tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88868244319251178122024-03-10T10:03:32.963-07:00Bill LaCroixHowdy. Glad you came. bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.comBlogger155125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-38938771911899152612024-03-03T11:18:00.000-08:002024-03-03T11:35:57.712-08:00How the John Birch Society Bit Ravalli County and Gave It Rabies<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14IPwnER_7G7rxD3caltHjqH7OUnDJSGzM99G2Ckxm8WYzmEnge7kwp8PVLRGpadyn9ULASaNJDfUcvrVlPkjJqrGnh6ILeJKFO7lV9Lf5BuQ1OuErYmmhWvTceXgBFEKT6trVNZFc9JWX_252BfBMdJqgY-Eq_wVVyjFTB9EbzvGnkdXc20RQB1XBzla/s1416/Heiro.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1112" data-original-width="1416" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj14IPwnER_7G7rxD3caltHjqH7OUnDJSGzM99G2Ckxm8WYzmEnge7kwp8PVLRGpadyn9ULASaNJDfUcvrVlPkjJqrGnh6ILeJKFO7lV9Lf5BuQ1OuErYmmhWvTceXgBFEKT6trVNZFc9JWX_252BfBMdJqgY-Eq_wVVyjFTB9EbzvGnkdXc20RQB1XBzla/w400-h314/Heiro.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">Breaking: Montana's "Freedom Caucus" employs tax dollars generated from super-charged property-tax hike to hire unidentified physician tasked with fitting square conspiracy theories into round, black holes.</span></i><o:p></o:p></p></div><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i>In case you're wondering--and I hope you are--the following is a true story. I changed the names of the innocent because cats are always innocent. It was first published in </i><i><a href="https://wtf406.com">What the Funk</a> a couple weeks ago, and I recommend that you go to that blog, not necessarily to see if I'm lying or not, but to find some good reading on what's happening behind the curtain of the right-wing wizards currently infesting our political landscapes, mostly in Great Falls but, by extension, in the whole, currently-sad State of Montana.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">I don’t call my cat “Fatso” (not her real name) lightly. It’s not who she is, it’s where she likes to sit and when, which is on my lap when I’m using my laptop. Her body blobs onto my keyboard and, when I try to write, my minimal hand movements harsh her mellow, which prods her to give the back of my hand a nip of annoyance. That’s endearing, but, not too long ago, one of her love bites broke the skin and became infected, which recalled a ‘70s pop song that should have been killed at birth (“Cat Scratch Fever”) which, in turn, triggered a temporary bout of irrational cognitive dissonance (anger mixed with conspiracy theories), the sort of thing that short-circuits your brain and sends you to an emergency room for drugs because you never know WHO or WHAT is out to get you in Ravalli County. It could be your cat. Or Ted Nugent.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">To point: Ravalli County has had a problem with science for a while. During the Covid-19 pandemic, our local cops couldn’t possibly enforce humane safety protocols to keep other peoples’ grandparents from dying because of other peoples’ conspiracy theories. Alas—and as a direct result—more people died of Covid than in traffic accidents. Paradoxically, these same cops could and did enforce speed limits throughout the pandemic, including ticketing me for going 29 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. Paradoxically-squared: local paranoia over Nazi-nurses torturing transplanted retirees with freedom-smothering N-95 masks birthed the local “Breathe-Free Montana” group, a John Birch-flavored extremist outfit whose adherents recently succeeded in orchestrating a coup against the already-entrenched, already-hard-right-but-apparently-not-hard-right-enough Republican Central Committee that has had a stranglehold on our local politics since that black guy became president.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">So there I sat in a Ravalli County examining room which, in a reality-based county, would be a “safe space”, but, remember, we’re talking Ravalli County. The nice nurse left to “get the doctor” and, less than two minutes later, a Hamilton Police officer barged in unannounced, in “full metal jacket”, demanding that I either surrender my cat to be quarantined for 10 days in kitty jail or that I sign an affidavit that I will do it myself and that, if my cat escaped during that time and caused damage to other peoples’ property, I would be liable. As an example, he cited the possibility that my cat could bite a cow and give the whole herd rabies. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">His logic, of course, was impeccable but, as my hand throbbed in my lap, I also thought that maybe I had contracted rabies or some other hallucinatory microbe. I had to get rid of this guy so I could get drugs and, thankfully, cognitive dissonance is usually a passing thing, and so I told him that I would be glad to produce a record of her recent rabies shot. Never mind, he countered. I must either surrender Fatso or sign, which I did. The catch: the affidavit stipulated that, after her 10-day quarantine, I would bring her in to the station to prove she wasn’t a rabid John Bircher yet, which was beauty-cubed, since I thought a conversation with local law enforcement about cows being more important to them than people would be priceless. I have no intention of taking Fatso in for her parole hearing and, to date, we are still on the lam, awaiting a wonderful conversation. BTW: Anyone know a good lawyer who doesn’t have rabies yet?<o:p></o:p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeJD0IFJBpYzDc52g5cQ-mNnsOF32K0udqvVfh19CJPww72uQNzo2-i3KdEcHGj-LvfAosRLCjWC4XwJLDx9ypA6CODRa-FCmcyeMKPPEjzNbLzxvkKeffrTnuk4UH3JmpylMoqStinVRomSCNnsqub2MDO9K_iVbm2RFSfxyqhU4YcTPxJl3YRgw2phd/s478/gianforte%20creationism%20museum.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="328" data-original-width="478" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmeJD0IFJBpYzDc52g5cQ-mNnsOF32K0udqvVfh19CJPww72uQNzo2-i3KdEcHGj-LvfAosRLCjWC4XwJLDx9ypA6CODRa-FCmcyeMKPPEjzNbLzxvkKeffrTnuk4UH3JmpylMoqStinVRomSCNnsqub2MDO9K_iVbm2RFSfxyqhU4YcTPxJl3YRgw2phd/w400-h275/gianforte%20creationism%20museum.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Fatso visits Montana governor Greg Gianforte's Creationism Museum in </i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><i>Glendale, MT. </i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><i>Close Call!!</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><i>And remember: you heard it here first.</i></span></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-24571740936801860062024-01-24T15:08:00.000-08:002024-03-10T10:02:30.352-07:00The Medicine Tree<p><span style="font-size: large;"> <span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"></span></i></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilF_027pMefd8LsrDtW5DGHi2_Tqw9Akzwl7MLvzGJ2aHgrk1lU67U0naO0f295_8Hpgkldi-b_WT4oFHoO0yMg6WYw0PtrSUGWMevQ93yfVh0KLnCGORfAgK0vE5I5zcJtucOQ5AM0wzdcDfmmOlWfYSU5fa9SnCwQwHQ-2pMfptSD4m-J-Gzh0h0MMpy/s2194/1-24%20med%20tree.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2194" data-original-width="1921" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilF_027pMefd8LsrDtW5DGHi2_Tqw9Akzwl7MLvzGJ2aHgrk1lU67U0naO0f295_8Hpgkldi-b_WT4oFHoO0yMg6WYw0PtrSUGWMevQ93yfVh0KLnCGORfAgK0vE5I5zcJtucOQ5AM0wzdcDfmmOlWfYSU5fa9SnCwQwHQ-2pMfptSD4m-J-Gzh0h0MMpy/w350-h400/1-24%20med%20tree.jpg" width="350" /></a></span></i></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">January, 2024</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Victor, Montana</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The Bitterroot Valley, like the Nile, is upside-down. Both take their directions from rivers that flow from south to north, so when an old-time “Bitterrooter” talks about her beloved headwaters, she’s really talking about its tail, its southern end. And just so, conversations in the Bitterroot (and maybe in Egypt) get unnecessarily confused. </span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Think about how it is here: fourth-generation Bitterrooters forever insisting that they are going “down to Missoula”, which is actually north, while newcomers who have only been here a few decades—and considerably outnumber the old timers—equally insisting that since Missoula is north of the Bitterroot Valley, it is therefore “up” and that native Bitterrooters are “down”. Native Bitterrooters who “know better”, take umbrage at these know-it-all "libtards", vote for fact-free religious zealots with an assault-gun fetish (and sometimes a criminal record) to "show them" and it becomes a reverse-polarity sort of thing, a tough, mental divide when applied to a whole population, because it challenges the People to reconcile their opinions about geology and religion, which some people, of course, will never do. For instance:</span></i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The Medicine Tree</span></b><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">In the fall of 1928, white men bristling with guns and sitting in the back of black Ford pickup trucks roared past the Medicine Tree at a high rate of speed, admonishing their neighbors to arm themselves against a Papal takeover of America. The bristling men had been sounding the alarm all day, roaring up and down Western Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, then down and up, and now they were headed to Sula at the far southern end to make sure that the people living just below the Great Divide heard the news. It was an election year and Al Smith, the Democrat, was running against Herbert Hoover, the Republican. The problem, the bristling ones wanted their neighbors to know, wasn’t that Al Smith was a Democrat. The problem was that he was a Catholic. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The Medicine Tree had been at the upper end of the Bitterroot Valley forever, or at least since the beginning of Time, which is measured, by those who know about such things, from when Coyote started telling good jokes. The fact that it was still standing despite the county wanting to blast it out of the way and “fix” the narrow spot the Tree forced cars into between the cliff and the river was proof that Coyote still held sway on that particular stretch. They also knew that Coyote, whose coloring could have been anywhere from off-white to deep red, liked a good laugh and so it’s a wonder that the bristling men didn’t dump themselves into the East Fork. But, for whatever reason, he gave them a pass and allowed them to squirt gravel instead, asses and elbows around the S turns that topped the riprap constricting the river into a straight neck of pretty fast, pretty deep water just below the road.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The only route going to and from what would become Ross’s Hole, where Lewis and Clark met the Salish and where Sula now sits, had always passed directly underneath the Medicine Tree. It was the Salish people’s ancient trail, and there had always been a little bit of space between the river and the tall Ponderosa Pine with the Bighorn ram’s head embedded in its trunk for people, dogs and horses to pass. But Fresno Scrapers and bulldozers had long since dumped sand and rip-rap into the river and crowded the trail even closer to the tree to widen the path into a road. Wheels came, first the wooden ones and then the inflated ones made from African rubber gathered by local people enslaved to a happenstance Belgian prince who wanted an empire and, it could be argued, mistook the Upper Nile for one and couldn’t take it back when he found out otherwise. It was this rubber that began compacting the tree’s delicate root system, compromising its health while rutting the decomposed granite and tiny layer of topsoil that comprised what passed for dirt in the canyon. By the time the bristling men passed under the Medicine Tree, the road had been improved so much that cars could zip past faster than human caution had evolved. The bristling ones, of course, were not cautious and they didn’t stop to give thanks to the tree either, as had been the Peoples’ custom for centuries. Like Lewis and Clark, who passed under the tree a century before, they weren’t inclined to do so and were on a mission besides. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The reason they were in such a hurry was that they had evidence, unimpeachable and from a secret source (probably divine) that could therefore neither be revealed nor doubted, that there were nefarious black ships anchored in New York Harbor which, in those days, was as far away from the Bitterroot Valley as the Moon. Rural areas like the Bitterroot hadn’t even fully-engaged with the age of electricity yet, so the Bristling Ones had to overcome the vast limits of geography and slow-moving information that was their lot and would naturally impose upon their prejudices, and this they did. The black ships, they duly informed their neighbors, had been known to be there “for a while” and no one had been seen either boarding nor disembarking from them except for boats bringing loads of food which were being unloaded at night, and every Friday night that food was fish! How could any patriotic Bitterrooter doubt, the bristling men wanted their neighbors to ask themselves, that this was the Pope’s infamous Army of Conquest, the one their forefathers and mothers had been dreading since the Irish Potato Famine. It was now floating right off the shores of America, waiting stealthily for the signal from their landbound co-conspirators—Socialists even then! —that the Catholic Candidate had successfully stolen the presidential election and then…then O Bitterrooters! The Papists would swarm off the ships with guns the efficiency of which America had not yet taken the measure of, to overwhelm the freedom-loving people and convert them by fire and force to worship a female god! Then…then O Bitterrooters! Not a man among you will be able to burn your tires in your fields whenever you want! </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Sure enough, it turned out the Klan had been behind that one and, almost a century later it again became trendy for white people on similar missions to pass under the Medicine Tree. Disaffected urbanites attracted to our white demographics, the hit TV series “Yellowstone” and other parables of rugged individualism, and also the fishing. They would flick their dry flies out into the ancient currents with what they hoped looked like the practiced, steady hand of a gunslinger or a pro golfer, and try their luck at catching a flashier version of themselves that they believed was swirling just under the surface and, when they caught it, throw it back. But they forgot, or just never knew, that there are no narratives in our western rivers that they couldn’t have found closer to home with less effort and expense. They mistook our lack of cluttered landscape for a last, best chance at simpler times, but the only real difference between their homes and ours is that we can still measure our wishful thinking against the lay of a land still recognizable as such. We still have our stories. