THURSDAY WHATEVER

Meg Whitman

Know who that is? Not exactly a household name but the company she runs sure is. Who hasn’t tried to find something for the best price by visiting eBay? And then there’s the contingent who sell everything including the kitchen sink there. And for once, it’s a young (48) woman who is the boss of a megabillion dollar enterprise. How do you get to be her? Well, you’re the youngest child of a Wall Street dad and a stay-at-home mom from Long Island, N.Y. You race through high school in three years. Then you go to Princeton and major in economics and on to the Harvard Business School at age 21 where you work your butt off. MBA in hand, you grab a job at Proctor & Gamble where you work with such future icons as Scott Balmer of Microsoft and Scott Cook who founded Intuit. Then you meet your husband, a neurosurgeon (what else?), and move to San Francisco, where you begin to climb through such companies as Disney, Stride Rite, FTD, and Hasbro. And now you’re in view of a CEO position at a 30-person tech startup called eBay and its co-founders, Pierre and Pam Omidyar. (Read about them, their philosophy of life, and eBay history here.) In 1998, they picked her to run things and they’ve all never looked back. Very responsive to customers, one of her decisions to make buying things easier for them was to up and pay $1.5 billion to buy PayPal in 2002. Well, she’s now a multibillionaire and one of the richest women CEO’s in the world and she just turned down a call from Disney to step up to a $30 billion industry from where she is. She likes it there at eBay thank you very much. So we’ll leave her there, enjoying all that money and power and such, and either we’ll go back to our humdrum lives or (if we’re young enough) we’ll start planning to follow her trail. Pack those bags and move to Long Island if you haven’t hit high school yet. Time’s a-wastin’.

Deep Thought: “They were a proud people. In fact, some said they were too proud. If you asked them whey they were so proud, they’d just laugh and say, “We’re not even going to answer that.”
Today I am grateful for: Chairs
Guess the Movie: “You told me Gramp’s been sick, Mother, and I know about the oil burner. Okay, I’ll pawn the mink. He’ll give me a couple hundred for it. Mother, I know I don’t have any talent, and I know I all I have is a body, and I am doing my bust exercise. Goodbye, Mother. I’ll wire you the money first thing in the morning. Goodbye.” Answer: Valley of the Dolls, 1967. Winner: merrow_mistral.
Terri Schiavo Is Dead…and What Remains
by David Corn
Terri Schiavo is dead. Whatever happens in death–resting in peace, meeting one’s maker, or nothing–has now happened for her. I hope her family members–on both sides–can find their peace. I hope her husband is not hounded or hunted by extremists. I hope her blood relatives can move on. But I don’t think we should forget how certain scoundrels crassly exploited this family conflict. No doubt, some of the supporters of Schiavo’s parents were moved by sincere concerns and principles. But the motives of the politicians and crusaders who rushed in can be called into question. I did a roundup of the hypocrisy a few days ago. (Click here), and Tom DeLay, of course, was included. But I did not bash him for playing God, which is what he did yesterday. Responding to the news report that DeLay and his family withheld life-sustaining care from his father when he was in a coma, DeLay said, “My father was on life support and dying. Schiavo is living and wants to live.” (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: Oops, forgot to sign out last night.
+ = Normal annual mammogram.
- = Cat killed bird.

WEDNESDAY MOVIE

Finding Neverland

Way back when, I reviewed all five nominees for Best Film of 2004 but this one. Just didn’t get to it. All Depp Fiends have already seen it and probably most everybody else as well because it’s a film for the whole family, or whatever parts of it see movies. The Depp role is, of course, J.M. Barrie, the Scottish author who published Peter Pan in 1904 (when he was 44) and who was himself the ninth of 10 children. He left home at 13 and eventually got his M.A. at the University of Edinburgh. He was a journalist who wrote both novels and plays, and he married but, according to biographers, was impotent. He was only five feet tall and rarely smiled. Peter Pan was the result of stories he told to Sylvia Llewelyn Davies’ 5 young sons. Unlike in the movie, she was married and her husband was not happy about Barrie’s invasion into their lives. Later, when she and her husband had both died Barrie became the boys’ unofficial guardian. Two of the boys later committed suicide, which was a great blow to him. Barrie died in 1937 at the age of 77. As for the film, it was very pretty to watch (especially the Deppster), but I can’t say I was transfigured with amazement. Probably the best acting was accomplished by the little boy who plays Peter Llewellyn Davies, who is so adorable you’d just like to take a big bite of his face. Kate Winslet is always competent, though there’s something about those horsey toothy Englishwomen that I find slightly annoying. Nevertheless, Neverland is a place we can all visit on grey days for a little spot of dreaming. What is that sentence in the book – “Every time a child says ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ there is a little fairy somewhere that falls down dead.”

