>~ Thomas Paine</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
... it's been awhile. Hard to say really why the long absence. Stress and distress probably. Maybe the fact that I spend a lot of time studying up on my topics and putting a good blogpost together takes more time... and I don't get a cent back for my labors... <br />
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I know - <i>waaah...</i><br />
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Another possible reason for me not posting in so long is that lordy lordy the whole world has really gone kinda whack and where do I start? <br />
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Problematic, of course. I could just start at the beginning. Duh... <br />
<br />
... but <i>which</i> beginning? What start? Did the whistle blow? Did someone do a countdown? I don't like to start in a fog of confusion, I much prefer a cloud. Fog is however the perfect descriptor... when we're standing in the middle of it, it doesn't have a beginning, or an end. It's just kind of all around. Kinda like I've felt with the question to myself of where to start.<br />
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Of course there is also the point to be made that where I start is irrelevant. There is just sooo much to talk about that I could, literally, start anywhere I please. Which sounds pretty reasonable.<br />
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Well let's start off on a good note... photos! Yes... I still am shooting <br />
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These are from a quick overnight trip last year up to Davis Lake on the east side of the Cascades, pretty much due east of my place here. <br />
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(And remember, most of these images I post on the blog are all for sale over at <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/oregonyun/portfolio">my RedBubble gallery</a>, as greeting cards, post cards, and matted or framed prints. The quality is outstanding and I'll vouch for it, I'm my own best customer.<br />
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How's that for a start? Easy on the eyes and the brain. <br />
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---
<br />
And I'll be back... I mean it's an election year!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-33337696002427506132011-05-26T20:43:00.000-07:002011-05-26T20:56:36.567-07:00do me a favor...---<br />
<br />
<i>“Why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Will Rogers</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5xJIetbtBhE/Td8ZmAxha7I/AAAAAAAAC4o/UsIK0kdnexg/s1600/work.6133107.2.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5xJIetbtBhE/Td8ZmAxha7I/AAAAAAAAC4o/UsIK0kdnexg/s400/work.6133107.2.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>---<br />
<br />
So, anyway... we all know the drug war sucks, that it has completely and utterly failed and that the only ones in favor of the War On (some) Drugs are either the cartels raking in the profits from the international illegal drugs business (worth nearly 10% of the entire annual global marketplace) or those in the employ of the massive prohibition bureaucracy (the war profiteers). Please do me a favor and go sign this international petition calling for an end to the War On Drugs, <a href="http://www.avaaz.org/en/end_the_war_on_drugs/" style="color: blue;">here</a>. Join the more than 300,000 of us from all across the planet who have signed in just a couple of days.<br />
<br />
The petition will be accompanying a report to be released in a few days by the Global Commission on Drug Policy.<br />
<br />
A single, simple yet pointed paragraph:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>To Ban Ki-moon and all Heads of State:<br />
<br />
We call on you to end the war on drugs and the prohibition regime, and move towards a system based on decriminalisation, regulation, public health and education. This 50 year old policy has failed, fuels violent organised crime, devastates lives and is costing billions. It is time for a humane and effective approach.</i></blockquote><br />
Thanks y'all.<br />
<br />
---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-71529671077617346532011-05-01T20:31:00.000-07:002011-05-01T20:33:30.468-07:00Osama bin Laden killed!---<br />
<br />
<i>“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Plato</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
<p>I know you've prolly seen it, but I couldn't help but say it! That was a man that needed offing - and that's something I don't say very often. Apparently they tracked him to Pakistan and killed him there <i>and</i> took his body out of Pakistan. <br />
<p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.september11news.com/Nov10_OsamaBinLaden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="450" width="311" src="http://www.september11news.com/Nov10_OsamaBinLaden.jpg" /></a></div><p>---<br />
<p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-32123669170265627542011-03-29T11:11:00.000-07:002011-03-29T12:02:41.602-07:00flying Persians... and broken justice...---<br />
<br />
<i>“No statement should be believed because it is made by an authority.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Robert A. Heinlein</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
... and on that note (drumroll please)... I give you...<br />
<br />
The UFO identified! <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://dvice.com/assets_c/2011/03/zohal-iranian-flying-saucer-thumb-550xauto-59201.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="336" src="http://dvice.com/assets_c/2011/03/zohal-iranian-flying-saucer-thumb-550xauto-59201.jpg" width="550" /></a></div><br />
<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367204/Iran-builds-worlds-flying-saucer-Looks-like-belongs-1950s-B-movie.html">We've built a flying saucer, boasts Iran</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote>an aircraft created by scientists in Iran is, they claim, the world’s first flying saucer.</blockquote><br />
Well heck... <a href="http://morningdonut.blogspot.com/2009/05/well-who-coulda-known.html">we know the Germans built the first flying disc.</a> <br />
<br />
Anyway... I find myself in a bit of a funk. As I witness the ongoing tragedy in Japan I really wonder - "why?" Why are we so hell bent on creating industral waste that will be around for a thousand generations? What is this rush to electrify the world?<br />
<br />
What I fear is that as we of the "modern world" continue our cultural downhill slide all this electrical generation will not win us a more perfect world. I mean what is the end goal? Are we looking seven generations ahead as many indigenous cultures suggest we should?<br />
<br />
Or are we not looking past the greedy little noses on our faces? Has self gratification become the accepted global norm? Do we all desire that latest celphone/camera/video/music player/TV/microwave <i>that</i> much that we'll sell out the last forest? We're willing to sacrifice clean air and pristine waters for cheap plastic googaws? Really? <i>Really...?</i> And people accuse pot heads of "escaping reality!" Hah...<i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
