TUESDAY POLITICS

Blah
blah blah. I have to confess I’ve been in a grumpy mood since about 5
minutes after the elections were over and the celebratants began to
behave in the business as usual manner. I keep flipping through the
cable news channels looking for actual news, not endless discussion.
We’ve had that for how many years now? I did happen to catch a few
moments of Jane Fonda speaking for the first time in 34 years at a
rally this past weekend in Washington, with the familiar contingent
from Hollywood behind her waiting their turn (Sarandon, Robbins, Penn,
etc.). And of course the next day heard the usual dissing of anything
“they” might have to say by the conservative newsfolks. So according to
this article
in the New York Times today the Senate Judiciary Committee is growing
increasingly pissed and a couple of proposals will hit the Senate floor
next week. For one, Russell Feingold, ever reliable, will introduce a
resolution ending all financing for deployment in Iraq after six months
and withdrawal of all forces. And apparently there is a precedent with
the Vietnam War of Congress cutting off financing to end it, and
various legal experts were present to say that can be done today. And
over this is the shadow of Iran and the increasing likelihood that this
is where Bush intends to go next with his killing machine. I see
individual citizens (like the Iraq Veterans Against the War) speaking
out clearly and loudly and repeatedly for immediate withdrawal, I see a
few individual politicians speaking out a few rungs down in decibel and
caution, and as for the rest of All of Them in Both Parties, it’s
pretty much blah blah blah.

Guess the Movie: “Don’t ever hit your mother with a shovel. It will leave a dull impression on her mind.”  Answer:  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Winner:  eneventure.

MONDAY READING

Prairyerth (a deep map)
by Wlliam Least Heat-Moon

I’ve
been reading this amazing book (and will probably still be reading it
weeks from now since it’s over 600 pages long and won’t regret a minute
of it). It’s like an epic geographic geologic poem written by a bird
with a very sharp eye for detail flying over one Kansas County – Chase
County – and landing here and there to peck the earth and explore every
tid and bit of detail – animal, vegetable, mineral or otherwise. I took
a geology class in college once. It’s the only college paper I still
have. It was one of those entertain myself courses that had nothing to
do with my major. They assigned each of us a parcel of land in
Washington state to describe – its people history, its landforms and
geology, its climate, its water resources, its soil, and its natural
vegetation. I got an A on that paper and I loved the class. Now I love
this idea of taking one county apart quadrant by quadrant. The chapter
I happen to be reading now is called Outside the Z Bar. The Z Bar was
the ranch of a cattle baron of the 19th century who built his home out
of native limestone. Also called Spring Hill Ranch, it was 7000 acres
along a creek. Twelve years later, he sold the ranch and moved away and
25 years after that he returned to Kansas to die. In 1997 it became a
historic landmark. Here is a short description from the book:

The
ranch: old highway 13 passed thirty or forty feet closer to the lowest
terrace than does the newer and straightened and renumbered route 177,
but both highways split the small valley, really not much more than a
long and broad hollow. The roads approach Spring Hill laterally, when
the ranch layout calls for a long, frontal entrance, one that would let
the place rise on its levels in the eye as does its wealth in the
imagination. The terraces are long and narrow and parallel to Fox Creek
running beyond the east line of trees; the wall of each terrace is of
cut stone, and atop the lowest is a wrought-iron fence, only knee-high
to mark out the estate but not block the traveler’s view, and on the
highest terrace is a circular stone fountain once served by the spring
but now filled with soil. The home, built by some of the men who worked
on the courthouse, seems to be a descendant, with its Second Empire
Parisian urbanity and its red, standing-seam mansard roof articulated
by dormers.

The description continues in fine detail but you can see a wonderful tour here
to flesh it out for now. The author is of English-Irish-Osage
background. His real name is William Trogdon but he created his pen
name from a quote by his father: “I call myself heat moon, your elder
brother is little heat moon. You, coming last, therefore you are
least.” He lives in Columbia, Missouri and is basically a travel
writer. One of our own xangan travel writers thenarrator recommended it to me, and I recommend it to you. Fabulous.

Guess the Movie: “Take her far into the forest. Find some secluded glade where she can pick wildflowers.”  Answer:  Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1937.  Winner:  thenarrator.