Deep Thought: “When this girl at the museum asked me whom I liked better, Monet or Manet, I said, “I like mayonnaise.” She just stared at me, so I said it again, louder. Then she left. I guess she went to try to find some mayonnaise for me.”
Today I am grateful for: Xanga
Guess the Movie: “You a real cowboy?” “Depends on what you think a real cowboy is?” “Can you 2-step?” “Course.” “Wanna prove it?” Answer: Urban Cowboy, 1980. Winner: hereathome.
Nation in a Persistent Torpid State
by David Rossie
“And here, in silence, are seven more.”
That is how Jim Lehrer has ended many of his News Hour broadcasts during the last two years. The reference is to American military men and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan; their names, faces, ranks, hometowns, and service branches are presented, one by one. There is no background music or commentary. Only the mournful numbers vary.
As the war enters its third year and casualties continue, the question will not go away: What will it take to end the silence, to rouse the public from its torpor? (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:36 pm
+ = Resigned from Curves.
- = I’ll miss it – I loved that little gym.

TUESDAY POLITICS

Church and State

What with the Schiavo case taking up so much more media space than the war in Iraq or the economy or Social Security or even the Michael Jackson trial, I’ve been thinking a lot about the old church-and-state contretemps lately. I discovered there is an organization called Americans United which has been thinking about it actively since 1947. Non-sectarian, non-partisan, and independent of ties to political organizations, it has chapters all over the country. The headliner on its site at the moment is:

Caught Red-Handed!
The Family Research Council, a Washington-based Religious Right group, held a closed-door “Washington Briefing” March 17-19, 2005. During the event, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) addressed attendees and pledged that Republican leaders in Congress would work to implement the Religious Right’s controversial political agenda.
Americans United obtained a recording of DeLay’s and Frist’s comments. Americans United believes this recording underscores the growing power and influence of ultra-conservative fundamentalist organizations on our political system. AU released it to the media and public because the organization does not believe that powerful groups with controversial and narrow fundamentalist agendas that they seek to impose on all Americans should be permitted to plot and scheme in secret.

So listen to the recording, check out the site, and while you’re at it, visit here for every sticker, logo, cap, magnet, shirt, etc. you could want on the subject. Evolve!

Deep Thought: “Every summer we’d get our baskets and buckets and go out into the hills and woods, looking for wild strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. We never found any, though.”
Today I am grateful for: Cat’s whiskers
Guess the Movie: “The days go on and on… they don’t end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don’t believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention, I believe that one should become a person like other people.” Answer: Taxi Driver, 1976.
Republican Leader Invokes God in Schiavo Battle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – In helping lead the charge to keep brain-damaged Terri Schiavo alive, House of Representatives Majority Leader Tom DeLay has invoked God, diverted attention from his own ethical woes and again become a lightning rod for critics of his party’s conservative agenda. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 9:00 pm
+ = Oregon getting lots of rain to help against the probable drought later on this summer.
- = Jesse Jackson now jumping into the Schiavo disaster?!!

MONDAY BOOK

The Hidden Messages in Water

One day, Dr. Masaru Emoto, a Doctor of Alternative Medicine from Open International University in India, read this sentence in a book: No two snow crystals are exactly the same. It set him on an eventual course to study water crystals to find out what they could tell us about ourselves, since human bodies are made up of 70% water. I picked up this little book from the desk of a friend I was visiting recently and brought it home to see what the heck he was up to. If you saw the film “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” you would be aware of his work. I have to confess I saw the movie out at the theater and immediately erased everything in it from my mind because it struck me as Way Too New Age, but other people just rave. It just came out in video recently if you want to try it safely at home. Anyway….Dr. Emoto and his assistant proceeded to figure out a way using high-speed photography to meticulously record frozen water crystals under all different kinds of circumstances – exposing them to music (in the first photo above the music is Bach); exposing them to words typed and taped on the bottles holding them or spoken to them (the other two photos shown here are crystals that were exposed to the words “love and gratitude” and “you fool” – you guess which is which). It’s sort of a quantum physics thing – how much of what we are is energy and vibration? You can browse some of the beautiful crystals here. So I’ve just begun the book, but what it makes me think of already is the incident that happened recently when Brian Nichols went berserk in Georgia and wound up by fate in the home of Ashley Smith, who proceeded to use calm and thoughtful words and behavior to stop him in his tracks. Water crystals or no, we know that if the world leaders behaved this way to each other it would create a very different outcome than war and political corruption and greed. It’s not that those in power don’t know this either – it’s that they don’t care.