How sad.<br />
<br />
I was a kid at a time when even in the rapidly growing LA basin there was still lots of open land for kids to dink around in. For me there were still enough bugs and lizards and frogs and salamanders and cool hidden spots to satisfy my need for natural contact and for learning about my earth.<br />
<br />
I can look back and see that everything that turned my path as I grew to be who I am now, all those little nudges that drew my attention to something... it was always nature that could hook me intellectually and spiritually.<br />
<br />
There is an impoverishment of spirit that I see that scares the crap out of me. 18 men and boy gang rape an 11 year old girl in Cleveland, Texas (near Houston) and people are defending the rapists. Even a Republican Florida legislator - a woman - is not defending the girl but taking her to task instead, for dressing and looking "older than her age." <br />
<br />
Now in my mind this... <i>assault</i>... by a group of men and boys on an eleven year old girl... I don't care if she took off al her clothes and begged for sex, she's eleven yeas old. And the event is recorded, that's how they got caught. This makes the Kitty Genovese case look downright civilized. <br />
<br />
I mean come on America, what the hell? If the gang rape is recorded can any of the males involved be acquitted? And then... the young man in Arizona, Jared Loughner, is there a doubt he shot those people? I understand we have a system of criminal justice, but I also understand it is broken. Just to make that point consider that when I was an energetic kid I loved being in and from the USA. Heck, I grew up watching any military show on TV. Victory At Sea, Combat, Hogan's Heroes... it didn't matter, if it was about the war we watched it. My dad was a WWII combat vet and proud of it but by no means boastful. Dad was a quiet guy... but I begin to digress. Our criminal justice system...<br />
<br />
... is broken. My pointing to old TV war shows is that part of the whole patriotic thing was that we were really known as <i>the Land of the Free</i> and we did feel proud and we boasted about it. But we weren't talking smack, we just were on a roll after WWII. My dad's generation settled down and built homes, tracts and tracts of homes and raised families, lots and lots of families... we had a ready and willing work force and Leave it to Beaver and The Nelsons... and segregation and and and... we had beaten Hitler and blasted the Japanese into submission with the use of atomic weapons. We built schools and parks and could afford to put gas in our cars. And we were the <i>Sweet Land of Liberty.</i> <br />
<br />
But now... not so much. Now we are <i>the Land of the Most Incarcerated</i>. Now we have elected leaders demonizing educators, our children's teachers. Class sizes grow and kids too often have their real educational needs ignored and they end up getting shuffled thru the system and graduating (if that) with an 8th - 10th grade reading level. Which is all so weird because the single most prominent common denominator shared by the inmates in an all of our jails, prisons and penitentiaries is that they are illiterate. Education is the key to keeping people <i>out</i> of jail. And education should be one of the keys for prisoners to get <i>out</i> of jail.<br />
<br />
We need our teachers and we need to teach our children, all of our children, now. We need to find our way at least as far back as to where "the Land of the Free" had a ring of truth to it. We fool ourselves if we think <i>USA #1!</i> is better sloganeering than the tried and true, best selling <i>the Land of the Free.</i> <a href="http://www.insidejob.com/">We need to prosecute the men and women on Wall Street who stole trillions of our dollars.</a><br />
<br />
Jared Loughner is guilty. He didn't craft a crime, no CSI team is needed to determine that... he opened fire in broad daylight and killed and wounded innocent people. Those men and boys in Texas that raped that little girl, they were recorded committing their heinous crimes. Such obvious criminality does not deserve a chance to get off the hook. And lord help us, may they never have children.<br />
<br />
meanwhile our government and those elected to lead it are squandering our last vestiges of credibility. This country isn't about corporations and business (even tho' I do believe Lewis and Clark can now be seen as the first scouts for 7-11 locations). This land is, as the song goes, my land, this land is your land. Us, we, the people share a common heritage forged in blood and guaranteed to us in our Bill of Rights.<br />
<br />
Every day we grow less free, we are losing the middle class as the economic disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us grows ever wider. Our pockets are being picked clean... and shocking to me - Disneyland turned out to be a fantasy after all. The promises of a marvelous future full of flying cars and fully automated homes for us all hasn't quite panned out as predicted in TomorrowLand.<br />
<br />
Yeah we have some pretty fancy gadgets but those are just that, fancy gadgets that bring us no closer to ending the cruelties of war and starvation, no closer to educating the masses of under educated, they won't warm a home in the winter and they won't bring us a better understanding of the tenuous situation in which we now find ourselves. <br />
<br />
Shun those that divide and stand against those seeking to profit from the rhetoric of division. Support those who strive for inclusion and seek cooperation. Follow the voices of reason, look for consensus and try to see through the charade of slick political and corporate charlatans. Get private money out of our elections and the horde of lobbyists out of Washington DC.<br />
<br />
So ever onward dear friends, towards protecting freedom and individual liberty and a dismantling of the drug war-prison-military-industrial complex... <br />
---<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h0J-CyUt2fk/TZIc_N01TXI/AAAAAAAAC3g/UkcWzEjZaEs/s1600/work.6213178.1.flat%252C550x550%252C075%252Cf.of-grace-and-decay.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h0J-CyUt2fk/TZIc_N01TXI/AAAAAAAAC3g/UkcWzEjZaEs/s400/work.6213178.1.flat%252C550x550%252C075%252Cf.of-grace-and-decay.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
<br />
---<br />
<br />
<i>“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Thomas Paine</b><br />
<br />
---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-34955557805174752312011-03-16T11:11:00.000-07:002011-03-16T11:27:45.918-07:00damn...---<br />
<br />
<i>“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Mahatma Gandhi</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AsRhEeha9AU/TYDsKM7gR0I/AAAAAAAAC3Q/UsO4GNTmg4o/s1600/work.6870176.1.flat%252C550x550%252C075%252Cf.water-jazz.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AsRhEeha9AU/TYDsKM7gR0I/AAAAAAAAC3Q/UsO4GNTmg4o/s400/work.6870176.1.flat%252C550x550%252C075%252Cf.water-jazz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
