SATURDAY PHOTO
(See sidebar for others)

Bryonia Alba
Photographer – Karl Blossfeldt

10 x 8 in
Gravure

c. 1920’s

Isn’t it one of the best things about being here to see how many variations of the human experience there are? Some people are dilettantes, flitting like butterflies from here to there and back again, and others are focused like lasers on one corner of life’s miracles. Karl Blossfeldt (1865-1932) was the latter sort. He was born in Germany and began his journey as a sculptor’s apprentice and modeler at the Art Ironworks and Foundry in Magdesprung. He then went on scholarship to the School of the Royal Museum of Arts and Crafts in Berlin to study painting and sculpture until he was 26. After this he traveled with a professor to Italy, Greece and North Africa collecting plant specimens. And here is where his focus honed in on plant photography. For the rest of his life he was a professor in the sculpture of living plants at the College of Arts and Crafts in Berlin. When he was 34, he began to photograph plant forms with a home made camera for use in his teaching curriculum. In 19th century Germany there was a tradition of natural philosophy, and he believed that “the plant must be valued as a totally artistic and architectural structure.” He photographed leaves, seed pods, stems, and other plant parts against a neutral white or grey background in northern light under magnification. The photographs could be magnified up to 27 times their actual size, showing extraordinary details within the natural structure of the plants. When he was 63, four years before he died, he published his masterwork, Archetypes of Art. Take a look and when you go out today into the world take a little closer gander at one of the Great Architect’s creatures in plant form. Karl Blossfeldt spent his life at it.

Deep Thought: “One way I think you can tell if you have a curse on you is if you open a box of toothpicks and they all fly up and stick in your face.”
Today I am grateful for: Laughter
Guess the Movie: “Don’t worry Wilson, I’ll do all the paddling. You just hang on.” Answer: Cast Away, 2000. Winner: skanickadee.
EPA Balks at Halting Pesticide-Child Study
by John Heilprin
WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency won’t rush to cancel a study on how pesticides affect children despite threats from Senate Democrats to hold up confirmation of the new EPA administrator until the study is canned.
Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California and Bill Nelson of Florida demanded Wednesday that EPA end the study, saying they will block a Senate vote on the confirmation of Stephen Johnson to be the agency’s administrator. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:34 pm
+ = Pleasant afternoon with family.
- = Strange knocking sound under car.

(I would have posted this yesterday but it took me this long to figure out how to deal with the new photo code.)
THURSDAY WHATEVER

Jane Fonda

I’ve blogged about her before (see sidebar under People Who Knock Me Out), but I thought I’d mention her again because I’ve been seeing her being interviewed a lot this week for her new book and movie coming out. The book is called My Life So Far and is divided into “three acts” – the first one she calls Gathering, her first 30 years of taking in experience; the second is Seeking, looking outside herself for meaning and finding what she can give; and the last she calls Beginning, for the years to come. In the interviews, on Larry King and NPR, she talked about her distant famous father, the suicide of her mother (who she only found out had been sexually abused as a child when she was writing this book) when she was 12, her three defining marriages – to Roger Vadim, who promoted her sexuality in the movie Barbarella; to Tom Hayden, who encouraged and broadened her activism; and to Ted Turner, who made it possible for her to retire from films for 15 years with his wealth. And over the years she made 42 films, starting with Tall Story in 1960 and ending with the current one, Monster-in-Law, a comedy in which she plays the mother-in-law of Jennifer Lopez. I’ve enjoyed so many of her films, favorites including Klute, Coming Home, The China Syndome, The Electric Horseman, Nine to Five, On Golden Pond, and Stanley and iris (the last film she made before the lengthy break). She’s sort of a peer of mine, going through similar stages in life in some ways. I had a distant father too, as did my mother and my daughter. It kind of runs in our family. And we’ve all spent our lives working on the healing from that in our own ways. My mother raged, I became an alcoholic (now 20 years in recovery) who could not sustain a long-term relationship, and my daughter can speak for herself, bless her heart. Jane Fonda lived her life through the men in it, trying to please them and to be Perfect. At the very end of his life, she produced On Golden Pond and managed to say to her father at last something of her despair in the lines of the film. As her own sun is beginning to set, she’s managed to bump into Christianity and adopt it as her spiritual connection – kind of a surprising twist to me as a political liberal considering her past. But there must be something there that nurtures her undeniably intelligent and seeking spirit. She’s done so much, and I’d like to say that I, for one, am sick and tired of hearing about the sitting on an anti-aircraft gun during Vietnam fiasco, an episode she attributes to her youthful naivete and is regretful for. I look forward to reading the book and seeing the film and hearing how she travels down the next part of the road.