Deep Thought: “When I told Dad I wanted a kite he said, “Okay, but instead of buying a kite, let’s make one.” So we did. Then, about a month later, we also made me a bicycle, but it blew away.”
Today I am grateful for: Beaks
Guess the Movie: “Would ya just watch the hair. Ya know, I spend a long time on my hair and he hit it; he hit my hair.” Answer: Saturday Night Fever, 1977. Winner: TheExWifeIAlwaysKnewIdBe.
Magnitude 8.7 – NORTHERN SUMATRA, INDONESIA
2005 March 28 16:09:36 UTC
(Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:19 pm
+ = Didn’t burn my house down once again after leaving for a few hours and not being sure I turned the heat under the teapot off – this time I really retired the teapot.
- = Rain still postponing yardwork.

THURSDAY WHATEVER

Google Local

Check it out. With Google’s new feature, you can plug in anything for location, including your street address and something to look for, and get it mapquested. I entered the word “fascinating” on the left with Portland, Oregon on the right and one of the links on the first page it came up with was for the Portland Art Museum, where they are now having a show of Diane Arbus’ work. When I was starting my Saturday A-Z Photo series last week with Ansel Adams, I almost chose Arbus instead because she was such an interesting person and photographer. She was kind of the Sylvia Plath of cameras. Born in 1923 to a wealthy New York family of Russian Jewish storeowners and the sister of Howard Nemerov who became an American poet laureate, she met her husband Alan Arbus when she was 14 and married him at 18. From him she began to learn about photography and they eventually went into business together as fashion photographers – he took the pictures and she did the styling. In 1956, when she was 33 she began to take her own photos. She became a portrait photographer, but her subjects were people on the fringes of society. The photo shown here is one of her most famous. Stare back at these identical twins and you will see that they are not, in fact, so identical. She went up to people on the street and in bars and clubs and asked them if she could photograph them. She was a pioneer in the technique of using flash in daylight. She used a square medium format camera with a waist-level finder so that she could view her subjects while talking to them and waiting for the moment she wanted. She became famous and awarded – and 15 years from the date of her first photo she combined barbiturate overdose and slitting her wrists and was gone at 48 years old. Take a look at some of her photos here. Look especially at the ones dated 1970 or 1971. Some say the nature of these photos represented the turn her soul was taking.

Deep Thought: “I don’t think I received enough love when I was a child. And not just from my parents. From my other relatives, and my friends, and from strangers and from all the creatures of the world, including bugs.”
Today I am grateful for: Wood
Guess the Movie: “If I had one day when I didn’t have to be all confused and I didn’t have to feel that I was ashamed of everything. If I felt that I belonged someplace. You know? “ Answer: Rebel Without a Cause, 1955. Winner: thenarrator.
Left and Right Unite to Challenge Patriot Act Provisions
Group Wants Limits on Access Allowed Law Enforcement
by Edward Epstein
WASHINGTON– An unusual left-right coalition opened a campaign Tuesday to sharply curtail controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, showing that Congress and President Bush face a pointed debate over renewing the law enacted just 45 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
It was a Washington rarity to see the American Civil Liberties Union line up with conservative lions like David Keefe of the American Conservative Union and former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. But they were among those at a Washington press conference held to assail such Patriot Act provisions as those allowing law enforcement agents to look at library users’ records or to conduct unannounced “sneak-and-peek” searches on homes or private offices. (Rest of article here.)
Guess the Movie: 9:05 pm
+ = Spring break for all the people who get it.
- = Raining on ours here in Portland.