For me nature is a constant inspiration. There is no doubt in my mind that all that is good and inspirational about human beings comes from our spirit echoing nature's grace and beauty - learned, observed and become ancestral memory, building layer upon layer, down the thru the generations. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jIjnKcCFkzU/TYDui7AGz_I/AAAAAAAAC3Y/DgSf4mlPhzs/s1600/work.6848103.1.flat%252C550x550%252C075%252Cf.the-age-of-beauty.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jIjnKcCFkzU/TYDui7AGz_I/AAAAAAAAC3Y/DgSf4mlPhzs/s400/work.6848103.1.flat%252C550x550%252C075%252Cf.the-age-of-beauty.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
For far longer than we've been <span style="color: #cccccc;">*cough*</span> civilized we have lived as natural beings, migrating across the unfettered realms of this verdant earth. Always though, as sublime or majestic as natural beauty may be, the earth can undergo massive changes. Sometimes, as with the coming and going of the ice ages, the changes take generations and humans adapt, shifting either their location or some of the means by which they subsist. <br />
<br />
Other times the earth can shift in a moment. One such moment was Japan's recent 9.0 earthquake and the subsequent - and almost immediate - tsunami. Volcanoes, earthquakes and cosmic debris raining from the sky have all been traumatic events in our history - if humans were there as witnesses. I mean there can be no doubt such events were traumatic for the flora and fauna. I'm not a big fan of the "if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a noise?" school of philosophy. Obviously it does and probably scares the pellets right out of some furry creatures...<br />
<br />
Coupled with Japan's earthquake(s) and tsunami is the building emergency at the Fukushima nuclear facility. 4 of the 5 reactors are in some stage of crisis. A skeleton crew of some 50 workers has remained - at great personal risk.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16workers.html">Last Defense at Troubled Reactors: 50 Japanese Workers</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>They crawl through labyrinths of equipment in utter darkness pierced only by their flashlights, listening for periodic explosions as hydrogen gas escaping from crippled reactors ignites on contact with air.<br />
<br />
They breathe through uncomfortable respirators or carry heavy oxygen tanks on their backs. They wear white, full-body jumpsuits with snug-fitting hoods that provide scant protection from the invisible radiation sleeting through their bodies.<br />
<br />
They are the faceless 50, the unnamed operators who stayed behind. They have volunteered, or been assigned, to pump seawater on dangerously exposed nuclear fuel, already thought to be partly melting and spewing radioactive material, to prevent full meltdowns that could throw thousands of tons of radioactive dust high into the air and imperil millions of their compatriots.</i></blockquote><br />
But why? For what?<br />
<br />
As I've followed the unfolding of events I've also dug into what happened at Chernobyl in 1986 and in the years following. If I had to sum up the underlying causes that led to these horrific failings of technology, I would unabashedly say that human error and arrogance were the primary triggers.<br />
<br />
I'm no fan of nuclear power. I have long opposed it and supported efforts like those of my many friends who participated in actions at the Diablo Canyon facility near San Luis Obispo in California and the Trojan nuclear plant in Ranier, Oregon (which is no longer). I mean really... radiation to boil water? Come on...<br />
<br />
When Chernobyl exploded it was a real disaster. I was reading a story from 2006 that talked about the Russins having a new sarcophagus put over the destroyed reactor by 2008. It's 2011 and no new sarcophagus. This April will be the 25th anniversary of Chernobyl... the original and hastily erected sarcophagus was given a lifespan at best of 30 years. The new and improved sarcophagus will be built to last 100 years.<br />
<br />
But how long will the facility be uninhabitable? Well... ( <a href="http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Special_report:_In_Chernobyl,_a_disaster_persists.html?cid=29738520">Special report: In Chernobyl, a disaster persists</a> ):<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>Officials say Ukraine is likely to spend billions of euros on confinement upkeep costs before it finds a way to bury the reactor components, perhaps under layers of underground granite rocks. Even then the area around the plant will remain unsuitable for thousands of years. Asked how long before people can settle down and grow crops at the site, Chernobyl power plant director Ihor Gramotkin said: "At least 20,000 years."</i></blockquote><br />
Chernobyl was a disaster of as yet unknown proportion - certainly a massive disaster to those directly involved. But it was a <i>man made</i> disaster, a disaster that was avoidable. <br />
<br />
I harp often on our oh-so-human failings. I do so because they are avoidable, we are aware of our own faults. What we seem to lose a grasp on is the fact that there are greedy, greedy people trying as hard as they can to sell us a bill of goods. A bill of goods that is often an inferior and faulty product.<br />
<br />
Besides the horror for those local to the Fukushima facility the back story to Fukushima may be the collusion between the nuclear industry and the governmental organizations whose duty it is is to safeguard <i>us</i> from unscrupulous business practices and substandard goods. The watchdogs did neither. In fact they are often the industry leaders themselves or just arms of the industry with a watchdog badge that means about as much as one those plastic badges that may have been in a cereal box when I was a kid.<br />
<br />
Which I think is the point I'll leave you at for now:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2011/0316/Reports-Lax-oversight-greed-preceded-Japan-nuclear-crisis">Reports: Lax oversight, 'greed' preceded Japan nuclear crisis</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>Two of those reactor containment vessels may now have cracked and appear to be releasing radioactive steam. Their designer, General Electric, is now feeling heat for marketing the reactor despite safety concerns dating back three decades. Indeed, just as the BP oil spill drew scrutiny on several multinational companies, the crisis in Japan is underscoring a "flat world" where responsibility – along with environmental and economic fallout – spreads across oceans.<br />
<br />
Russian nuclear accident specialist Iouli Andreev, who as director of the Soviet Spetsatom clean-up agency helped in the efforts 25 years ago to clean up Chernobyl, has lashed out against the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and private corporations for failing to heed lessons from that 1986 nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine.<br />
<br />
"After Chernobyl all the force of the nuclear industry was directed to hide this event, for not creating damage to their reputation. The Chernobyl experience was not studied properly because who has money for studying? Only industry," he told Reuters in an interview published Tuesday.</i></blockquote><br />