Deep Thought: “It’s interesting to think that my ancestors used to live in the trees, like apes, until finally they got the nerve to head out onto the plains, where some were probably hit by cars.”
Today I am grateful for: History
Guess the Movie: “You know you drive almost slow enough to drive Miss Daisy.” Answer: Bad Boys, 1995.
Better SAFE than Sorry Patriot Act
by John Nichols
The most underreported political story of recent years has been that of the grass-roots revolt against the Patriot Act.
In an unprecedented show of opposition to the Bush administration’s assaults on basic liberties, five states and 372 counties, cities, villages and towns have passed resolutions, ordinances or ballot initiatives condemning the law created by Constitution-crushing former Attorney General John Ashcroft and expressing their commitment to the values expressed in the Bill of Rights. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:39 pm
+ = Pretty darn nice positive day and the sun even came out in the afternoon.
- = Peter Jennings has lung cancer.

Has anybody noticed that photo uploading is not working right?
End of Day. 8:23 pm
+ = Grateful to have a computer.
- = Xanga’s new photo upgrade has to backtrack for us i.xanga folks so I can’t post anything with a photo till tomorrow.

TUESDAY POLITICS

The Yes Men

Sorry it’s so late in the day but I just couldn’t get here till now. I’m all Poped out, so I thought I’d tell you about this adorable DVD I just watched about two guys I never heard of before who apparently have been Seriously Pranking on behalf of us liberals for some time now at very high levels on the world stage. Mike Bonnano and Andy Bichlbaum are on the surface bright, young, slightly nerdy-looking guys who are for some reason obsessed with the idea of raising political consciousness by impersonating representatives of such lofty entities as the World Trade Organization and horn-swoggling whole audiences who think they’ve come to hear a perfectly straightforward presentation. They began by setting up a web site that mimicked the WTO’s so closely that people took it to be the real thing and began inviting them to functions as WTO representatives. Don’t ask me to try to explain in any sane way the details of the 3-4 major pranks they pull off in this 1 hr-20min documentary – suffice it to say in one Andy wears a suit that can be yanked off (a la Britney Spears) to reveal a gold skintight suit from which a huge gold penis can spring out that has a TV monitor built into it for keeping track of employees. In another prank, Andy delivers a deadpan speech about feeding Third World countries by recycling McDonald’s burgers through one human waste process after another. Don’t ask. In another Andy appears before an audience in Finland to announce that the WTO has decided they’ve been operating in an evil manner all these years and have decided to disband and rethink how to turn themselves around. And in all cases, the audiences fall for it! It’s hysterical. Here’s an example of their most recent escapade (post-movie) against the Dow Chemical Company to give you an idea. And of course, the Yes Men have their own web site. So anyway, when you go to bed tonight – or tomorrow night or whatever – just smile to yourself to know that somewhere out there in the night Andy and Mike are dreaming up another way to shed some light and some humor on this nefarious world. It’s a hard job but somebody’s got to do it.

Deep Thought: “It’s funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realized that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating.”
Today I am grateful for: Snoring
Guess the Movie: “Surely you can’t be serious.” “I am serious… and don’t call me Shirley.” Answer: Airplane, 1980. Winner: thenarrator.
Environment Put Center Stage at Corporations’ Annual Meetings
by Abid Aslam
WASHINGTON — Investors concerned about environmental degradation and its long-term impact on corporate profits have launched a raft of proposals seeking to improve the “green” performance of some of America’s top brand names. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:38 pm
+ = Back yard finally mowed!
- = Tension at work.

MONDAY BOOK

Tao Teh Ching

For the past several days, percentagewise, the news on all my TV channels including cable, has been pretty much 24-7 99.9% about the Pope, the Pope, and the Pope. Observing as a non-Catholic, I can certainly see that millions of people worldwide are grieving a great loss, both in this specific individual’s gifts and what he represented during his long tenure in his very powerful position. It made me wonder just exactly what is the percentage of Catholics in the world that would cause such coverage and whether I might actually be in the only non-Catholic on my block, at my workplace, in my city, my country, on my planet. So I reached into the internet and found these fascinating statistics:

World Population Percentages by Religious Group
religious 86%, non-religious and anti-religious 14%.
Religious Groups
monotheists 53%, reincarnationists 20%, ethno religions 10%
Monotheists
Christians 33% (half of these Catholic), Muslims 20%
Reincarnationists
Hindu 13%, Buddhist 6%
Ethno Religions Chinese 6.3%, tribal 4%
Non-religious groups
Non-religious and agnostic 11.9%, anti-religious and atheist 2.3%
These figures are from David Barrett’s World Christian Encyclopedia, the standard source of religious membership statistics.
Here is another interesting breakdown.

Whoa, turns out there are a few other groups represented on my planet (if not my block). So I thought just to be fair, I’d pick one and a little book by its departed leader/father. I’m not a Taoist, let me make clear, but I do have a tiny copy of this book on the shelf above my computer because I like some of its little philosphies-in-a-nutshell and incorporate them into my own spirituality. Lao Tzu (meaning Old Sage) was a philospher of the 6th century B.C. China who, legend has it, was a keeper of the archives at the imperial court. When he was 80 years old, he set out toward Tibet, saddened that men did not follow a path to natural goodness. At the border, he met a guard who asked him to record his teachings before he left and he then composed the Tao Te Ching. The Taoist philosophy has a mystical character greatly influenced by nature. It proposes placing value on simplicity, spirituality and intelligence while turning away from accumulation and coarse ways. It teaches that all straining and striving are counterproductive, rather to follow the natural order of things and to be spontaneous. All those centuries ago, Lao Tzu wrote:

Why are people starving?
Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.
Therefore the people are starving.