WEDNESDAY MOVIE

The Motorcycle Diaries

Many xangans were not born yet in 1952 when Ernesto “Che” Guevara and his friend, Alberto Granado, jumped on a 1939 Norton 500 bike and began an 8,000-mile journey into history. The two were bright young Argentinian medical students who were taking a year off to have a Grand Adventure with the excuse of doing research to establish a chain of leprosy hospitals. Che was 23, asthmatic, and a sensitive idealist whose exposure to the poverty of his continent on this trip planted the seeds for the revolutionary he became as Castro’s right-hand man in the takeover of Cuba. These would not be his only diaries. Handwritten notes were also found in his knapsack after his execution at 39 by the CIA and published in 1968 as The Bolivian Diaries that told about the 1966-67 guerrilla struggle in Bolivia. It was a day-by-day chronicle of the campaign led by one of the central leaders of the Cuban revolution to forge a revolutionary movement of workers and peasants capable of contending for power in Bolivia and providing an example for all Latin America. But long before that he and his friend made this lyrical, formative journey. The actor who plays Guevara, Gael Garcia Bernal, is a rising star whose breakout film in the U.S. was Y Tu Mama Tambien. Walter Salles directed. See it for geography, history, and beauty.

Deep Thought: “Higher beings from outer space may not want to tell us the secrets of life, because we’re not ready. But maybe they’ll change their tune after a little torture.”
Today I am grateful for: Clocks
Guess the Movie: “In order to know virtue, we must acquaint ourselves with vice. Only then can we know the true measure of a man.” Answer: Quills, 2000. Winner: thenarrator.
Life, Death and Cynical Grandstanding
by Robert Scheer
I cannot remember a time when Congress and the president have acted with more egregious political opportunism and shameless trafficking in human misery than last weekend, leaping into the 15-year-long Terri Schiavo saga at the last possible moment as grandstanding defenders of the defenseless.
Although Schiavo’s relatives on both sides of the issue are assuredly acting in good faith, national politicians certainly are not. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:45 pm
+ = Didn’t forget to turn the burner off under the teapot before I went to work though I worried about it all day.
- = Found out my Curves gym funnels major bucks to radical anti-abortion groups, resigning tomorrow.

MONDAY BOOK

The Survival of Jan Little
by John Man

I would never have discovered this book if I hadn’t thought I might join a book club for the first time in my life over at the college where I did my freshman year many a moon ago. I had second thoughts about reading by deadline and never went but I checked which book they were reading at the time and this was it. How they ever picked this I can’t imagine as it’s such an obscure biography by an English author that you can find very few real references to it on the web. I had to scan this photo from the book where the quality wasn’t that good to begin with. I almost hesitated to blog about it because I get kind of distressed just reading it. To quote a review:

This book tells the harrowing experiences of a woman who endured almost lethal psychological and physical travails during her married life, homesteading in the Amazon jungle, and who finally, despite being blind and deaf, overcame the tragedy of the death of both her husband and daughter and survived her environment as well as her terrible isolation. The focal point of the story is the period following her husband and daughter’s deaths, when Jan Little found the strength and competence, despite her handicaps and ill health, to keep going until she was rescued. But her psychological survival during 20 years of marriage to an emotionally dominating, fanatical man is equally amazing. The book, which is written by a filmmaker and journalist, can be read on many levels, and the life of this extraordinarily brave women should appeal to a wide audience.

I’m only midway through the book but what astounds me all along is how this woman, who is clearly intelligent and resourceful, manages to submit her will and life to a truly abusive man and follow him with her daughter into such clearly dangerous situations deep in the heart of Nowhere (in South America). Never does it seem to occur to her to just up and leave him. I’ve met and known my share of Charming Villains in my life, so I really can kind of follow how it begins if you don’t have a strong course of your own. I guess it can work the other way round too – men can bury their souls in a ruthless woman’s life as well. Either way, it always ends the same – with wreckage and grief. What is interesting is that both this woman and her husband were obsessed with living a life of “voluntary simplicity,” a life many of us look at with great interest. In these days of war and greed and corruption, who doesn’t think of escaping to an island paradise, the frozen North, or even the middle of some jungle. I guess it’s important if you do, whether it’s even to your own backyard, that you choose your companions for the journey carefully.

Deep Thought: “As I walked through the woods, I looked up and saw a squirrel. I smiled and he smiled. At least I think it was a smile. My teeth were showing and my cheeks were pulled up. That’s a smile, isn’t it? (The squirrel was definitely smiling.)”
Today I am grateful for: Having my wits about me – I think
Guess the Movie: “Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid.” Answer: Pirates of the Caribbean, 2003. Winner: Madame_L.
U.S. Rallies Mark Iraq Anniversary, Reflect Anti-War Groups’ Growth, Challenges
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of protesters rallied in cities and towns across America over the weekend to mark the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and to demand that U.S. troops stationed there be brought home. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 9:15 pm
+ = Spring rocks.
- = Congress is taking over the World.