and this one:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/fukushima-mark-nuclear-reactor-design-caused-ge-scientist/story?id=13141287">Fukushima: Mark 1 Nuclear Reactor Design Caused GE Scientist To Quit In Protest</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>Thirty-five years ago, Dale G. Bridenbaugh and two of his colleagues at General Electric resigned from their jobs after becoming increasingly convinced that the nuclear reactor design they were reviewing -- the Mark 1 -- was so flawed it could lead to a devastating accident.<br />
<br />
Questions persisted for decades about the ability of the Mark 1 to handle the immense pressures that would result if the reactor lost cooling power, and today that design is being put to the ultimate test in Japan. Five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, which has been wracked since Friday's earthquake with explosions and radiation leaks, are Mark 1s.</i></blockquote><br />
So what is it we are doing as a modern civilized society that is just sooo grand and noble that we are willing to saddle thousands of generations yet to come with the monumental task of being the guardians of our toxic and radioactive dung heaps and midden mounds? (metaphorically speaking)<br />
<br />
All this for Charlie Sheen and Paris Hilton? Really... this a civilization peaking? <br />
---<br />
<br />
<i>“Power does not corrupt man; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- George Bernard Shaw</b><br />
<br />
---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-21142031665572285512011-03-14T16:20:00.000-07:002011-03-14T21:19:31.034-07:00disaster in Japan...---<br />
<br />
<i>“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Omar Bradley</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.faqs.org/health/images/uchr_09_img0935.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="450" src="http://www.faqs.org/health/images/uchr_09_img0935.jpg" width="347" /></a></div>(children in a village hospital not far Chernobyl, four years after that nuclear power disaster, image © AP/Wide World Photos)<br />
<br />
Nuclear power in Japan is a major reality. The island nation is reliant on their nuclear plants for supplying about 30% of their energy needs.<br />
<br />
Reports have been stating that at minimum, a partial meltdown in some reactors has occurred. The debate currently is whether we have an accident of 3 Mile Island severity, or a Chernobyl scale disaster.<br />
<br />
There is a scale for nuclear power accidents that goes from 1 - 7, with 7 the worst (the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale). The 3 Mile Island event was a 5. The Chernobyl disaster was a 7 (really? like the perpetual optimists energy promoters are, I just have to believe there is an 8, and we <i>don't</i> want to see that). Currently Japanese officials are calling the Fukushima facility's problems a 4. Ok...<br />
<br />
If anybody was paying attention when the Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico, government officials here in the US were saying there were only 1,000 - 5,000 barrels of oil and gas leaking. But even I, a blue-collar guy scratching by in rural Oregon found after a day's reading that the far-smarter-than-I folks were estimating up to 100,000 barrels a day were flowing into the Gulf from the broken Deepwater Horizon Rig. (<a href="http://www.eoearth.org/article/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill?topic=50364">an excellent summation of the Deepwater Horizon disaster</a>)<br />
<br />
I just can't help but be pessimistic that Japan is suffering from a similar case of understatement.<br />
<br />
And I won't bog you down here, there is plenty of reporting going on, but will pass this last little bit along (<a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0314/Japanese-nuclear-reactor-update-Amid-signs-of-progress-new-problems">from the Christian Science Monitor</a>):<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>Another little-reported concern is a small but potentially dangerous amount of plutonium-based "MOX" – mixed-oxide fuel – inside the No. 3 reactor, says Dr. Lyman, who notes that plutonium particles are more dangerous to the human body than other particles that might be emitted.<br />
<br />
Tokyo Electric said some three yards of a MOX fuel rod was above the water line, suggesting that plutonium and other elements could be in the gases vented to the atmosphere, reported the Kyodo News Agency.<br />
<br />
"If the core of that No. 3 reactor melts and venting occurs, some of that plutonium and other nasty elements present in that fuel could end up on the winds," Lyman says.</i></blockquote><br />
We really aren't all that, even tho' some of us sure think we are... when our technology has surpassed our ability to clean up the mess that same technology makes... I dunno folks, I think we've got ourselves in a bind. I mean this is double deep sheep dip we're in...<br />
-<br />
<br />
updated news (9pm PDT):<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/03/14/1916549/3rd-blast-shakes-fukushima-reactors.html#">3rd blast shakes Fukushima reactors; fuel rods exposed</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote><i>The reactor at the plant, about 150 miles north of Tokyo, "is not necessarily in a stable condition," Japan's chief Cabinet secretary, Yukio Edano, said at a news conference Tuesday. Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the situation "worrisome."</i></blockquote><br />
What was I saying about understating? Anyway, back to the story:<br />
<br />
<blockquote><i> Another serious risk involves the more than 200 tons of spent nuclear fuel that is stored in pools adjacent to the reactors, Alvarez said. Those cooling pools depend on continually circulating water to keep the fuel rods from catching on fire. Without power to circulate the water, it heats up and potentially boils away, leaving the fuel rods exposed to air.<br />
<br />
An aerial image of the Fukushima No. 1 plant shows the loss of high-capacity cranes needed to move equipment to service the reactor. The photo also appears to show that the spent fuel pool is steaming hot, that may indicate the water is boiling off, Alvarez said.<br />
<br />
U.S. nuclear experts said they were particularly concerned about Unit 3 reactor because it is fueled in part with plutonium, an element used in hydrogen bombs that can be more difficult to control than the enriched uranium normally used in nuclear power plants.</i></blockquote><br />
In an earlier story an official stating the amount of spent fuel in the storage pools was not (to quote Prime Minister Naoto Kan) "worrisome."<br />
<br />
<i>Ok...</i><br />
---<br />
<br />
<i>“The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Mark Twain</b><br />
<br />
---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-33758111317431710782011-03-13T19:18:00.000-07:002011-03-13T19:42:41.315-07:00Atlantis found...---<br />
<br />
<i>“I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Plato</b><br />
---<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/religion/images/Atlantis-Painting.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="458" src="http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/religion/images/Atlantis-Painting.jpg" width="383" /></a></div><br />