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Henry Ford, that singularly-American enigma, had his. He bragged that even though his America was Main Street, Christian and white, you could order your Model A in any color you wanted so long as you wanted the color black. He was a pacifist during World War I, a Presbyterian, hired African-Americans in his factories when it wasn’t fashionable and was a virulent anti-Semite his whole life. He, like many Americans between the big wars, admired Hitler and reckoned that maybe the Fuhrer and his “team” were on the right track with their robust application of Henry’s own political philosophy, which is really a corporate one that has been applied with equal vigor to many things by many like-minded CEOs ever since: “There are winners and losers.” Simple, and Henry and Hitler did a brisk business with each other until Roosevelt finally ordered Henry to aim his fabulously-profitable, steel-extruding operation toward his own country’s war effort instead. But Shakespeare and Coyote knew, and Henry might have, that irony is the better part of comedy, so it was Coyote who had the last laugh on those who would fly through his sacred narrows too fast in the back of black, white Presbyterian pickups to warn the People about black Catholic ships in New York Harbor, the dark side of the Moon, or whatever, and this has always been so, at least since Fresno Scrapers and Ford pickups.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Of course, the stories of the Salish and Kootenai people who actually knew Coyote and those of auto magnates, Belgian princes and the KKK wobble and diverge away from each other even before the beginning. According to tribal accounts, a giant ram had chosen to live where the Medicine Tree crimped the old trail exactly where the bristling men had squirted gravel, where the valley bottlenecked into a narrows that was the only path the People could use to squeeze themselves through and still stay out of the river. There were friends and relations to visit east of the Divide, buffalo to hunt, enemies to fight, and Coyote knew that, if these migratory people would make their home in the Bitterroot, which he knew they would want to do once they arrived, they would have to pass through this slot regularly. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Giant rams are hard to figure, though, and this one was ornery besides. He decided he wasn’t going to let the People pass, and grew inscrutably violent. Coyote, whose aim was to prepare the valley for his friends to live in peace within, decided to play a trick on him. He knew that, since even normal-sized rams had testicles that were not an insignificant part of their total body weight, this ram’s testicles were as big as the hotrods that equally-charged young men would use in the future to bypass their own self-preservation instincts, sometimes at this very spot where the drop into the river was such a short, missed-turn away. Those who know might say that Coyote had that warped sense of humor we still mistake for high comedy, but he was also far-seeing and wise, which is to say that he could recognize a slam-dunk when he saw one. He pointed to the tree and bet the ram that he couldn’t knock it over. The ram immediately accepted the challenge, of course, revved himself up and powered forward, hit the tree and lodged his horns deep within the trunk’s wood. Coyote walked up and, with a few quick slices of his flint knife, cut the ram’s head off. The skull remained embedded in the tree as it grew over the years, and the People, when they arrived, were grateful. They would always thank it with offerings and prayers whenever they passed. The path became their ancient road, and time passed. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Then in 1841 the first whites came to settle in the Valley, after the Corps of Discovery came and went, trappers and traders, too, for a little while, and these first whites were Catholics. The Black Robes, Jesuits who built a mission where the valley widens into vast, protected horse plains for several miles on either side of the river until they toed the foothills of the magnificent Bitterroot Range to the west and the rounded, fecund Sapphires to the east. Everyone, the Catholic priests and especially the Salish whose beloved home the priest had built their mission in the heart of, agreed that the current site of Stevensville was a beautiful spot, and from that very spot the priests admonished their native neighbors (‘charges” in the vernacular of the U.S. Government) to live in peace with the coming whites, which they were already pretty good at doing.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Blackfeet raiders, though, armed with trade guns acquired from Scottish Protestants up north who directed Hudson Bay Company affairs, disagreed with these Catholic priests about peace in general and peace with the whites in particular. Conflict ensued and the Jesuits moved on, selling their mission and pastures to an American sutler from Pennsylvania with a drinking habit, Major John Owen. Fort Owen soon became a popular trading post and then the jumping-off point for white settlement in Montana. Gold discoveries and the rash of deserters to the west from Confederate recruitment drives in the southern states drove the white population to explode, and the People’s ancient road became a wagon trace in almost no time at all until it was forgotten by—or didn’t matter to—the recently-arrived ones that the valley was the home of the Salish by fact and by treaty. A critical mass of land-hungry squatters was achieved before reason or compassion could catch up. The buffalo famously disappeared for good by the 1880s, corruption and bureaucratic incompetence balled up any intention by the government to live up to their 1855 Hellgate Treaty obligations and the Bitterroot Salish under Chief Charlo, who were living up to the treaty and refused to leave, faced starvation and gunpoints. Charlo and his people were forced out of the Bitterroot in October of 1891, passing through the newly-surveyed streets of Missoula and over the Clark Fork River, their horses’ hooves clopping in dirge-time as they led them across the board planks of the Higgins Street Bridge. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">By this time the Jesuits had built another Catholic mission further north in what would be called the Mission Valley, and, as the federally-designated denomination to settle and acculturate the tribe, beckoned the Bitterroot Salish to leave their home and come to them. Congress, whose only real concern for the tribes was to move them off the lands most-coveted by ranchers without spending too much money on bullets, figured the Mission Valley would do, and those whites who witnessed the procession over the bridge from their homes made of fresh-baked bricks recalled it as quite a sight. The Salish recalled it as their Trail of Tears. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Almost simultaneous to the Bitterroot Salish’ removal was the removal of the ram’s horn from the Medicine Tree, cut out by an anonymous vandal and it wasn’t long after that before the wagon road became a motor highway between the tiny logging town of Darby and the tinier ranching community Sula. Now that the Salish were gone and the “Wild West” done, “safety” was on the county’s mind as automobiles were built to go faster and faster and they pressed the highway department to blast the Medicine Tree out of the way. But, given the Tree’s upper hand in the upside-down Bitterroot valley, the highway department could never get enough political bunnies in a row to pull it off outright. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Over time, though, the tree’s health started to decline, due to soil compaction and other abuses. Then in the winter of 1995 another anonymous vandal came in the night, and salted its base to kill it outright. The salt was noticed right away and was removed, but it wasn’t two years after that that frequent skiers buzzing through the narrows noticed that the Medicine Tree was dying from the top down. Noticing the same thing, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes bought the 58 acres of cliffs and steep draws that the Medicine Tree site occupied, and then requested an examination of its soils to determine what was killing it. The year the tree died, in 1999, the Forest Service complied and offered up a soil scientist, who offered in turn the opinion that, since the ground was frozen when the salting happened and the salt was gathered up soon after its sowing, it was bugs not malice that was the tree’s demise, and this looked good in the valley newspapers for those who wanted to put such things as cultural vandalism to rest. But there were others who passed under the Tree regularly who had longer memories than soil scientists, and weren’t so sure. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The next year, in 2000, an epic fire season torched the whole mountainside surrounding the now-deceased Medicine Tree and probably would have consumed it if Forest Service fire crews, instructed by those within the agency who had been re-charged with a renewed appreciation for what a political hairball it’d be if they let the tree burn, hadn’t dug a line around it. When winter snows came and the fires petered out the Medicine Tree, to some white locals’ chagrin, remained standing. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Then a huge windstorm came through the very next year and blew the top three-quarters of the Tree over onto the highway, leaving the branchless, buckskin lower twenty feet of trunk still standing sentinel over the ancient site. The upper remains of the Tree were brushed into a pile off the highway by a county crew, where the Salish came and picked up every piece and placed them under the Medicine Tree’s designated heir located on their property, the location of which, as non-tribal locals who also cared about the fate of the tree thankfully-observed, was not disclosed. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Things came to a head of sorts in December, 2013, when the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes decided to place their sacred acres in trust to the Bureau of Indian Affairs for its protection against such obvious threats as the highway department’s condemning of it through Imminent Domain and blasting it out. By then, most Ravalli County officials had been installed in a nationwide, mostly-rural backlash against the results of a presidential election that placed the first non-white person in the Oval Office, and the new commissioners duly objected. They cited “bafflement” as their reason, that the tribes would want to create a “federal inholding” that would deprive the county of its rightful taxes (about $800 a year on that parcel). What they didn’t cite was that, since Ruby Ridge and Waco, Ravalli County had been cranking out anti-government, militant “constitutionalist” as regularly as a Hershey factory cranked out Kisses and so claimed a mandate to be done with this whole “Indian thing”. The commissioners called a meeting in Hamilton with tribal elders to discuss the issue, where one commissioner claimed reverse-discrimination, and accused the tribes of scheming to build a race track or a casino on the dry, rocky cliff faces. He also wanted to know how “out a billion trees on the Bitterroot Forest” the tribes picked the only one blocking the highway department from straightening and “improving” the highway. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The attending elders who, unlike the commissioners, had a working knowledge of diplomacy between nations, tried their best not to sound like a 150-year-old broken record as they recounted the 1855 Hellgate Treaty, Coyote, private-property rights and the tribes’ rights as a sovereign entity, but it was like trying to feed carrots to cats. The commissioners’ strange words simmered instead, in the overheated, under-ventilated room that used to be a hospital delivery ward, until finally the county’s planning board chairman, who had also gained his official position as a result of local backlash against Black Things In The White House and Other Places, and who was not known for his patience or excessive reading, decided to speed the meeting up a bit with some from-the-hip “testimony”. He claimed that he had recently been on a “fact-finding trip” to Havre, Montana, which shares its county with the Rocky Boy Reservation in North Central Montana and that the officials there complained to him that their jails were being filled up with “drunken Indians”. </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Palatino;">The planning board chairman was only saying the quiet part out loud, that a casino or a racetrack would surely be built on the side of that hostile cliff and that “drunken Indians” would then start falling out of it, filling up the county’s jail. Maybe it’d be best for everybody, he implied to the not-unsympathetic commissioners, to just blast the Tree out of there once and for all and be done with it. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It’s true that even Coyote probably would have been as concerned as the planning board chairman about drunken beings falling out of hot, snake-infested and otherwise-inhospitable cliffs, but there were some serious gaps in the chairman’s research that the tribal elders were not slow to point out. How, they wanted to know, was it that these drunken beings were dwelling in their sacred cliffs in the first place? And why, if these falling beings really existed, did the lightly-tinted planning board chairman assume they were “Indians” instead of drunks more in-tint with the planning board chairman and the commissioners, the kind who vastly outnumbered natives in almost any Montana bar? And where, exactly, did the planning board chairman think these magical beings were really going? It seemed to the elders like a lot of trouble for such beings to go to if they were only planning on going to jail. The planning board chairman didn’t have the answers and neither did the commissioners, who still magnanimously-objected in principle to drunken beings of any tint falling out of cliffs and robbing them of taxes. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">#</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">As of January, 2024, the 20-foot trunk of the old Medicine Tree still stands above the East Fork of the Bitterroot River, at the very tail of our valley which is really its head, still crimping the deeper desires of speedy trucks testing evolutionary principles of Bristling Ones and a couple other things that have so far remained officially unrecorded in objections about the Tree. One of those was revealed a few years ago when its thick Ponderosa bark began to dry and shed. A rusty broad point arrow about eye-level was uncovered, embedded deep in its wooden flesh where someone had bull’s-eyed it. It was a modern point, and the tree’s living wood had been well on its way toward healing around the sharp metal before it died, so it was plain that the wound was several decades old. Maybe the arrow had been embedded as the ram’s horns had been and the Tree’s assailant was gifted a vision instead of decapitation. Or maybe not. But either way, the Salish-Kootenai folks still persist in visiting the Tree and pressing gifts into the cracks of its buckskin trunk or to lay at its feet, offering their prayers. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Upside down places like the Bitterroot are everywhere and all alike. From the Nile to Middle America’s heart, which I’ll call Fargo, where the Red River flows decidedly-north to Canada, everybody’s always had to deal with their own geology. Global warming and shriveling democracies can be calculated by researchers using computer models, but they can also be more-easily explained by gravity, God and the true weight of water. Your average Egyptian, for instance, could probably recognize a flim flam despot coming for his daughter, just like we can now that we’ve watched millions of our fellow citizens vote for a president who openly bragged about doing just such a thing, and I’ll bet there were bristling incidents in Fargo during the heyday of Klan popularity after World War I when, as happened after the American Civil War, men with undiagnosed PTSD were trying to figure out what had just happened to them and then assigning blame for it. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Bigotry, like nuclear war, is a revelation you can rely on. The dread of both sit there unexposed, invisible until it’s stirred and forced to the fore, floats for a while like sun specks on the skin of your eyes, temporarily annoying. Then gone just as quickly, denied and forgotten even though it swims before your eyes, like a shark, or sun specks. It’s a word we assign to the inscrutable foible that dictates, almost scientifically, that no matter what facts are presented, what harm is done or whose children or environments die, there will always be a certain percentage within any demographic who will only have their opinions pried away from their cold, dead fingers. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">As for the Bitterroot, I’m not a tribal member with the long knowledge of what’s really at stake. I’ve only lived here 40 years or so and have regarded the Medicine Tree on my way to and from the ski hill for those many years, left my presents and prayers, and have had my suspicions. It’s easy enough to see, though, if the Medicine Tree isn’t just a blur in your windshield because you were driving faster than evolution just to score first chairlift on a powder day. Boil it all down and what’s left is the mere observation that politics and water almost always flow downhill, and if all we’re really looking for are excuses, then blaming a river is as good as the next, which means, of course, that there are no good excuses at all. </span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">To be fair to the Bristling Ones of 1928, though, they were right, at least about the tires. It’s also fair to say that at least some of those black Model T’s ended up in the Bitterroot River as legacy riprap, ideal habitat for oversized German Brown trout, another invasive species, a nice little loop.</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">#</span><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"> <i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></o:p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-88352092737221135472024-01-06T17:36:00.000-08:002024-01-08T09:35:08.258-08:00Far Less Effort<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadR-zBk_owDuB3KJZR9X_2UYuqTk8IeOb41hZCHyePWmKdkKIpKxHDPZsLf52I1H6w3_eZiRYmuBI_ZWL6xRyD_-t_Km13onK1Ue2yzXY94MOFGpW7dgHqcVK0FMQ2v0kcEoOBIsA1j-zh-zLiH4uOIGcN_oLWAxbnBR1t_YJrhpz91yX-wUm6nFKjeYx/s3072/bdam.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3072" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadR-zBk_owDuB3KJZR9X_2UYuqTk8IeOb41hZCHyePWmKdkKIpKxHDPZsLf52I1H6w3_eZiRYmuBI_ZWL6xRyD_-t_Km13onK1Ue2yzXY94MOFGpW7dgHqcVK0FMQ2v0kcEoOBIsA1j-zh-zLiH4uOIGcN_oLWAxbnBR1t_YJrhpz91yX-wUm6nFKjeYx/w400-h300/bdam.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Bonneville Dam</div><p></p><p><i style="font-family: Palatino;"><br /></i></p><p><i style="font-family: Palatino;">Note: In the early 1950s, the Army Corps of Engineers proposed to build two 700-ft, straight-axis dams on the Clearwater River in Northern Idaho, one at Bruces Eddy on the North Fork of the Clearwater (later Dworshak Dam), and the other on the Middle Fork of the Clearwater about five miles upstream from Kooskia, Idaho, at a site known as Penny Cliffs. </i></p><p><i style="font-family: Palatino;">A 700-ft, straight-axis dam is a massive wall in the current of a river guaranteed to kill any </i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i>anadromous</i></span><i style="font-family: Palatino;"> fish runs upstream from it. There was--and still is--no known technological fix for this </i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i>inevitability, and, inevitably, Dworshak Dam did just that to the finest surviving Steelhead run on the planet up until the Corps closed the gates.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i>Penny Cliffs, on the other hand, was never built, and so a few, remnant native steelhead still manage to swim up the Middle Fork to pass the mouth of the little no-name creek (now Stewart Creek) a couple miles up the Selway River from Paradise Guard Station. The reason Penny Cliffs was never built was because of Stewart Brandborg (Brandy) who, as an Idaho Fish and Game employee and later as an organizer for the Audobon Society in Washington, D.C., rallied hunters, fisherfolk and wildlife biologists to raise holy hell for a decade and a half until Congress just gave up trying to fund it. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i>Every year there are more and more floaters who come to know--and come to love--the Selway River, who also know Paradise as the put-in for a weeklong wild ride into its wild country. What few of them know, however, was how close the Selway came to being a stagnant pool from its junction with the Middle Fork at Lowell to within a half-day float from Moose Creek Ranger Station, the midway point between Paradise and the takeout at Race Creek. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i>It's sad how, while more and more people are recreating in our irreplaceable backcountry haunts, at the same time there are fewer and fewer who appreciate why those haunts still exist, and how it's up to them to make sure they continue that existence. Below is a chapter from Brandy's "life and times" narrative I've been honored to be working on for too long to keep to myself anymore. Plumbing the depths of the publishing world is apparently beyond me, and I have posted bits and pieces here before. So be it, I guess, and damn the publishing world....I guess. Anyways, this offering is about a time that's now, incredibly, almost a century ago, when the Army Corps closed the gates at Bonneville Dam. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i>Time: it's not static and does not seek equilibrium. It changes, at least from our perspective, for better or worse, depending on how we engage it. Context, history and time. Pretty big subjects, but what the hell. Here's to pissing in the wind.</i></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">End of Part One<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chapter IX</span><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Magruder Ranger Station</span></i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Early November, 1937<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Charlie Engbretzon and Stewart hunted all day up the little no-name creek that cascaded out of the sky in the time it takes a Clark’s Nutcracker to fly from the creek’s headwaters to its mouth with some pine nuts in her craw, dropping three thousand feet in less than a mile, more a crack in the landscape than a creek, and it had a big cave at the top for a bonus. Other than that, Charlie and Stewart had no luck. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">They came down off of the bench above the little canyon to the river and as they looked across the churning Selway from Charlie’s parked Ford they spotted a mule deer. A buck! Charlie helped the boy aim and shoot, then fired a shot to finish it off. Then they waded the river, whose waters were low enough in the Fall to do so, to retrieve the animal, pulled it back across and loaded the it into the back of Charlie’s Ford. Maybe a few representatives of the last free runs of Selway steelhead brushed past their knees. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It was only Saturday when he and Charlie shot the Mulie buck on the banks of the Selway and they still had another day to fill their other tags, so they were feeling jubilant. Charlie turned to the boy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“Y’know”, he said to Stewart, “this creek doesn’t have a name. Let’s call it Stewart Creek”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Now all that was left to do was a triumphant drive back down the new Paradise Road toward Deep Creek Ranger Station (now called Magruder) in the dusk and on up to the CCC camp where they planned to bed down for the night and then hunt some more in the morning. But they met Frank and Jesse Lantz at Deep Creek, instead, Fitz was nowhere around, and they didn’t go back to where the last wild run of Steelhead might have wriggled past their jeans. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The next year, the Army Corps flooded the Columbia River Gorge to a depth of sixty feet to form the brand new geographic feature that, in what would become their disturbing flair for dark irony, they would dub “Lake Bonneville”. After that they built seven more dams along the mainstems of the Columbia and Snake Rivers between the Pacific and the little no-name creek. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Inevitably there were critics of their good works, whom the Army Corps’ military officers and civilian engineers described as “fish enthusiasts” if they happened to be white, and “Indians” if they weren’t. But they also recognized the politics of the thing and agreed to design and install what would be their first rudimentary—and expensive!—fish ladder at Bonneville, declaring that these structures would adequately address what the Interior Department described as the “perceived fish problem”. To the colonels and generals of the Corps, this was nothing less than the magnanimous gesture they deemed it to be, given the horrid expense of the ladders. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">They feathered their magnanimity, though, with a warning that there would be no turning back for the fish, for the dams or for civilization. Epic rivers and ancient prerogatives notwithstanding, the wild runs of anadromous fish who had enjoyed unobstructed access from the ocean to the no-name creeks of the upper Selway or anywhere else for millions of years before God invented humans were simultaneously declared both obsolete and in need of help. This was no idle threat. It was demonstrable even then that, of all the human organizational constructs throughout our specie’s brief history who’ve swallowed such embarrassing amounts of hubris and then survived to get heartburn from their diet choices, the Army Corps of Engineers was one of the sickest. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The record is clear on this: they knew perfectly well that their dams were going to create such problems for the fish that they would probably kill them outright, so they spent billions of taxpayer dollars covering their butts, with fish ladders, hatcheries and other non-sustainable substitutes for ancient freedoms. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It’s interesting to note that in late 1937, when Charlie and young Stewart were wading across the river to get Stewart’s first deer, the Corps, the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and the Oregon Fish Commission were finishing their first round of observations regarding the effectiveness of their new fish ladder at Cascade Locks. Frank T. Bell (U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries) put the whole thing into crystal-clear perspective for everyone when he observed that Chinook salmon were climbing the Bonneville fish ladder with <i>“…far less effort than their forbearers that fought upstream through the swirling rapids that were now to be buried beneath fifty feet of water”</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">The Oregon Fish Commission put its own exclamation point on the matter when it chirped in that the fishways were a <i>“howling success”.