Why are the people rebellious?
Because the rulers interfere too much.
Therefore they are rebellious.

Why do people think so little of death?
Because the rulers demand too much of life.
Therefore the people take life lightly.

This observation seems remarkably apt for today’s state of affairs in the world, I’m thinking. To all great men of the spiritual past, I am grateful. And to the Pope, rest in peace.

Deep Thought: “What would annoy me if a space visitor ever came to our planet would be if he kept talking about things in “his world.” Your world? We don’t give a flying hoot about your world!”
Today I am grateful for: Knowing how to tie shoelaces
Guess the Movie: “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.” Answer: You’ve Got Mail, 1998. Winner: thenarrator.
Papal Legacy: Questioning Capitalism
by Marcin Król
John Paul II is difficult to understand for many Americans. He, like the church he led, was neither Democrat nor Republican. This Pope was more pro-human rights than Jimmy Carter and more anti-communist than Ronald Reagan. But it was in economics that the Pope was even more challenging to the American mind.
The death of the Pope John Paul II was not unexpected, and his immense influence on the modern world will be judged and commented on by everybody who thinks that he has something to say. Before explaining one of the less known aspects of his teaching, it should be emphasized that one of the comments that is now being heard repeatedly is based either on stupidity or on a lack of understanding of what the Catholic Church is about: the charge that the Pope was and is “conservative” is nonsense. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:53 pm
+ = Finally got somebody to come do some yardwork in my front yard.
- = Cat brought first spring mouse in house.

FRIDAY FIVE

Appetizer – Describe your week in one word.
Drenched.
Soup – Tell about a funny practical joke that you’ve played on someone (or that was played on you!).
This isn’t very PC on April Fool’s Day, but I don’t like practical jokes. I don’t think they’re funny – even when Ashton Kucher does them to idiot celebrities. In fact, I would go so far as to say they represent hostility. My earliest memory of a practical joke was a family adult friend who convinced me, as a three-year-old, that there was a wolf in our closet. He also insisted that if you put a Cheerio inside his fist a tiny horse would eat it. That was slightly better. Maybe I’m blocking it out, but I honest-to-god cannot remember ever playing a practical joke on someone else on purpose. And if I did I’m sorry. I know, I’m no fun.
Salad – Name someone you had a crush on when you were a kid.
Oh Stanley Keller, of course. First kiss in the furnace room at grade school. He was slightly shorter than I was at the time but he pretty much kissed every girl at school, and we all loved it. Wonder what was going on at his house that he was so precocious. He had great hair too – kind of an early Grease kind of do. And dimples.
Main Course – If you were a member of royalty, what would your title be?
Oh brother, I was listening on NPR about Gandhi today in the car and how they’re recreating the great Salt March he did where he demonstrated against taxing salt and it kicked off the first of many showdowns by the Indians against the British. It’s dangerous to be royal for one thing, so I’d have to be Your Royal Commoner at the very most. I’d probably try to get out of being royal as fast as possible. I am a Leo though – wearing a crown might be tempting.
Dessert – What colors are the clothes you are wearing today?
Black – probably my favorite color/noncolor. Goes with everything. Makes whatever it’s around look better. Fills up space. Thins. Keeps in heat. Very audrey hepburn. Mysterious. All of the above.

Deep Thought: “What is it that makes a complete stranger dive into an icy river to save a solid gold baby? Maybe we’ll never know.”
Today I am grateful for: Myntz
Guess the Movie: “Did you ever find Bugs Bunny attractive when he put on a dress and played girl bunny?” “No… No.” “Neither did I. I was just asking.” Answer: Wayne’s World, 1992. Winner: Accolade
Logging of Burnt Trees Spurs Clash in Oregon
Environmentalists and Lumberjacks are at Odds Over Cutting Down Old Growth in Siskiyou National Forest
by Sam Howe Verhovek
SELMA, OR — Stan Chronister and the young man calling himself Purusha were probably never going to see eye to eye anyway.
But they were certainly not doing so the other day, what with Purusha crouched 70 feet up in a Douglas fir tree, and Chronister pacing around on the ground below with a chain saw, cutting other trees here in the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest.
Chronister is a 44-year-old logger with a dirt-caked face, a 25-year veteran of the woods, salvaging burned old-growth trees from the 2002 half-million-acre Biscuit fire, one of the largest fires in U.S. Forest Service history.
Purusha, who says he is in his 20s, is a wool-cap-wearing “tree sitter,” one of several hundred environmental protesters who have gathered here in opposition to the operation, which they describe as an ecological travesty in old-growth forests that should be left alone. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:52 pm
+ = All my senses are working.
- = Falling asleep at the screen – off to bed.