I mean really... the program covering this is on television tonight at 10 pm (Sunday, Mar 13) on the National Geographic channel, check your listings!<br />
<br />
The weird part of this for me? The first news release on this came out on March 5. And of course the theory is that Atlantis was destroyed by a tsunami... a week after the release of the story Japan is hit with a mega-quake and tsunami. This is one of those coincidences that happen in life and one that pokes me <i>real</i> hard.<br />
<br />
Here is the story from the Hartford (NH) Courant <br />
<br />
<a href="http://articles.courant.com/2011-03-11/features/hc-atlantis-national-geographic-20110311_1_marsh-explorers-archaeologist">Team Led By UofH Professor May Have Found Lost City Of Atlantis</a><br />
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<i>Since it was first described by Plato in about 360 B.C., the legend of Atlantis has stayed alive in story, song, film and the popular imagination.<br />
<br />
Explorers seeking the city that disappeared have so far searched the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans and even Antarctica.<br />
<br />
But a team led by University of Hartford professor and archaeologist Richard Freund may have pinpointed the long-sought city somewhere completely unexpected — in a vast marsh in Southern Spain.</i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://api.ning.com/files/ysQKYhsrPzAN0Qa3MboqL9Zvgr1uV0dfzJVXcL2fC69oGtUyQ0uunPXhf6IkAOCUbAcK4RN*CwedNSw33Wm55VMvXyKw19Y8/Atlantis20m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style=""><img border="0" height="287" width="449" src="http://api.ning.com/files/ysQKYhsrPzAN0Qa3MboqL9Zvgr1uV0dfzJVXcL2fC69oGtUyQ0uunPXhf6IkAOCUbAcK4RN*CwedNSw33Wm55VMvXyKw19Y8/Atlantis20m.jpg" /></a></div><br />
---<br />
<br />
<i>“Nature chose for a tool, not the earthquake or lightning to rend and split asunder, not the stormy torrent or eroding rain, but the tender snow-flowers noiselessly falling through unnumbered centuries.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- John Muir</b><br />
<br />
---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-70093493444472954202011-03-10T15:20:00.000-08:002011-03-10T18:57:28.667-08:00hey...---<br />
<br />
<i>“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”</i><br />
<br />
<b>- Joseph Campbell</b><br />
---<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lCArNtKCh5s/TXmPTBU4raI/AAAAAAAAC3I/eKmIH973jlE/s1600/work.6849705.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="264" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lCArNtKCh5s/TXmPTBU4raI/AAAAAAAAC3I/eKmIH973jlE/s400/work.6849705.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
---<br />
<br />
I know, I know... what can I say, it's been a tough past few months.<br />
<br />
I've started and stopped several posts, just wasn't feeling it. Not that I haven't been putting my words down... I sold my first piece of writing last fall to the newly launched <a href="http://cannabisnowmag.com/">Cannabis Now magazine</a>. More writing, including some of my photographs from my trip last fall to High Hopes Farm in southern Oregon will be in the next quarterly issue (I'm hoping I made the cut for the cover!). The images from that trip are what inspired me to produce the <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/6150790-calendar">Cannabis Calendar</a>: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-69YiDLPpGC8/TXkA1qxNUpI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/LkWL6MjMZ0k/s1600/work.6133107.3.caf%252C294x416%252C2011%252CQ2FubmFiaXMgQmVhdXR5IC0gQWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24%253D.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-69YiDLPpGC8/TXkA1qxNUpI/AAAAAAAAC2Q/LkWL6MjMZ0k/s400/work.6133107.3.caf%252C294x416%252C2011%252CQ2FubmFiaXMgQmVhdXR5IC0gQWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24%253D.jpg" width="285" /></a></div><br />
(by the way... my calendars have the feature of having the current month, or any month you choose, be the first month in the calendar. If you want to start your calendar in April or May or June...)<br />
<br />
I will be posting more, soon. There is lots to talk about.<br />
<br />
For instance... why are Republicans - like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker - going after middle class workers like teachers, cops, municipal works employees and firemen when absolutely <i>none of our elected reps at any level</i> are going after the Wall Street high finance types that sent our economy into the worst dive since the Great Depression. <br />
<br />
From <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/94935-financial-crisis-cost-taxpayers-at-least-11000-each">The Hill</a>:<br />
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<blockquote><i>"The combined costs of lost income and wages, and federal government spending to mitigate the financial crisis, totaled more than $11,000, on average per U.S. household, during the acute stage of the financial crisis -- from September 2008 through the end of 2009," the group stated. <br />
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"In addition, the combined peak loss from declining stock and home values totaled nearly $100,000, on average per U.S. household, during the July 2008 to March 2009 period."<br />
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Pew also noted that the U.S. lost $7.4 trillion in stock wealth from July 2008 to March 2009, according to the Federal Reserve. <br />
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"This is roughly $66,200 on average per U.S. household," Pew stated.</i></blockquote><br />
That manipulated scheming stole over 2 trillion dollars from Americans' retirement savings. Yet Wall Street bonuses in 2009 were over $20 billion...<br />
<br />
My suggestion? Republicans and Democrats both need to make a pilgrimage to the Emerald City. Republicans should ask for hearts, Democrats should ask for balls.<br />
---<br />
<br />
In 2009 self-help "guru" James Ray was leading a <span style="color: #cccccc;">*cough*</span> <i>Spiritual Warrior</i> retreat in Sedona, Arizona (for only $14,000 each!). 3 people died from participating in an obviously ill managed faux sweat lodge ceremony. Ray was arrested early last year and his trial is currently underway. There has to be a cost to Ray (besides the penalties for his costing 3 people their lives) for such a cultural misappropriation... the sweat is one of humanity's oldest ceremonies and health and hygiene practices. Of course tricking people out of their hard earned cash is an ancient tradition as well... <i>but people aren't supposed to die from sweat lodge!</i><br />
---<br />
<br />
There is just so much news happening around the globe... North Africa and the Middle East are really undergoing a sea change as people finally are speaking out and rising up against autocratic rule. A note to the men of Egypt... <i>y'all better recognize the women who stood beside you in the streets, who in fact helped orchestrate Egypt's uprising against Hosni Mubarak's 40 year rule.</i> If you demand the rights of a free people, why or how can you deny the same equality to the women of your nation?<br />
---<br />
<br />