</i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It’s also worth noting, for those of us who love those beautiful arcs of irony that sometimes serve as halos for such statements, that Bell’s agency had just hired Rachel Carson, future author of “Silent Spring”, a couple years before to write script for the Bureau’s weekly radio broadcast titled “Romance Under the Water”. There’s no denying it; when you talk about dams, you’re talking about epic disconnects that goes back to the world’s first honkies: the Greeks. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">But try putting your finger on that disconnect now. It squirms away from you just as fast as a Salmon fry in a hatchery tank, a treaty with the Dakota People, or any other easy promise made and then easily broken. Reverend Samuel Parker, the first literate “Boston” who crossed the Upper Selway country with his Nii mi puu guides and then wrote about it, laid the first moral foundation for the Corp’s “<i>benevolent designs (to) render the deserts, both naturally and morally (into) the garden of the Lord</i>”. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“The question often arose in my mind,” </span></i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">the reverend further waxed.<i>“Can this section of country ever be inhabited, unless these mountains shall be brought low, and these valleys shall be exalted?” <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It took a hundred years, but the Corps finally came along and accomplished the feat, understood too late as mere Zeitgeist, not natural, and not prone to revisionism. When the reverand’s notions of developing the treasures of the West strictly for its resources became the core tenet of both classic American literature and of “Manifest Destiny”, there was, as the Corps felt duty-bound to point out, no turning back. Progress without context is, by definition, inextricable, and is now embedded in our national soul. Pharaohs understood that dams and pyramids will ever be the spore of such a species capable of building “fish ladders” (for entertainment, give that phrase a moment’s thought). But didn’t Bonneville Dam put hungry people to work during a time of great economic need, the Pharaohs and politicians would ask. And weren’t families starving for lack of work, suffering for lack of light and wasn’t Woody Guthrie, the Voice of the People himself, writing songs in praise of dams? And now in our Global Warming times, isn’t hydropower considered “clean energy”, even by certain key “environmentalists”<sup>[1]</sup>? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">These are questions that will always resonate within the hollow spaces of unformed consciousness a species such as ours inhabits, the Army Corps not only knew it but was tasked with exploiting it, and so the Corps’ attitude was right on target for the Depression, and even for later, when people weren’t so hungry. Resonance is a matter of habit, a taste in a certain genre of music, and a few other things. Words like “disconnect” and “environmentalist” weren’t even words in 1937. Nobody used them, not even future environmentalists. You just can’t put your finger on it, and you can’t fairly blame the Corps or anyone else, at least not much, because no one else except Rachel Carson and a few others were interested in such words at all at the time. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Of course there will always be dam boosters, just like there will always be art critics and pharaohs, and in 1941, after it was found that Bonneville’s turbines were massacring the anadromous fingerlings trying to get past them on their way to the sea, the art critics started gaining their stride and the U.S. House Committee on Rivers and Harbors held a hearing on the status of migratory fish and the dams in the Pacific Northwest. Congressmen, acting within their ecological niche, were pushing for more dams, and they wanted reassurances and so they brought in General Thomas Robins of the Corps to testify before their committee on the ticklish issue of doomed fingerlings. The Corps by this time had modified the turbines that were killing the fish by the millions just enough to say that they had done so, and General Robins got right to the point. He claimed that a mule could now safely pass through the turbines if it were outfitted with an oxygen tank, and that it has now been proven conclusively that the turbines were incapable of hurting the fish. Fish runs upstream at Bonneville, he further pointed out, had been the largest in thirty years. Congressman Homer Angell from The Dalles, where the next dam would eventually be built, wanted to help the colonel along, and he piped in that <i>“the fish took to the ladders like a duck does to water.” </i>The engineers, Angell declared, had <i>“solved the problem”</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">General Robins, whose intriguing challenge about scuba-diving mules making their way through dam turbines is still being studied by top-notch civil engineers around the world, did not disagree with the Congressman’s analogy, but he did finally offer the Committee his succinct, romantic observation in one perfectly symmetrical statement that has stood the test of time:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“<i>We have done all that could be done to take care of the fish. If they disappear it will be because of civilization and not because of the dam.</i>”<sup>[1]<o:p></o:p></sup></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">#<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Like almost everywhere else, many of the Selway’s pieces are now gone, recently extinct albeit not entirely forgotten. The wild fish runs are extinct, of course, except for a few derelict genes rubbing against the rough cement sides of hatchery ponds. These were built on the banks of the drowned canyons as consolation prizes to those prehistoric anadromous beings who could cling to archaic spatial memories that nature gifted their race, but apparently not ours. Making Nature better has always been the frame within which we have related to Her, and we still tolerate people talking about Her in that now-ubiquitous bureaucratic dialect —probably pioneered in 1937—when modern specialists who had better things to do wished to declare how they had gone the extra mile in helping mere fish and other such mere things. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> There’s one thing about the Selway, though. A lot of its pieces are still here and relatively intact, thanks to the young kid wading across the river with his hero to collect his first deer and his Wilderness Law. People who didn’t know Brandy but know the country he saved recognize it as part of the biggest contiguous wilderness area in the lower forty-eight states, and then they take that fact for granted. Most of us who are lucky enough to love the Selway (or at least can afford to float it and then learn to love it later) hardly notice the little lessons anymore because it’s such a relief to find such a big hunk of unroaded mountains anywhere in the world now. The little lessons of history and deep biology are too hard to see, let alone the big ones that are there every day, that the Land still gives. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> Maybe Her biggest lesson is that the remnants of this place remain in their nominally intact condition because of a few things that you can’t quite put your finger on. Maybe one of those things is that you can’t judge the past by simply remembering it. You need context, the grounded kind, the kind that only an extremely-large, relatively-intact piece of Land gives.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> What’s fair to say about the Selway country is that everything is as steep as a cow’s face, including the learning curves of her lessons, which tend toward randomness, which is what actually saved it. It was Big Brandy’s CCC boys who were called away from punching the Paradise Road all the way to Selway Falls, which was their intent, to the war instead, and to the good-paying defense jobs on the coast, that gave the Land the reprieve it needed to be worth saving again, and again, and yet again. It’s certainly not nostalgia that saves big places like the Selway. It’s things like war, steepness, and a couple of other things. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">#<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Two weeks after Charlie and Stewart gave the Lantzes a ride over into the Bitterroot, Charlie held true on his promise to the boy. He had a CCC kid paint the name “Stewart Creek” on a board, then had it nailed to a tree where the little creek poured into the culvert under the road. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“By god!” Stewart exclaimed, still surprised at how such little things stick while such big ones get away. “It got named Stewart Creek on the maps!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">And this is how Stewart Brandborg, the last surviving architect of the Wilderness Law, explained to anyone who asks why he spent so many decades in the swamps of Washington D.C., away from his beloved mountains, saving the Selway from the last dam that was never built because of his efforts, fighting the Fight in the old-time way his father had taught him.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> “The imprint of that wonderful life. You don’t get over that.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">end<o:p></o:p></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><br /></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWKWJOhcgRK2QS1tNvCOLC5gmrwLiednvp-k0I-9Y2fqNPhy6CJca6JksNdUgMglTLp_f2V4edS6HOfpxViMAJ3XdKVusFx5jELFLHFtkgDgcmWqLp2R2sw1pSnFW-Gus4PwxaLgeWGwALs2zgogSp2O_ZAKec_67XCk2RMmcTP8NK6sHrGGTCCMD00MjW/s3072/pc.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3072" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWKWJOhcgRK2QS1tNvCOLC5gmrwLiednvp-k0I-9Y2fqNPhy6CJca6JksNdUgMglTLp_f2V4edS6HOfpxViMAJ3XdKVusFx5jELFLHFtkgDgcmWqLp2R2sw1pSnFW-Gus4PwxaLgeWGwALs2zgogSp2O_ZAKec_67XCk2RMmcTP8NK6sHrGGTCCMD00MjW/w400-h300/pc.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;">This view behind Penny Cliffs (5 miles west of Kooskia, ID) would be 700 feet underwater if the Army Corps of Engineers had built their dam </div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9rv4Nn4zFAw0-nW2cxVHBiM7ktl441ScyjZnOBeiPerhiJbf85GkoYgIVnAr6RnRmxKAakum9JVuN_qZNM9Y1VPtOBQ4jB_xiodl5JagH7usy6_hc2lJWoIwpxDTviC0ol5CqOCfPIh43iS8eFR-jqg3dEq_2-mknorD4yflqtmgq1PUCQNz_39-mZQt/s3072/Dworshak%20face.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="2304" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9rv4Nn4zFAw0-nW2cxVHBiM7ktl441ScyjZnOBeiPerhiJbf85GkoYgIVnAr6RnRmxKAakum9JVuN_qZNM9Y1VPtOBQ4jB_xiodl5JagH7usy6_hc2lJWoIwpxDTviC0ol5CqOCfPIh43iS8eFR-jqg3dEq_2-mknorD4yflqtmgq1PUCQNz_39-mZQt/w300-h400/Dworshak%20face.JPG" width="300" /></a><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Dworshak Dam</span></div><p></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMlcXVB5OqQuON-ycRzpHYWGseCrpDfBDT5869YfWfwLd8q-v_BIF1ZFMavpEJ255k7f3dol6YDTQMcSAP8oCLtPtWsNNrZj8jvLTcwFa2QDM0hE1MKcqmja_IdzBLPdcK817wy4gaIIdtgDjz77CLXr0U1QhEOhJe1W-GYQYEZxsdnuWQzWycMqoVNusn/s3072/Dworshak%20wall.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1470" data-original-width="3072" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMlcXVB5OqQuON-ycRzpHYWGseCrpDfBDT5869YfWfwLd8q-v_BIF1ZFMavpEJ255k7f3dol6YDTQMcSAP8oCLtPtWsNNrZj8jvLTcwFa2QDM0hE1MKcqmja_IdzBLPdcK817wy4gaIIdtgDjz77CLXr0U1QhEOhJe1W-GYQYEZxsdnuWQzWycMqoVNusn/s320/Dworshak%20wall.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">What a 700-foot straight-axis dam (Dworshak) looks like to a </span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">fish<i> </i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><i><br /></i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmn6EGG63Pncz7oScgA8l2wpGBBcYhk08hfu0jJBrvlb-XJdvKTzFbpV_XD_Zm6IEA9VceE1N7jfQLAaMP6LmP2WMdWwJQ03RgPCW5CEL9Un0cP2AL7WChLXU7_d7XZwTtY4-tNddsrYO-ooUm7qP9iY8L9ov1m-tzA9N6WnKCuNVx1cPVx-DQsRI1tJ6v/s3072/3-22%20iceh%20sunset%20geese.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2304" data-original-width="3072" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmn6EGG63Pncz7oScgA8l2wpGBBcYhk08hfu0jJBrvlb-XJdvKTzFbpV_XD_Zm6IEA9VceE1N7jfQLAaMP6LmP2WMdWwJQ03RgPCW5CEL9Un0cP2AL7WChLXU7_d7XZwTtY4-tNddsrYO-ooUm7qP9iY8L9ov1m-tzA9N6WnKCuNVx1cPVx-DQsRI1tJ6v/w400-h300/3-22%20iceh%20sunset%20geese.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">Ice Harbor at Sunset</div><br /><i><br /></i></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-53880859466419338902023-12-08T18:23:00.000-08:002023-12-09T06:57:50.124-08:00We Got It All<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5050BjYj5o7a-RyYldH39ORZnC5tpfX3NA68R1T6v5SiRFGZqgFh976crpPu4WkQd2ZAL6cI7xQWclzqJ1_JiHTHwttxIwKKNKGOpokHqFRsZVACTvKgDIs94MT1o7ELWcdL2iNEDe9ZWPv6ziNrPDh6DGEx_r6okTSIcFShZp-iDc848Ers0eCd2Nn4i/s1052/Screen%20Shot%202023-12-08%20at%207.25.19%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="708" data-original-width="1052" height="269" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5050BjYj5o7a-RyYldH39ORZnC5tpfX3NA68R1T6v5SiRFGZqgFh976crpPu4WkQd2ZAL6cI7xQWclzqJ1_JiHTHwttxIwKKNKGOpokHqFRsZVACTvKgDIs94MT1o7ELWcdL2iNEDe9ZWPv6ziNrPDh6DGEx_r6okTSIcFShZp-iDc848Ers0eCd2Nn4i/w400-h269/Screen%20Shot%202023-12-08%20at%207.25.19%20PM.png" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /><span><br /></span></span><p></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Winter Solstice, 2008, 6:30 AM</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>First thing I did was admire Venus rising to the east over the Sapphires, and give a nod to my man, Scorpio, on the far-eastern edge of the still-starlit sky, ready to fade with the coming sunrise, because it was winter and his time was still yet to come. Then, as Herman Melville would say, I fell to, chipping the ice off my son’s windshield out in the barnyard with a dull scraper so he could drive to school. The moon was a night away from being full and the snowy mountains around us were shining, huge and quiet. That’s not unusual, although our local pack of wolves sang to them last night up the canyon, a master choir singing from the gut of the Earth. But other than that, we were enjoying not paying attention.