SATURDAY PHOTO
(See more here)

Old Mission Church, Zuni Pueblo, N.M.
by Timothy O’Sullivan (1840-1882)

Gadzooks,
it’s been ages since I did one of these. Going way back to the 19th
century, this photo is dated 1874 while the photographer worked for the
Army Corps of Engineers on a survey west of the One Hundredth Meridian.
On the trip he almost starved when some of the expedition’s boats
capsized, but 300 negatives he took survived the trip back East
afterwards to be developed. Photography then was as far from today’s
digital snapping, throwing on the computer, and printing as you could
get, requiring big bulky equipment that had to be set up.
This is an albumen print, 20.2×27.5 cm. O’Sullivan was born in Ireland
and his family emigrated to New York during the potato famines when he
was two. At 18 he apprenticed with Mathew Brady (famous civil war
photographer). When that war began he served at age 21 for a year and
then was honorably discharged and continued to photograph the war till
it ended in 1866. He then became a government survey expedition
photographer and would return to Washington DC in the winters to
develop his photos. At 36 he moved to Washington DC for good and became
the photographer of the Treasury till he died of TB of the lungs at age
42. Here is a page of his photographs. And this is his most famous photo. Seems like times haven’t changed much, have they.

Guess the Movie: “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”  Answer:  Jaws,  1975.  Winner:  HomerTheBrave.

The federalist prescription

FRIDAY FIVE

Appetizer – Which celebrity (or celebrities) do you think will make headlines this year?
Oh
cripes, as if I care, let’s see, reaching directly to my left I can
pick up a recent Entertainment Weekly. I got suckered into subscribing
to it sometime last year by a clever ploy at Best Buy where you got a
free 6 months when you purchased something or other. Then of course I
became immediately addicted to knowing what latest movies, books,
music, etc. were out and how they were reviewed. So let’s see, here are
three celebrities right off the first open page that I figure will make
headlines this year – Nicole Kidman (besides being a gorgeous and also
competent actress in her own right, she picks bodacious men to hang out
with), Justin Timberlake (omigod, he dumped Cameron Diaz – actually I
don’t know which way it went, maybe she dumped him), and Stephen
Colbert (I hope I hope).
Soup – They say that good things come in small packages? What is something little that you think is great?
The
first thing that popped into my head is some scallops I had over 40
years ago at an Ivar’s outside seafood bar on Seattle’s waterfront.
I’ve never forgotten them. I love shellfish with a deep and abiding
love.
Salad – Name a song that makes you want to dance.
For that I quickly turn to Pandora, and if you haven’t discovered Pandora yet click here.
It’s an online radio where you can plug in songs you know you like and
it will line up several different stations of music that its little
computer mind figures are similar. That way you can discover a whole
lot of music you might not have heard yet. So the first one that came
up that qualifies for me is one of my all-time all-life favorites -
Into the Mystic – Van Morrison – the Moondance album. I met the Van
once in a little store out in Marin County. I was with a musician from
the house I lived in with a little rock band at the time and we both
got to shake his hand. Across the road was a barn with “Freedom’s just
another word for nothin’ left to lose” painted on it in big red
letters. Yes, it was the late ’60′s.
Main Course – What is your favorite font?
Comic sans MS lately. It’s the font in my blog. Weird title, huh? No idea what it means.
Dessert – If you were to write a do-it-yourself article, what would it be about?
Oh
I guess one thing would be teaching yourself HTML. It’s not that hard
if you have that kind of mind. I started by using the View in the
toolbar you see above and going to View Page Source in any web page you
happen to be on. You can see how they did it. Then there’s nifty
javascripts you can copy from Dynamic Drive. If you can drive a car, play video games, or blog, you can learn HTML. Plus, there’s plenty of online tutorials.

Guess the Movie:
“Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere. In bars, in
cars, sidewalks, stores, everywhere. There’s no escape. I’m God’s
lonely man.”  Answer:  Taxi Driver, 1976.  Winner:  buttermelon.

TUESDAY POLITICS

One
of the things I made it my business to do this Christmas season was to
sit down with my 15-year-old grandson and register him online as a
conscientious objector. His other grandmother and I have agreed that
starting the paper trail now is essential so that when and if this
country calls for a draft three years from now when we will probably
still be in Iraq or some other place full of innocent civilians
bringing and receiving death, he will have established that he (and we
as a family) objects. When Congress reconvenes this week, Bush (on John
McCain’s encouragement) will propose a surge of 30,000 troops and then
the excrement is going to hit the fan as the new Democratic majority
takes over. Senator Joe Biden will lead the Foreign Relations Committee
to block the surge and on that committee will be some fire-breathing
members such as Chris Dodd (Conn.), John Kerry (Mass.), Russ Feinfold
(Wis.), and Barack Obama (Ill.). I can hardly wait to tune in and see
this action. The photo is of Chuck Hagel, Senator from Nebraska, who is
also on that committee and one of at least 12 Republican senators who
are not pleased. To quote him, “It’s Alice in Wonderland. I’m
absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly.”
For my grandson’s sake and all the other grandsons and granddaughters
who are potential cannon fodder, I’ll be hoping to see this country’s
democratic system do itself a favor and work for us this week, month,
and year.

Guess the Movie: “It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it the perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van.”  Answer:  A Clockwork Orange, 1971.  Winner:  thenarrator.