The other day I was reading that China has the world's largest mall. 1500 store spaces and almost 10 million square feet! <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1223747/Ghost-mall-The-worlds-largest-loneliest-shopping-centre.html">The Not-So-Great Mall of China: Welcome to the world's largest (and loneliest) shopping centre</a><br />
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As it happens only 15 stores are occupied...<br />
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<br />
And yes, I am a photographer, for hire. My photographic art is always for sale and I am definitely interested in full time photographic employment or contract work. Here are a few of my latest images:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pzT5Iysku_k/TXkVBHthdRI/AAAAAAAAC2Y/GrInWA2PRWQ/s1600/work.6781902.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pzT5Iysku_k/TXkVBHthdRI/AAAAAAAAC2Y/GrInWA2PRWQ/s400/work.6781902.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
a couple of weeks ago, Golden Garden park, Eugene, Oregon<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PTDwRj0-0FY/TXlUdGk6rnI/AAAAAAAAC2o/c7sigCErAFw/s1600/work.6848103.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="266" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PTDwRj0-0FY/TXlUdGk6rnI/AAAAAAAAC2o/c7sigCErAFw/s400/work.6848103.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
2009 Eugene Celebration Parade<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g68eNDZvaE4/TXlUdael7-I/AAAAAAAAC2w/SnR7SMTnUYI/s1600/work.6857187.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="260" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g68eNDZvaE4/TXlUdael7-I/AAAAAAAAC2w/SnR7SMTnUYI/s400/work.6857187.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Crump Lake, Warner Lakes Basin, south central Oregon 1993 (digital transfer from Kodachrome 64)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-35PKgu0gKW0/TXlUdsHTxII/AAAAAAAAC24/PgSqojyBUvY/s1600/work.6669486.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="311" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-35PKgu0gKW0/TXlUdsHTxII/AAAAAAAAC24/PgSqojyBUvY/s400/work.6669486.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Another image from my High Hopes Farm trip, autumn harvest, 2010<br />
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And, as <i>almost</i> always... any of these photos are for sale at my <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/oregonyun/portfolio">RedBubble gallery</a> - blank note cards starting around $3, postcards, laminated posters, framed prints... go take a peek.<br />
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And it won't be months before I return. I swear...<br />
---<br />
<br />
<i>“I am a possibilist. I believe that humanity is master of its own fate... Before we can change direction, we have to question many of the assumptions underlying our current philosophy. Assumptions like bigger is better; you can't stop progress; no speed is too fast; globalization is good. Then we have to replace them with some different assumptions: small is beautiful; roots and traditions are worth preserving; variety is the spice of life; the only work worth doing is meaningful work; biodiversity is the necessary pre-condition for human survival.”</i><br />
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<b>- Robert Bateman</b><br />
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---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-87209755376684234722010-11-25T12:01:00.000-08:002010-11-25T12:42:22.907-08:00Giving thanks...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TO7In_qEalI/AAAAAAAAC1o/Q2lVIkQRs6Q/s1600/work.6306012.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 189px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TO7In_qEalI/AAAAAAAAC1o/Q2lVIkQRs6Q/s400/work.6306012.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543588780767996498" /></a><br />---<br /><br /><br /><i>“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”</i><br /><br /><b>- Albert Schweitzer</b><br />---<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TO7In567UkI/AAAAAAAAC1g/0lZw-dzunZQ/s1600/work.6306407.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 189px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TO7In567UkI/AAAAAAAAC1g/0lZw-dzunZQ/s400/work.6306407.1.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543588779228090946" /></a><br /><br />A couple of older offerings that fit the day for me and my place in life's web...<br /><br /><a href="http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC34/Abdullah.htm">The Song, An ancient song transforms a hike into a vision quest, by Sharif Abdullah</a><br /><br />and this offering of thanks, from Chief Jake Swamp (the best version of this is found on Joanne Shenandoah's wonderful album, Covenant):<br /><br /><blockquote>"We are brought together on this beautiful day. We now bring our minds together as if we became one person as we give thanks to our health and well-being. We look around the world and we see the many different gifts that have been given by the Great Spirit.<br /><br />"We give thanks to the Earth, our Mother, and greet her this morning, for always taking care of us.<br /><br />"We give thanks to all the bodies of water, the water that is responsible for quenching our thirst.<br /><br />"When we see all the grasses and the beauty of the greenery they present to us, we thank them for what they do in this life. We give thanks to all the medicinal herbs that have been planted that take away diseases and sicknesses.<br /><br />"We give thanks to all the foods that come from the ground.<br /><br />"We give thanks to all the fish that live in the waters, and all the insects.<br /><br />"We give thanks to all the animal relatives, especially the Deer, their leader. We give thanks to them for cleaning up the forest and keeping it clean.<br /><br />"We give thanks to all the trees around the world, for each and every day we use their energy. We must always honor and remember how helpful they are to our lives.<br /><br />"We pay attention to the birds who sing their beautiful songs, including their leader, the Eagle. Each time when we are taken into loneliness, we only need to listen to their beautiful songs, and we are comforted in our minds and be well again.<br /><br />"We take our minds to the Four Directions where the Four Winds come from, and we give thanks for the air that we breathe.<br /><br />"We give thanks to our oldest Grandfathers who come from the West, the Thunder Beings. As they rumble across the sky, we know that the waters of the world will be replenished.<br /><br />"We give thanks to our oldest Brother, the Sun, for he is the one who shines his light that we may see creation clearly, giving his warmth so that everything can grow.<br /><br />"We thank our oldest Grandmother, the Moon, as she continues to hold hands with the Earth and all the females of the world who are responsible for bringing forth new life. She is in charge of the movements of all the waters of the world, including the waters within us.