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>So we weren’t looking up, but suddenly from directly above us there was a bright flash, just out of Scorpio’s clawed reach. Lightning is the usual suspect around here, since such Big-Picture luminescence in the Northern Rockies is common in summer. But this was Winter.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>I thought of Pakistan and India, nuclear-tipped nations currently at each others' throats, of our voracious, never-ending wars in Iraq and Afganistan. I thought of Iran, nuclear-curious, and of George W. Bush and of the upcoming elections that would probably oust him if something really scary didn’t happen first, like planes crashing into tall buildings. Or something like that. Trust, it's hard to argue, is in short supply these days.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>Standing out there in the snowy barnyard in the exquisite dawn with my teenage son who would soon inherit this goddam mess we have bequethed, trying to explain a flash of light above us, I resisted, but the thought leapt forward anyways. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>Nuclear war. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> </span>Of course I dialed it down a notch and thought that maybe it was just something gone haywire. Maybe just Global Warming. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"> “Did you see that?” I asked Daniel, who had been busy stuffing his guitar into the cold back seat.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Yeah,” he said. “I thought it was lightning. I looked up and it was just like when lightning is flashing from behind a cloud at night. That bright and big.”</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Was there any red in it?” I asked incongruously. Daniel, being a kind person from the time he was a baby, considered this for a moment.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“No,” he said honestly. “I just saw bright. I was waiting for a boom. What do you think?”</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I owe my son an answer to anything. That’s the deal I made him when he surprised us with his birth on the eve of the first Gulf War in 1990. So I considered the thing. The Kmart scraper hung idle in my numbing fist. Scorpio waited patiently, not quite ready to fade into morning. Global Warming? Wolves? Nuclear war? Certainly that last one should be the last for a father to mouth because if it's that, why bother? And once again, in the instant it took my synapses to jolt enough neurons with the information that I had actually had that thought, my synapses reversed course and passed back a new bit of information, a reasonable answer. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Star Wars.”</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Huh?”</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“They were going shoot down a spy satellite,” I riffed. “Sometime soon, I think. I read it in the paper.”</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“Oh,” Daniel, my teenager, said, and that was all he said. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>We stood another moment in the moonlight together, considering this. I purposefully lingered. Nothing happened. Nothing bad, anyways. I went back to scraping the windshield.</span><span> </span></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“This scraper sucks,” I finally said. “You need a new one.”</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">“I didn’t know they could be better,” he said. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I hugged him, told him to drive carefully and that I loved him, because that's always the least you can do for your kids.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Right now, 45% of my fellow citizens believe the Earth was created less than 10,000 years ago. An equal number don’t believe in Global Warming. This at a time when there is no serious disagreement within the scientific community about either evolution or human-caused climate change. The subject of peer-reviewed science--and not the peer-reviewed science itself--has devolved before my eyes to the level of partisan politics and, like Galileo, Copernicus or the vast multitude of historical unknowns who have known bullshit when they saw it, I haven’t been able to do a thing about it. Just like the Popes of Old, </span><span>corporations who profit from unregulated greed define the subject of Science--not the Science itself--and a few hundred years is nothing in the big scheme of the evolution of human consciousness. It’s pretty simple then. We’re fucked.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span> I wanted to write a book once about how weird the beginning of the 21<sup>st</sup> Century was, h</span><span>ow beautiful it was, how beautiful I hope it will be for those who stumble upon it in the future, how beautiful I know it is and still can be. I’ve been lucky, I would tell those future readers. Through circumstance I’ve been given the opportunity to tell you that luck is where you find it, and please don’t take this as trite. All I really want to say is that I hope you’re finding your luck, like I did mine.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">The human brain is, if nothing else, a fascinating example of how nature can take a chain of anything—in our case the junction point of two neurons across which nerve impulses pass the news of the instant, be it pain or unexplained event—pour it into a dirty bag like the the one holding my rusty tire chains that live in the back of my pickup all Winter to honor a lifelong struggle to be impulsively adventurous, and create from the nondescript heap of crap the infinite patterns that, taken together, represent Life.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span> T</span>here had just been a lightning flash in Scorpio's bedroom, a winter sky </span><span>unimaginably-depthless and dark above my me and my teenage son that, </span><span>without stretching possibilities too much, could have been the start of a nuclear war, and we had looked up.</span></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; text-indent: 36px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Maybe times have always been this precarious for humans. It certainly seems so now. </span></p><div><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p>
</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 10px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-30801240668333146342023-10-29T10:37:00.016-07:002023-11-01T08:42:18.600-07:00Steal This Song.........Jimmy Driftwood Did!<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGblmcbkuHwa79vI96NTsj73ju59YcJNwv_c6Ak1OI1ojQJDNashsLpDjYcl4tBQhM56kPQTpDSJvDUHKjCoAQV6U-TDuPQzkG4iqEVb4lHF3gWKPSQ6ICFR32pJfnH4LBItAvQAjl7woKGSNbXft70c34GdvvAr-u9zdy1k7QZIQ61F7fLdG8zbxLSit/s3144/IMG_2126.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3144" data-original-width="2229" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmGblmcbkuHwa79vI96NTsj73ju59YcJNwv_c6Ak1OI1ojQJDNashsLpDjYcl4tBQhM56kPQTpDSJvDUHKjCoAQV6U-TDuPQzkG4iqEVb4lHF3gWKPSQ6ICFR32pJfnH4LBItAvQAjl7woKGSNbXft70c34GdvvAr-u9zdy1k7QZIQ61F7fLdG8zbxLSit/w284-h400/IMG_2126.jpg" width="284" /></a></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><div style="text-align: center;"><i>St. George and the Dragon</i></div></i> </span><p></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">First of all, let's get one thing clear: Nobody can steal "The 8th of January". It's a fiddle tune that's been around since God invented spare ribs and is </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>Public</i></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;"> Domain even by the crooked rules of our crooked corporate music industry. I only posted this under that provocative title so that the ASCAP and BMI bots assigned to scanning social media in search of songsters to strong-arm protection money from (And believe me, they actually do exactly that with your Spotify fees!) would trip over it a few hundred times and increase my click-count. Sadly, I'm no Taylor Swift (see photo)</i><i style="font-family: Helvetica;"> and have no </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>discernible</i></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;"> fanbase that even a vigilant bot could discern. Therefore I predict that I will be ignored, never to be contacted by the bot bosses who use your music money (!#?) to send sugar-coated letters threatening legal action unless I knuckle under and pay their "modest" copyright fees. This turnip is not worth squeezing, they'll assess, because I'd only benefit if they reconsidered. My fame (or infamy in the case of </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>politicians</i></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;"> and other entertainers who use similar attention-getting methods) would soar and </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>I'd</i></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;"> get even more clicks. So I'm safe but, really, who knows? I may get enough recognition to actually make some money off Spotify and Pandora. So yes, it's a twisted, paranoia-based strategy I'm gaming, which, in the present state of the world, makes it Kafka-esque and therefore almost viable, if only in my own dreams, which suits me.</i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">Speaking of "twisted", have you been lucky enough to have had your head in the sand this last month or have you, like the whole rest of the Human Race, been inflicted with the latest news from the Middle East? If you're one of the latter, and you're actually curious enough to crave a little context, you might appreciate this little rhyming history lesson </i></span></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">(below) from </i><span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">someone who lived through it (me) written over 30 years ago about the first Gulf War in 1991. I know many of you had not even been born yet, so when words or phrases like "Iraq" or "Saddam Hussein" are mentioned your thoughts and prayers go straight to the second debacle perpetrated on the Cradle of Civilization by the Home of the Brave. </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span>Nobody talks about Desert Storm anymore, except the Dude, who inhabits a cult film that most of you who stumble on it will be W</span></i></span></span><span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>atching While Stoned (WWS) with no sense of context, nor any desire for one. </i></span><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">Never mind then, Dudes, I'm gonna school you anyways, so your choices now are to quit reading or remain curious.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i>The first Gulf War was a big deal in relation to the perpetration of the current mess playing out before our eyes in Gaza and Israel. It was the first time the U.S. felt bully enough to kick it's "Vietnam Syndrome" in the pants (or some equally-sexy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/31/kim-kardashians-next-trick-a-bra-to-make-you-look-turned-on-by-absolutely-everything">body part</a>) and send hundreds of thousands of ground troops to invade another country...again. The Soviet Union had just disintegrated, which meant that corrupt corporate entities (see rant above😁) like the arms industry, needed new horizons to sell product. Sand dunes overseen by despots loomed large as attractive targets, and so it was that Iraq--located right next door to arch-enemy, Iran, as a bonus--was chosen for the roll-out. Dick (Darth) Cheney, Bush Sr.'s Secretary of Defense, hung catchy names on each phase of the "operation" to describe what U.S. forces would do to the people of the region: </i><b style="font-style: italic;">Desert Shield</b><i> for the build-up in Kuwait and the Persian Gulf, </i><b style="font-style: italic;">Desert Storm </b><i>for the actual bloodletting, and </i><b style="font-style: italic;">Desert Penis</b><i> (not its real name) for what the US did for the next decade to those poor folks in terms of tens of thousands of kids dying due to various blockades and punitive raids etc. etc. until the 2nd Iraq War. It's not much of a stretch to posit that most policy and conflict coming from the Mideast since 1991 have genetic markers dating their origins, mutations or re-occurances back to that Big Mistake. </i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i>In the name of Context, then, I offer up this serving of Crow which, as most songsters in my age group know, is best eaten warm, which this Crow wasn't, which is why this song is so bitter, and remains so. For you whippersnappers who actually care, a few reference pointers: Stormin' Norman was the war handle given to Gen. Norman </i></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i>Schwarzkopf, commander of Coalition forces during the 1991 Gulf War. "Canons" refers to the old-timey cameras that still had clicking shutters, but whose images could still be projected out to the Universe in e-seconds, and is used here for its double-entendre effect (if you like such things, and if you don't, apologies). For deeper context, remember that during the Vietnam War, which occurred during my own tender youth, real-time war footage was shot with reel-type movie cameras and then overnight-air-mailed overseas to be shown on Walter Cronkite news program the next evening. This was seen as almost a new-age advance in tele-communications compared to the news reels shown in movie theaters during World War II. So, although journalists were still using hard copy for some of there war-image work, </i></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">Desert Storm was the first, huge American conflict beamed into citizens' living rooms in near-real time.