Having finished my series called Saturday Poem I Admire last week, I pondered what series to begin next, and deliberately avoiding Saturday Wrestler I Admire at the suggestion of thenarrator, I hit upon photography, which is an art form that fascinates me, especially black-and-white photos. I’ve been discovering some wonderful photographers here in Xangaland and am hoping to get back into shooting photos again soon, picking up where I left off when I took a darkroom class a few years ago. I love doing these series things. It’s like being back in Freshman Humanities class in college. I’m learning so much. So anyway, it’s going to be:

SATURDAY PHOTO

Aspens, Northern New Mexico
Ansel Adams

From Portfolio VII, Plate 6, Edition 49/115
Negative Date: 1958
Print Date: 1976
20″ x 24″
AA/1453

On a crisp autumn day in the mountains north of Santa Fe, when he was 56 years old, Adams took his classic photograph of a “cool and aloof and rather stately” aspen grove. He avoided including any part of the sky which would have diminished the luminous foliage. Using filters he enhanced the general contrast of the scene. The white tree trunks, reflecting ambient light, stand out against the dark forest background. This 20″ x 24″ photograph comes from Portfolio VII which was dedicated by Adams to the noted photography collector, David Hunter McAlpin, one of the founding members of the Photography Department at MOMA.

Ansel Adams was born in 1902 in San Francisco and was an only child. When he was 14 his family made a trip to Yosemite where he took his first pictures. He would return there every year for the rest of his life. A year later he worked for a photo-finishing business. His first acknowledged photograph was taken in 1927 when he was 25 years old. It was called Monolith: The Face of Half Dome. He became completely dedicated to photography three years later when he met photographer Paul Strand. And the rest is history.

In the 1950s Adams embarked on a series of murals for private commissions, collectors and exhibitions. He undertook a major project for the American Trust Company (later taken over by Wells Fargo Bank) in San Francisco that consisted of mural sized scenes of California mountains, vineyards and hill country. Adams’ photographs were printed in the classic book, The Pageant of History in Northern California, with text by Nancy Newhall, published by the American Trust Company in 1954. To make his mammoth prints Adams would project the image onto a wall to which he had adhered photo paper. Some of his images were printed up to 6.5 x 9.5 feet. The technology to make these prints was so cumbersome that Adams used Moulin Studio facilities in San Francisco.

Twenty-six years after this photo was taken, Ansel Adams died of heart failure aggravated by cancer at the age of 82.

Deep Thought: “When I heard that trees grow a new “ring” for each year they live, I thought, we humans are kind of like that: we grow a new layer of skin each year, and after many years we are thick and unwieldy from all our skin layers.”
Today I am grateful for: Not having to have a 12-year-old birthday party as I listen to the screeching going on across the street
Guess the Movie: “The war started when people accepted the idiotic principle that peace could be maintained by arranging to defend themselves with weapons they couldn’t possibly use without committing suicide.” Answer: On the Beach, 1959. Winner: thenarrator.
Instructions for Care: What Ashley Smith Reminded Us
by Susan Van Haitsma
There must be several reasons why the story of unarmed suburbanite, Ashley Smith peacefully winning over armed fugitive, Brian Nichols so captures the public imagination. Because news accounts of brute force being used to overcome brute force are the norm, this story stands out, offering a different kind of heroism. Audiences might applaud instinctively when the bad guy is trounced by the good guy, but when words and wits triumph over weapons, cheers rise from a deeper, more satisfied place. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 9:16 pm
+ = Nice contacts with people today.
- = Still haven’t heard from the damn yardwork folks.