<br /><br />"We give thanks to her helpers, all the Stars, who bring the dew to help the plant life when we have dry seasons. Although we have lost much knowledge of the stars, just to look at their beauty and the brilliance of how they are scattered across the sky brings us comfort enough to say thankyou for what they do.<br /><br />"We give thanks to the Four Sacred Beings who were assigned to watch over the human family. We depend upon them whenever we are entering into dangerous places. They intervene on our behalf and lead us away from danger.<br /><br />"And now we have arrived at a special place beyond the heavens where the Great Spirit lives. We say thank you for what was presented to the People in this world, the gift of life; we know where it came from. Although we do not know the face of the Creator, we can feel its presence within every living thing, including within us. And so we give thanks for this great mystery to the Creator of all things that we enjoy every day.<br /><br />"This morning we have opened our gathering with thankfulness for being brought together. Yawehkowa. Thank you."</blockquote><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TO7IoP6tlxI/AAAAAAAAC1w/O2MwFDQNPcY/s1600/work.6243323.2.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 186px; height: 280px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TO7IoP6tlxI/AAAAAAAAC1w/O2MwFDQNPcY/s400/work.6243323.2.flat%252C800x800%252C070%252Cf.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543588785132771090" /></a><br /><br />---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-7385682145740535212010-11-04T16:29:00.000-07:002011-03-31T08:07:24.730-07:002011 Calendar sale... is over... but the calendars are still for sale!---<br />
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<i>“The Gods cannot help those who do not seize opportunities”</i><br />
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<b>- Chinese Proverb</b><br />
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<br />
The sale ended Nov. 14, but I'll sure post it here when they have another one! But the way RedBubble has the calendars formatted you can have it start at whatever month you want and it will still be a 12 month calendar... so if you purchase one in April, you can have the calendar start in May. Pretty cool...<br />
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---<br />
<br />
Seeing how <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/oregonyun/shop/calendars">I have 4 to choose from</a> (counting last year's, which is updated to 2011 dates) and naturally, I'm gonna tell you they're all beautiful and loaded with my best Oregon nature images:<br />
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<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNIqe3bQoI/AAAAAAAAC0o/LUVu0SJF43w/s1600/work.3744137.10.caf,294x416,2011,QWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24ncyBPcmVnb24g.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 285px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNIqe3bQoI/AAAAAAAAC0o/LUVu0SJF43w/s400/work.3744137.10.caf,294x416,2011,QWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24ncyBPcmVnb24g.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535848261645714050" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/3881346-calendar">‘Allan Erickson's Oregon ’</a><br />
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<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNJu0pzkoI/AAAAAAAAC0w/oL4PU52FgOQ/s1600/work.3792539.5.caf,294x416,2011,T3JlZ29uIC0gY2xvdWRzLCBza3kgYW5kIGxpZ2h0IC0gQWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24%3D.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 285px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNJu0pzkoI/AAAAAAAAC0w/oL4PU52FgOQ/s400/work.3792539.5.caf,294x416,2011,T3JlZ29uIC0gY2xvdWRzLCBza3kgYW5kIGxpZ2h0IC0gQWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24%3D.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535849435725271682" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/6002769-calendar">‘Oregon - clouds, sky and light - Allan Erickson’</a><br />
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<br />
<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNLGRMvHvI/AAAAAAAAC04/15KaQHSqgMA/s1600/work.4749147.3.caf,294x416,2011,T3JlZ29uIHdhdGVycy4uLg%3D%3D.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 285px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNLGRMvHvI/AAAAAAAAC04/15KaQHSqgMA/s400/work.4749147.3.caf,294x416,2011,T3JlZ29uIHdhdGVycy4uLg%3D%3D.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535850938036592370" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/5943019-calendar">‘Oregon waters...’</a><br />
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and my newest (my fave by the way...)<br />
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<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNMI4BzslI/AAAAAAAAC1A/SBB-ezZ98k8/s1600/work.6133107.3.caf,294x416,2011,Q2FubmFiaXMgQmVhdXR5IC0gQWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24%3D.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 285px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PC4HHiEwMA0/TNNMI4BzslI/AAAAAAAAC1A/SBB-ezZ98k8/s400/work.6133107.3.caf,294x416,2011,Q2FubmFiaXMgQmVhdXR5IC0gQWxsYW4gRXJpY2tzb24%3D.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5535852082331103826" /></a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.redbubble.com/products/configure/6150790-calendar">‘Cannabis Beauty - Allan Erickson’</a><br />
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and while I'm pitching... remember that there are a lot of folks like me who are artists and every time someone buys one of their/our works it is an acknowledgement we all savor...<br />
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(note that sale ends on November 14th)<br />
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Thanks folks, for stopping by and visiting my humble corner of the wwweb... anything else is old pie and melted ice cream!<br />
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---<br />
<i>“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.”</i><br />
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<b>- Joseph Campbell</b> <br />