</i><i style="font-family: Helvetica;">That was a big deal, although now it's taken as much for granted as Climate Change baking your grandkids to the golden crispness of Tater-Tots. Thus my ranting in this song about the unnaturalness of such willful sleepwalkings. </i></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium;"><i>So, that's my story, I'm sticking to it, and without further ado I present to you, straight from the shelves of Inscrutable Obscurity:</i></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Sands of Araby</b></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Sung to the tune of “8<sup>th</sup> of January”</span></i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">(or Jimmy Driftwood’s “Battle of New Orleans”)</span></i></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></i></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In 1991 we took a little cruise</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Along with Stormin’ Norman to the nightly evening news</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I didn’t leave my couch</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And I’m wondering what for</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">A rube would wanna join the Army just to see a war</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><u>Chorus:</u></i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>They aimed their Canons and the shutters started clickin’</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Hurrah for the troops and for Ameriky</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>They shot the boys live as they gave Saddam a lickin’</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>In a second to your TV from the Sands of Araby.</i></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We---ll, the photogenic generals they learned their lesson well</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You gotta practice up your smilin’ if you got a war to sell</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It’s spendy but it’s worth it if your image needs a-fixin’</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You can sell a war to anyone if you don’t look like Nixon.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Chorus</i></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The smart bombs rained for 40 days and nights</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">While the smart image-makers told us we were in the right</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And it’s smart not to question all those holes in the sand</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">In a world where the bombs are gettin’ smarter than the men.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chorus</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They sold that war like a tube of pepsodent</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">They sold it like a car or like they do a president</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">There might a been some news, I’m just not sure where they hid it</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">We’re supposed to have a free press</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Do ya wonder why they did it?</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 5px 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> <span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span><i>Words by Bill LaCroix</i></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div><br /></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-13456306667697822452023-08-13T16:47:00.002-07:002023-08-13T17:08:56.935-07:00Nixon Rock Redux<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVWes7xbw-ttSGDLmV5jQXgDag2NTiD9aqEpFJaoBsAaRurV1vtw3oohj6l5XmGvxTlGGREn7HuVD-uRqPDAKo4jPS9FPsoycNha0vHp9feazc5EabuNMnvC_t5pj-tNay3uhspXq8nv_/s1600/nr.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1093" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUVWes7xbw-ttSGDLmV5jQXgDag2NTiD9aqEpFJaoBsAaRurV1vtw3oohj6l5XmGvxTlGGREn7HuVD-uRqPDAKo4jPS9FPsoycNha0vHp9feazc5EabuNMnvC_t5pj-tNay3uhspXq8nv_/s640/nr.jpg" width="436" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Nixon Rock</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Red River, Idaho</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">In the summer of 1980 I was working on a trail crew for the Elk City Ranger District in Central Idaho. After four days out on a hitch we would often travel up the Red River to the hot springs resort for a soak and a beer (or two). The road ran right next to Red River and so, along the way, we would always see Nixon, immortalized by geological forces several million years previous. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">The summer of 1980 was the height of the presidential election season between Carter and Reagan, and "Social Media" had not been invented yet. In fact, televised debates between presidential candidates were still something relatively-new, and so we were still blessed with the innocence of judging politicians on their actual behavior combined with facts...and geology.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Nixon was the worst thing I'd ever seen up to that time. He was a crook. Simple. He was ousted from office because of that. Also simple. And this rock was funny because it reminded us that, although progress was geologically-slow, it was fact-based and...simple. President is caught being a crook. President is ousted. Simple. And solid. Like rocks. Ha ha.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Around August we came in from a hitch in the rolling mountain country behind Elk City that should have been designated wilderness but was left out (and still is), and we sat down in the bunkhouse in the back of the ranger station for a beer and a televised presidential debate. Anyone who has come in from a few days out in the woods, away from cars and other worries, knows that when you "hit the asphalt", your senses are sharpened in proportion to how many days you've spent "out", and you're a bit less prone to the bullshit thrown at you by such things that our hyped-up society loves to throw, like the ubiquitous visual imagery we seem to have grown more and more addicted to over time. It was mere TV in those good old days, the flickering blue light, and I honestly don't remember the substance of the debate, and furthermore refuse to "wikipedia" it up for a synopsis. Let's just agree that it was bad enough. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">What always did stand out in my memory, though, was how bad Reagan's "performance" was. He was a joke, especially compared to Jimmie Carter's even, relatively-honest cadence. Reagan appeared--at least to my wilderness-altered state--to be disjointed and dishonest, and on full display for a nation full of TV heads to see! He was obviously pandering to peoples' base instincts for the sake of power. He was a demagogue, a bigot, and not a very good one at that. He was, unlike most rocks I've come to know, transparent, and I remember thinking distinctly, that there was no problem here. People don't want a crook for a president again. Geology will prevail. People will see right through this guy for what he is, and we will go out for another hitch into the mountains that will someday be declared the wilderness that it deserves to be, with all due protections as per the laws of the the Land, the same laws that we use to oust crooks from office (at least when they've been caught) and at least allow us to get a good night's sleep sometimes. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">After resting up for the weekend, we went out for another four-day hitch, and I didn't think anymore about the news. Why should I? The world I had landed in was beautiful, I was healthy and we slept out on the ground where cares washed off our skin with every breath of a breeze that swayed the tops of lodgepole tracing shadows in the stars. I was duly appreciative. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Then we came back, hit the blacktop, and what I viscerally remember about our re-entry was the news awaiting us. Reagan had "won" the debate, had in fact, cleaned Carter's clock and was on a roll. This, of course, came from an already-corrupt mass media that would benefit greatly from a divisive president who would simultaneously "sell product" as a direct result of his divisiveness while giving them giant tax cuts, which I kind of knew already, but this was not what I remember thinking when I learned, in my wilderness-altered state, what had occurred in crazy TV world during my brief sojourn into the actual, sane one.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">My distinct memory of what I thought is only two words long, and for all you visual-imagery-crazed fellow travelers of mine who are equally wondering WTF is going on in the 21st Century, I will write them down for you here: </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">"Uh-oh." </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">And I was right.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">I took the picture that opens this post with my cell phone when I was passing through the Clearwater country last weekend on a foray to collect some additional insights into my book-in-progress, <i>"What's Bigger than the Land? The Life and Times of Stewart M. Brandborg". </i>To say that Nixon and Reagan had a huge, negative effect on Brandy and his life's passion of "making democracy work" is a gross understatement. Nixon and Agnew sicced the IRS on Brandy's Wilderness Society (TWS) during their running battle with Brandy over the Alaska Pipeline, and this was ultimately what scared TWS into firing him as executive director in 1976. Brandy saw--and contributed to--the Nixonites getting kicked out of the halls of power--for a bit at least--but he had no such luck with Reagan. After he and his wife, AnnaVee, returned to the Bitterroot Valley in 1986, they fought Reaganism hard and well, mostly in the realm of forest-use and planning issues, but they and their allies were constantly being vilified by the local wing nuts-du-jour, who seemed, like Reagan, less and less attached to facts and more and more attached to hate-enhanced talk-show radio and the ever-more virulent social media pseudo-reality. The Brandborgs never gave up. In fact, they never let it bother them overmuch. It was just part of what you put up with when you stood up and did and said what's right. People have always been...well...people, they believed, and you had to deal with them on that level. Simple.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Yeah, we were all young once, and Nixon was bad enough, but he's just a rock in a river now and so will all of them be someday. Yes, Reagan was worse, trump is over the cliff and five decades is long enough to be stumbling around in the Dark Ages waiting for things to get bad enough for enough people to rise up. In a sane world snake oil salesmen would go broke, and so, by definition, it's not a sane world yet. But Nixon Rock is still funny, just on the face of what's been possible in the past and will be possible again soon. Brandy and AnnaVee would be tickled to see all the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/20/held-v-montana-climate-trial-youth-end">kids</a> who have had the truth thrust upon them and, far from shrinking from it, are willing to act. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">And that truth? Without democracy, and all its associated righteous corollaries, we will perish from the Earth.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Simple.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><br /><br />bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-53592376936837524602023-05-21T08:38:00.002-07:002023-05-21T08:38:43.123-07:00On Buffalo and Non-Linear Western Reality Challenges<p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">“What’s all this nostalgia about bison?” Gilles Stockton of the Montana Cattle Association opined recently in response to </span></span><a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/yellowstone-tribal-bison-hunts_n_64668149e4b0005c6057df4a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; white-space: pre-wrap;">public outrage</a><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"> over the slaughter of one out of every four wild buffalo still existing on the planet within the unnaturally linear boundaries of their high-elevation (read: no grass in winter), Yellowstone Park Res. “I find the advocates for that to be incredibly selfish. They want somebody else to raise these bison in order to fulfill their fantasy. If you love the bison, go buy some land and raise some bison.” </span></span></span></p><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; word-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HYoPhOriIBUzRRcRTVBgCBdgeo0bKH0cJ3KqxG0iWYmy8MnL0hfWZ8b7K96aUP8usFCcUvIzxK1uo957sn_hRVVtGrOKUMbqSD0_28XEjM3BO_0QSVzS-K0deV2vp_dlWjHeof4WoU8qYvpcJCGYe5oYCDLy--kS3QrGF3uzx4IbX9gMH47wyw2K7g/s794/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.13.38%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="794" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HYoPhOriIBUzRRcRTVBgCBdgeo0bKH0cJ3KqxG0iWYmy8MnL0hfWZ8b7K96aUP8usFCcUvIzxK1uo957sn_hRVVtGrOKUMbqSD0_28XEjM3BO_0QSVzS-K0deV2vp_dlWjHeof4WoU8qYvpcJCGYe5oYCDLy--kS3QrGF3uzx4IbX9gMH47wyw2K7g/w400-h339/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.13.38%20AM.png" width="400" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">.......O......kay.....then.....what's all this nostalgia </span></span><span style="color: #050505;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">about cowboys? I find the advocates for that to be incredibly selfish....too ....right?.........