FRIDAY FIVE

1) Would you rather live in a world with or without technology such as computers, cars, airplanes, bombs?
With technology definitely for the one main reason of medical care. There’s no way I would have made it this far without the medical care available in my life and no chance to go on longer without it either. And computers – my god, you could really almost skip going to school if it wasn’t for missing the real time socialization process. That’s one thing that worries me a little bit is how email and the internet have brought us closer and yet kept us farther apart at the same time. Know what I mean?
2) If you had to live without either heating in your house or air conditioning, which one would you keep?
Air conditioning I could live without. I’ve never had it yet and maybe I never will, though I’m getting less resilient to heat each passing year. I’m a summer-born baby and summer is my style. So in the winter I pamper myself with daily fires in the fireplace on top of keeping the heat at a manageable level.
3) If you had to own five dogs, what kind would you get?I love to watch the Westminster dog show and see just how incredibly many varieties of dogs there are. Loved “Best in Show.” Haven’t had a dog though since college days. I learned back then that dogs really suffer if they’re left alone all day while you work or whatever. (I mean one dog by itself- if there’s more than one, that’s better.) It just breaks their hearts. So I turned to cats. Cats are more sociopathic. But if I was home all the time and had the space for 5 dogs – jeez I’d have to be like those people in Vanity Fair – I’d have an Afghan hound, a beagle, a Lab, a St. Bernard, and a border collie.
4) If the world had a front porch, what would you do on it?
The world? That would be big I guess. I’d have the most comfortable rocking chair available and I’d find out which other rockers were the most intriguing to talk to and I’d sit there and rock with them. We’d watch the world go by and make serious but acutely clever remarks about life and love.
5) Would you rather live in a neighborhood where you know all of your neighbors by name, or where everyone sticks to their own business?
I’d like to know their names and then stick to my own business and vice versa. I have nosy neighbors where I live now and on the one hand it makes it really hard for me to work in my front yard under their beady gaze (being a very private person), but on the other hand I know they’d come running if I yelled that something was the matter. I’m training my back yard to be the Secret Garden so at least there I can forget the outside world long enough to regroup.

Deep Thought: “If you ever discover that what you’re seeing is a play within a play, just slow down, take a deep breath, and hold on for the ride of your life”
Today I am grateful for: Grass
Guess the Movie: “Batting practice tomorrow, be there!” “I have been. Every day.” Answer: The Natural, 1984.
Greens Plan and Join Rallies and Actions Across the U.S. in the March 19 ‘Global Day of Protest’ Against the Iraq War
Military threats against Iran and Syria risk a greater war between the U.S. and Middle East, warn Greens
WASHINGTON — March 17 — Green Party members across the country will participate in the ‘Global Day of Protest’ against the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, planned for Saturday, March 19, the second year anniversary of the invasion. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:26 pm
+ = Expecting a few days of rain – good for the earth.
- = Lots of sad news in the world today.

THURSDAY WHATEVER

ANWR

I confess to being woefully undereducated in the area of energy sources. So I will be watching (online that is – not on the TV lack-of-news) to learn more about the outcome of an energy conference held in London yesterday where energy and environment ministers from 20 countries considered methods of reducing reliance on fossil fuels, which create the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The conference will also highlight the business opportunities of investing in environmentally sound industries. However, the US is expected to hold firm to its opposition to discussing the future of the UN-brokered Kyoto protocol on climate change. The current provisions of the treaty, which bind developed nations to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, expires in 2012. It’s my memory (correct me if I’m wrong) that my country is one of only a few to oppose this agreement. My Land of the Free and Home of the Brave would rather destroy the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. By a vote of 51 to 49, the Senate yesterday defeated a ban on oil exploration on the 1.5 million acre coastal plain of the ANWR. I’m proud to say that both Oregon Senators (even Gordon Smith) voted for the ban. (See how your senators voted in the article at bottom.) With our 70% dependence on oil from overseas for energy, the Bush administration’s solution is to dive bomb one of the last truly pristine wildlife sanctuaries in the world. It ain’t over till it’s over though. Substantial legislative hurdles remain before drilling could begin. The biggest hurdle is a budget.
Senate Republicans are using the fiscal year 2006 budget resolution as the vehicle for authorizing oil exploration in ANWR because under Senate rules it requires only 51 votes to pass and is not subject to a filibuster, which can only be overcome with 60 votes. The Senate is expected to vote on the budget resolution by Friday night. Stay tuned and pray for the caribou and others. (See slide show of caribou.)

Deep Thought: “I guess the hard thing for a lot of people to accept is why God would allow me to go running through their yards, yelling and spinning around.”
Today I am grateful for: Idealism
Guess the Movie: “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us! Answer: Malcolm X, 1992. Winner: thenarrator.
Senate Votes to Open Alaskan Oil Drilling
by H Josef Hebert
WASHINGTON – Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day; 8:29 pm
+ = Highly entertaining baseball-steroids-hauled-before-Congress session – serious buttkicking and 5th amendment taking.
- = Ice cream