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---Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5323105052259108158.post-2758089594717241602010-10-30T12:39:00.000-07:002010-10-30T12:49:08.770-07:00the bullies among (and within) us...---<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.homicidesquad.com/images/kitty_genovese-kitty-outside-L.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 540px; height: 600px;" src="http://www.homicidesquad.com/images/kitty_genovese-kitty-outside-L.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />---<br /><br /><i>“Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all--the apathy of human beings.”</i><br /><br /><br /><b>- Helen Keller</b><br />---<br /><br />I was watching the network evening news the other night (I rarely "watch" it, but it's in the background while I'm <i>reading</i> the news I choose, here on the 'puter) and a story came on about bullying among kids being "epidemic." Now pundits and officials and parents across the nation are in shock and despair... again. <i>What</i>ever.<br /><br />It's funny how memories from childhood stick. When I was 12 or so I remember hearing <a href="http://www2.selu.edu/Academics/Faculty/scraig/gansberg.html">the story of Kitty Genovese</a>. It impressed me. Not much impressed me when I was 12 if it wasn't outside. But sometimes, you know, the world makes even little kids sit up and pay attention. I'd grown up white middle class and my dad worked and my mom was home, doing the housewife thing. Life was good. We lived in Southern California and the weather was great (the occasional smog alert was always a drag) and LA hadn't consumed everything around it so I still had fields and woods to poke around in.<br /><br />But Kitty Genovese has stuck in my mind, even after all these years. <br /><br /><blockquote><i>New York Times<br />Martin Gansberg<br />March 27, 1964<br /><br /> For more than half an hour 38 respectable, law-abiding citizens in Queens watched a killer stalk and stab a woman in three separate attacks in Kew Gardens.<br /><br /> Twice their chatter and the sudden glow of their bedroom lights interrupted him and frightened him off. Each time he returned, sought her out, and stabbed her again. Not one person telephoned the police during the assault; one witness called after the woman was dead.<br /><br /> That was two weeks ago today.<br /><br /> Still shocked is Assistant Chief Inspector Frederick M. Lussen, in charge of the borough's detectives and a veteran of 25 years of homicide investigations. He can give a matter-of-fact recitation on many murders. But the Kew Gardens slaying baffles him--not because it is a murder, but because the "good people" failed to call the police.<br /><br /> "As we have reconstructed the crime," he said, "the assailant had three chances to kill this woman during a 35-minute period. He returned twice to complete the job. If we had been called when he first attacked, the woman might not be dead now."</i></blockquote><br /><br />I don't know... <i>why did</i> 38 people ignore the screams of a woman under violent and murderous attack? It certainly was a different time culturally but wasn't this an instance that would incite our nobler aspects? <br /><br />I think what cemented Kitty's story in my mind was the sadness it produced in me. Even then I think my empathic senses knew we were in trouble. But I was on the cusp of puberty, girls were starting to look... pretty. And lord help me, I was liking dancing with them. Even... <i>kissing</i> them was enjoyable. Heck, I even liked my little sister... <br /><br />... anyway... I'll get distracted by despairing the direction my path has taken since I started liking females so let's get back to the topic. Sorry for the digression. (I hope the tongue poking my cheek was obvious)<br /><br />I mean I don't really <i>know</i> where my propensity for caring like I do came from. Why do some things touch me so deeply I cry? Could it have been all those episodes of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin ("Yo Rinnie!") or maybe I did meet a magical frog that gave me a special gift when I was 2. Another of life's little mysteries remains unsolved... for now. <br /><br />When I was stationed in Thailand I got started with meditation when a young man came to the base and started a meditation class. He was from a group called <a href="http://www.hyperlinkcode.com">Ananda Marga</a>, an organization dedicated to teaching yoga and meditation and providing social services to humanity. It was sometime after that I had my bout of conscienciousness and didn't want to help bomb short brown people anymore. More fallout I suspect from an overdose of Lassie's compassion.<br /><br />After that religion was anything but organized, for me. But one thing I found in my reading and listening to folks of different beliefs was that at the core all had the intent to promote good. And I enjoyed finding out bits and pieces about everybody's god views as I travelled along my merry way. That is until I met my first really obnoxious evangelists... and then I realized there were spiritual bullies in the world. Another sad realization...<br /><br />So what does Kitty Genovese have to do with bullies? Well... the man that killed her comitted the ultimate act of bullying - murder. And 38 people stood by and did nothing...<br /><br />So, today we have an epidemic of bullying... <br /><br />Note the footnote on the Kitty Genovese article I linked to:<br /><br /><blockquote>The above reported events are true and took place on March 14, 1964.<br /><br />The brutal murder of Kitty Genovese and the disturbing lack of action by her neighbors became emblematic in what many perceived as an evolving culture of violence and apathy in the United States. In fact, social scientists still debate the causes of what is now known as "the Genovese Syndrome."</blockquote><br /><br /><i>"an evolving culture of violence and apathy"</i><br /><br />Would not it make sense that today's bullying fits the profile? Where I wonder have the kids picked this up from? *gasp* Anybody paying attention to the political season?<br />Listening to any talk radio? Have you tried to discuss controversial, topical issues in online forums... mean and nasty is mainstream.<br /><br />Bullying <i>is cool...</i> who needs truth, fact or civility when all that's really needed is a bad attitude and an internet soap box (to virtually stand on)? Tough is good, everything else is sissiefied and unfit for an equal standing in society. <br /><br />I tell ya what... y'all have me really worried. If you're not standing up and (metaphorically at least) saving Kitty Genovese's life <i>this time</i>, then you are one of those 38 people not even responsible enough to make a phone call. Metaphorically speaking of course.<br /><br />A pox on your houses, some would say...<br /><br />Mammon is a cruel master and makes for a terrible religion. It is a religion of bullies... and a religion that runs roughshod over the landscape providing it's base resources.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Kitty had crossed my mind a lot recently, I thought she deserved some recognition. Not every victim of violence and apathy get a syndrome named after them.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Speaking of bullies, do you recognize this man:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/images/director_kerlikoske.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 225px;" src="http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/images/director_kerlikoske.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bkFIPLIOGL8/SlzJKrsfRYI/AAAAAAAAh-Y/x6vFzJnGb2Y/s400/Droopy-Dog-cartoon-classics-299389_1024_768.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bkFIPLIOGL8/SlzJKrsfRYI/AAAAAAAAh-Y/x6vFzJnGb2Y/s400/Droopy-Dog-cartoon-classics-299389_1024_768.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />That's Gil. Gil is a bully. Gil didn't have a dictionary. Gil thinks it's his duty to lie. Actually, kinda, it his job to lie, Congress says so. He's the Drug Kzar. Is it easier to lie if you don't have a dictionary? <br /><br />---<br /><br /><i>“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”</i><br /><br /><b>- Theodore Roosevelt</b>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1