</span></span></span></div><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnL2ncXFPQl1zFnu8f0HPJoPMRAQvobY4hGQT57JbmmNMu4tGlwkOtD21PHBacSq9kuFmPU3q1A9-aLzC9OqBe98d7T1l9MaCrWIZKa7ajUdwjCg-YX2bcK4A0xdowGLF-0J65wFfBANgZUs57W4Ux2adC-nukSJi3_g8B80VXjwSIikFnwF20itLag/s962/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.14.41%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="908" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnL2ncXFPQl1zFnu8f0HPJoPMRAQvobY4hGQT57JbmmNMu4tGlwkOtD21PHBacSq9kuFmPU3q1A9-aLzC9OqBe98d7T1l9MaCrWIZKa7ajUdwjCg-YX2bcK4A0xdowGLF-0J65wFfBANgZUs57W4Ux2adC-nukSJi3_g8B80VXjwSIikFnwF20itLag/w378-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.14.41%20AM.png" width="378" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhouropNEZhO73T0pjLxsAt9ER2asjP611O2RcCx_rwRiejvbBcKAPwjczC0fxne8olEOgF8LGH-zUyQ2NmHVnQ61CbaXofdu0iPnmksxvzO1NwsBit3bMkIzOBdy0iFDKjezzS0aE6kEM9NFykaMmiX4432QSuhLGFg6mvKVNviOk6XvlESMUqdYpTzA/s1286/buffy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1286" data-original-width="1204" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhouropNEZhO73T0pjLxsAt9ER2asjP611O2RcCx_rwRiejvbBcKAPwjczC0fxne8olEOgF8LGH-zUyQ2NmHVnQ61CbaXofdu0iPnmksxvzO1NwsBit3bMkIzOBdy0iFDKjezzS0aE6kEM9NFykaMmiX4432QSuhLGFg6mvKVNviOk6XvlESMUqdYpTzA/w375-h400/buffy.jpg" width="375" /></a></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Your welcome.</span></b></i></span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-83733498502444907502023-04-01T15:57:00.003-07:002023-04-01T16:02:28.974-07:00CorporateSpeak<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhouropNEZhO73T0pjLxsAt9ER2asjP611O2RcCx_rwRiejvbBcKAPwjczC0fxne8olEOgF8LGH-zUyQ2NmHVnQ61CbaXofdu0iPnmksxvzO1NwsBit3bMkIzOBdy0iFDKjezzS0aE6kEM9NFykaMmiX4432QSuhLGFg6mvKVNviOk6XvlESMUqdYpTzA/s1286/buffy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1286" data-original-width="1204" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhouropNEZhO73T0pjLxsAt9ER2asjP611O2RcCx_rwRiejvbBcKAPwjczC0fxne8olEOgF8LGH-zUyQ2NmHVnQ61CbaXofdu0iPnmksxvzO1NwsBit3bMkIzOBdy0iFDKjezzS0aE6kEM9NFykaMmiX4432QSuhLGFg6mvKVNviOk6XvlESMUqdYpTzA/w375-h400/buffy.jpg" width="375" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 13.5pt; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino; font-size: medium;">Let’s think on our feet here. This is the real world and we need a level playing field. We have a track record and can't be distracted with bumps in the road. We need bargaining chips to pad our portfolios so let’s roll up our sleeves and look at the big picture. At the end of the day, everyone at the table is a stakeholder and we can make this a win-win situation if we just get everybody on board. We have to make being a team player a plus because consumers consume, which means there's no silver bullet in the free market of ideas other than being on the same page. So heads up! Meaningful dialogue is our target market.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 13.5pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt 13.5pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9k0HJOeuLsxI7t2euV3MQX-TcghClyz00RG_-rQFfGYNDrVlHNNF-9PV-i2E3q7LoaXRxOxY_VBOH4IxfFCnsQtMmcumOqhz2q7Df5ENaCjG3ybsLABL4AAysEpA5lDceuJX0Whz-2iD/s1600/yell2.png" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="816" data-original-width="936" height="347" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9k0HJOeuLsxI7t2euV3MQX-TcghClyz00RG_-rQFfGYNDrVlHNNF-9PV-i2E3q7LoaXRxOxY_VBOH4IxfFCnsQtMmcumOqhz2q7Df5ENaCjG3ybsLABL4AAysEpA5lDceuJX0Whz-2iD/s400/yell2.png" width="400" /></a></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-59521875403326912042023-03-12T09:47:00.002-07:002023-05-03T11:16:58.307-07:00Environmentalist<p> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4qEvmOZ566Q_vjuytkJGNzau9jdc6fj0ZYFFbw8oNzlO5bppxvWnf4MsUlzynFdUKyoZAJHFLlTKMlFgbNOCjUV3AKA0cLKPnvm-QtuM07lO7fA9E40F2tmRd2YYGjwA7YKvxV8k2SL6/s1600/P9200041.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="289" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS4qEvmOZ566Q_vjuytkJGNzau9jdc6fj0ZYFFbw8oNzlO5bppxvWnf4MsUlzynFdUKyoZAJHFLlTKMlFgbNOCjUV3AKA0cLKPnvm-QtuM07lO7fA9E40F2tmRd2YYGjwA7YKvxV8k2SL6/w400-h289/P9200041.JPG" width="400" /></a></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "calibri"; font-size: medium;">Selway Bitterroot Wilderness, Idaho<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: calibri; font-size: medium; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If I were to define myself with a six-syllable insult to the English language, I would not choose a word invented fifty years ago by some well-meaning activists who didn't consider the fact that people are story-based critters who hate to be be bored with long, silly words. This modern noun: "Environmentalist". It was born to be misused and abused like those other unfortunates hastily-invented by clever wordsmiths to describe other factoids and truisms. "Politically-correct" and "woke" come to mind. Handy handles to beat people who annoy you over the head with, if you're into that sort of thing. You should know by now that if you're not one of those, there are plenty of people who are and there's nothing left of snaky words like "environmentalist" anymore except for the warm and fuzzy Earth Day banner it has become, whipping north and south like a wet noodle, right or left, whichever way the foundation-money winds happen to be blowing that day.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If I were to choose a six syllable phrase to define my concern for the Land, I'd choose the handle that Montana writer, Rick Bass gave himself. I'd call myself a "human-fucking being".</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-43900211904361031152023-02-12T17:56:00.004-08:002023-08-08T09:50:36.910-07:00Olaus Murie and the Brandborgs<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><p style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><br /></span></b></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>I've posted this "piece of book" before on this site, but I'm feeling impulsive tonight, wanting to amplify an insight Stewart and Anna Vee Brandborg shared with me about Olaus Murie that may be of interest to any scholars and students of conservation history still out there who have survived the flames of neoliberal scorched-earth corporate revisionism (Whew! Did I just write that?!).</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>Long before I met the Brandborgs or knew who Olaus was, I had Olaus' "Animal Tracks" imbedded within my favorite, beat-up books. "Life on the Mississippi", "Grapes of Wrath", "Winter Wheat", "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe. Not bad for a Peterson field guide, I figured, but I never figured out how--or questioned why--such an odd accident of a classic within a meat-and-potatoes publishing scheme could have come about until I was privileged to bear witness to the following. Brandy and Anna Vee were enlightening individuals, simply put an as we march like lemmings off the next cliff of horrible news that seem to confine our choices from bad to worse, it's worth remembering that there were better times not to long ago when transformative policy was not only possible, but achieved.</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i>We can do it again. Don't let 'em tell you different.</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>Making Democracy Work</b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Palatino;">Summer, 2012<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Palatino;">AnnaVee's Kitchen</span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Palatino;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Palatino;">Stewart M. Brandborg, the last true activist to lead The Wilderness Society, maybe the oldest activist still fighting the Wild West’s crazy resource wars, maybe the last old-time activist left in America, </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">was sitting in his motorized wheelchair telling me a story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It was the mid 1950s, and his friend, the wildlife biologist, Olaus Murie, had come to Washington D.C. on a Greyhound bus from his cabin in Moose, Wyoming to testify before Congress on behalf of some critical conservation issue or other. Olaus was president of The Wilderness Society, a small organization on the cusp of blooming into its name, and the late fifties was the golden age of massive federal projects that were by design and definition bigger and more durable than the pyramids of ancient Egypt. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Congress, like all dynasties, is a rarified club that attracts vulnerable people who accumulate more power than is healthy for humans to handle, and so become prone to the sufferings of pharaohs. These are diagnosable diseases, a timeless itches that have everlastingly tanked societies grown top-heavy, of would-be gods who worship themselves and the big and durable things they could command to be built in their names and then have those big things named after them. So, although Brandy couldn’t recall the exact nature of his friend’s visit when he picked him up at the bus station that day, it was probably a federal dam that Olaus had come to town to school Congress about. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">A long trip on a bus back then took some wind out of your sails, even if you were young, and especially when you were in your sixties and dealing with health issues, as Olaus was. So when the bus pulled into the station, Olaus, who had logged thousands of miles on foot and dogsled in the mountains of Alaska and Wyoming, took a walk around the block to stretch his legs while waiting for his ride. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Olaus and Brandy had a lot in common. Both were westerners, uncomfortable in cities and physically-acclimated to living outdoors. Both were wildlife biologists with extensive experience “in the field”. Finally, and maybe most importantly, both came from that pioneer strain of Scandinavian stock that still populates the North-Central Minnesota plains, the farmers and merchants who came to those plains after they were seized from the Dakota people during the violent early years of America’s Civil War. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It’s ironic that those lands were taken during the watch of no less a politician than Abraham Lincoln, who would seek to secure the blessings of liberty for immigrants fleeing tyrants in Europe and for people from Africa whom those Europeans enslaved, but couldn’t seek the same courtesies for the original inhabitants of the Land. True, there were sentimentalists among the abolitionists who yearned to save the savage with Christianity, none of which were words used by the Dakota people to describe themselves or their predicament. For his part, Lincoln used words that were also alien to the Dakota, to describe what his administration took from them, words like “frontier” and "wilderness". Given the radical strain of Swedes and Norwegians who ended up springing from that virgin sod turned upside-down, that’s a pretty fair definition of irony. But what could late-19<sup>th</sup>century Scandinavian farmers fleeing decrepit, autocratic monarchies have known about what the Dakota People thought of their dear, beloved Land, or how they described it? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Not much really, and so the farmers and merchants didn’t think about it much, or at least not at first, and that was the lay of the land when Olaus was born in 1889 along the Red River that defines the boundary between North Dakota and Minnesota, to Norwegian immigrants and, four years later, when Brandy’s father, Guy (Big Brandy in much of this narrative) was born in Ottertail County, the next one over from the Muries, to Swedish stock.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">By the mid-1950s, Brandy and Olaus were fellow Wilderness Society board members. Brandy’s day-job was Project Director for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), whose director, George Callison, saw potential in bringing “westerners” into the simmering national conservation stewpot, a pot that included the NWF as well as The Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club, whose cooks were about to serve up the country’s first watershed, environmental victory against, significantly, a federal dam. The monster was to be located in Dinosaur National Monument at a remote stretch of the Green River called Echo Park and, given the success ratio the Bureau of Reclamation had had with the building of dams in the arid West it seemed like just another slam-dunk for the Bureau. Until the conservationists won, and then started looking for their next tasty recipe, one whose ingredients included an overarching national policy to declare all such remaining intact ecosystems off-limits to human exploitation—and especially to dams—so they wouldn’t have to wage draining battles for each and every one of them—and lose most of them because, after all, there’s never been enough money in the world of kindness to match the wealth of pharaohs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Callison began looking for a western conservationist, one with experience “in the field”, who might like to help him fight a dam or two. It so happened that this was exactly what Brandy was doing at that exact moment in conservation history. He was a young wildlife biologist working for Idaho Fish and Game in central Idaho when Callison's friend, Durward Allen, a renowned biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, came upon him skinning a mountain lion and examining its viscera along the Paradise Road in the Upper Selway of Idaho. Allen had just written his pioneering book “Our Wildlife Legacy” that would define wildlife conservation in this country for generations when he and Brandy met, and they would have some stove-warmed conversations later at the Paradise Guard Station just downriver from the skinning. Allen already knew Brandy as a young, fellow-wildlife-biologist who had recently published the first detailed study on Mountain Goats, but in the evening at the guard station Allen also got an earful about his inborn belief in democracy (which he inherited from his father) and about how he was using it to rally the local people in fighting two massive dam projects that had been recently proposed to drown out vast swaths of Central Idaho’s primitive areas. Penny Cliffs was on the Middle Fork of the Clearwater and Bruces Eddy (Dworshak Dam) would plug the Clearwater’s North Fork. In an impressive juggling act, Brandy was fighting both of them at once while simultaneously working for a state agency known more for nepotism than for conservation in those days. But Allen quickly deciphered that Brandy was not only thoroughly-grounded on the land he worked within but had been groomed and primed for the task of prompting anachronistic fish and game departments to evolve into something more than jobs programs. Maybe he’d be interested in tackling some bigger fish. Maybe pharaohs. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Brandy grew up in Grangeville, Idaho, and Hamilton, Montana, small farming and ranching communities perched on opposite edges of the vast, mountainous, heart of Idaho, undeveloped then and now, within which Brandy had hunted and fished as a boy and where Allen met him as an adult. He’d been a Forest Service lookout in his teens, a smoke chaser, timber cruiser and range surveyor. He’d studied mountain goats for several years during and after college. He was at once a wildlife biologist, a conservation activist, and the son of a “social forester” of the Gifford Pinchot mold. Finally, he was a westerner, and so, at some point after Allen got back to D.C., he brought Brandy to Callison’s attention. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It was a novel idea, this seeking out of those who lived in the “field” and who could speak in eloquent counter-arguments to nominally-elected potentates openly pining for their own monogramed Eighth Wonder. Callison set his sights on enticing the young Brandborg family to come to Washington. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">It wasn’t long after the Brandborgs, Stewart, AnnaVee and their baby, Becky, had settled into the rhythms of D.C. that Howard Zahnizer, executive director of The Wilderness Society, noted similar potential in this big, young, talkative westerner. “Zahnie” took Brandy under his wing, drove him around town in his Cadillac Convertible (which impressed the young Brandborg as “the bee’s knees”) and tapped him to serve as a board member of the Wilderness Society, as a protégé and also as a taxi-driver for fellow conservationists needing rides to and from bus stations. So Brandy was not surprised when he showed up at the bus station and found Olaus waiting for him, holding a leaf. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“It’s amazing,” he recalled Olaus saying. “How fine-veined they are, how they blow down the sidewalk in the wind as they do. How perfectly designed for their purpose they are.” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">AnnaVee was listening to this story from the open kitchen. She had been tolerating Brandy’s telling of it until he came to the part about the leaf. Then she quietly sidled up, which was how they split the duties of lifelong activism all those years in D.C. and then in Montana--evenly. In addition to being a wildlife rehabilitator and education advocate, she was Brandy’s fact-checker, Brandy taking up the airspace, AnnaVee underlying his narrative with the critical combination of introspection and accurate memory. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“There are some things that you should know about Olaus, Sigurd Olson</span><span style="color: #954f72; font-family: Palatino;"> </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">and Zahniser” she advised me in her soft voice that was every bit as earnest as Brandy’s louder one. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“Zahnie was somebody that you just immediately loved. You just felt good in his presence. The same was true for Sig. You were glad to be there, and glad to have him with you. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“Olaus was a little different sort of person. To me, sitting with him was like sitting next to Christ.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">#<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-34865969010704344452022-12-09T16:08:00.008-08:002022-12-09T18:47:36.015-08:00Mark David Chapman, You've Done a Terrible Thing<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I wrote this song 42 years ago, Dec. 8th, 1980, in a cabin up Nine Mile back when </i><i>Nine Mile was still out there, a good hour away from Missoula when the weather was good, another continent when it was bad. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I never sang or recorded it. I figured it was such a bummer song that no one at my relatively un-serious gigs (gig-lets, gig-gles) would want to hear it, but I've always liked it. </i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>A friend of mine, Addison Double, wrote one at the same time, too, in Missoula, and I remember coming into town soon after the tragedy and sharing our musical heartaches in that old house on Stoddard Street just below what's now the Toole Street bridge spanning the railroad tracks. Stoddard was a dead-end then, only the White Pine and Sash mill yard across what passed for a street and no Toole St. bridge to hop you across the tracks to the happening part of town.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I remember Burlington Northern making trains in the hump yard just south of the house. There'd be a tremendous chugging of the diesel engine as it pushed the linked mix-matched cars heading to different parts of the country backwards and up the "hump" where, once every car was ready to roll down the the other side of the hump it would be uncoupled (maybe they already were) and you'd hear big steel wheels rolling on big steel rails for a few seconds as the loose car picked up speed and was channeled by the yard crew at the fork in the tracks that sent it to its proper train and then "BOOM!!" when the car hit the train on the make. Like a cannon. You'd sit straight up in bed out of a dead sleep. That was the old North Side. I loved it.</i></span></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">I imagine Addison and I swapping our Lennon tunes on a dark winter night (no streetlights then) to the sound of booming trains, or cannons, whichever your imagination preferred.</span></i></p><p><i><span style="font-size: medium;">After so many years I don't remember all the words to Addison's songs, only the chorus:</span></i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"You can kill the singer</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>But you cannot kill the song</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Unless you can kill everyone</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>Who wants to sing along."</i></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>I'll record my song soon and post it here, but in the meantime, here's to peace.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b>Mark David Chapman, You've Done a Terrible Thing</b></span></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>by Bill LaCroix</i></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;">The news is out, it’s in all the papers</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The killer stalks, and he’ll never get caught.</span></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">If you ever turned your back on a shadow</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">You might get shot, you just might get shot.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I used to listen to his songs when I was a kid</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And I never got caught, and I liked them a lot.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I’d sit in my room and play them for hours</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He helped shape my thought, yeah he helped shape my thought.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chorus 1:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Then Mark David Chapman, he bought him a handgun</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">For two hundred bucks, for two hundred bucks.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He hid in the shadows and on Lennon’s back</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He tried his luck, he tried his luck.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Guitar break</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Chorus 2:</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He was famous as Christ, sometimes he was careless</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But you know that he tried, yeah you know that he tried.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">He wrote some good songs about this world’s unfairness</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">And that’s how he died, y’know that’s how he died.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">As the news of his death was splashed in the papers</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I read the same message I heard in his songs.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">It said look at this thing that’s happenin’ to people</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Something’s wrong, yeah something’s wrong.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">All those lonely people</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Where do they all belong?</span></p><div><br /></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-79669129552285182732022-11-15T11:09:00.007-08:002022-12-10T08:59:08.637-08:00Thought for the Day After Election Day, 2022<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i>OK guys, here's the deal...</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYtrTLuKtTSpu-eFyx_9Gu3wM34CrSd4nk4AyVkKMEjGffm1VXaF-kJlHcuvEGN2xAfhWhMdzxQDhCc2iZvWBcsEXGLq3ql37zsOy2JgbXKBnkNGCZfKe9Za9VTpQNPB114UHqSpMkMBsgDf8m3K7jmfakw_PtO1M6Uu1X5sOYeKugTMIRjwy1QisQAg/s3364/IMG_2606.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3364" data-original-width="2419" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYtrTLuKtTSpu-eFyx_9Gu3wM34CrSd4nk4AyVkKMEjGffm1VXaF-kJlHcuvEGN2xAfhWhMdzxQDhCc2iZvWBcsEXGLq3ql37zsOy2JgbXKBnkNGCZfKe9Za9VTpQNPB114UHqSpMkMBsgDf8m3K7jmfakw_PtO1M6Uu1X5sOYeKugTMIRjwy1QisQAg/w288-h400/IMG_2606.jpg" width="288" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><i> </i><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">We had an election where the Talking Heads and the brains behind them (Ew...ww..!?) tried to convince us that forcing women to be incubators for unwanted pregnancies was not as big a deal as inflation. Turned out they were wrong but still, we should give those (not) poor pundits credit where it's due. They were unspecific about what kind of inflation women should be more worried about than full-metal, fascist speculums with body cams (??!!??). <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;">In other words, there was no "red wave", because people--predominantly women and predominantly young ones--who felt they should have more say about their bodily functions than, say, a state legislature full of local wing nuts in the pockets of billionaire oil sheiks (Hello, Montana!) showed up and spoke American. "Go to hell," they said to the bastards, and here's what I say--in American--to all the guys (and pundits) who put Choice on the back burner this election cycle cuz (just cuz....) Shame on ya. If you couldn't see how your rights are just as tanked as the rights of women over such a basic, biological, moral issue, then you deserve the neutered, technicolor Disney-fantasy-land where you never get laid that you apparently live in (Jeez, did I just write that?)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;">But it wasn't just the punditocracy and some other guys who were wrong about the apparently-mysterious ways of democracy. The Democratic Party was wrong on both their messaging and their strategy. </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">There was an energized base after the Alito leak that I don't think will ever be matched in my lifetime. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">We all knew the axe was gonna fall as soon as Barrett was shoehorned into the supremes, and</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> we all knew </span><span style="font-family: arial;">it was coming years before that. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Why didn't 50 states have an abortion rights proposal--sponsored and promoted AND FUNDED by Democrats--on all the ballots this fall? This is Politics 101 in a functioning democracy: </span><span style="font-family: arial;">motivate your base with actual actions that will improve their lives and then turn them out at election time. It would have been a "two-fer", </span><span style="font-family: arial;">getting people to the polls</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> who knew what fascism looks like even if they couldn't articulate it (Hello, Kansas!) and getting us as a society a long ways towards taking the microphone away from psychopaths. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><span style="font-family: arial;">I happened to be in DC when the Alito leak hit the headlines and spent several days in front of the Supreme Court protesting. There was one, spontaneous big protest right after the leak but then I was shocked when that tapered down to anywhere from 5-50, ebbing and flowing with no apparent program, just pissed off people like myself. We should have been jamming First Street NE in front of the Supreme Court every single day but we weren't. Why? I asked around to those who were showing up regularly and seemed to be in the know for some clues, and they said the national groups were telling people NOT to show up at the Supreme Porch because they didn't want the "optics" of pros and antis shouting at each other on the news. The </span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">na</span><span style="font-family: arial;">tional pro-choice groups </span><span style="font-family: arial;">did organize one huge rally and 10s of thousands, possibly 100,000, showed up. Of course corporate media low-balled it and made sure they sought out the .0001 of the crowd who were wingnuts to give them "equal time". For math geeks, .0001 is 1 in 10,000 which means if 100,000 people showed up to support choice, 10 showed up to support religio-fascism, which was about right. But does the media's baked-in bias mean you don't organize in-the-streets dissent of religio-fascism until nobody can think of anything else? Of course not, and I think this </span><span style="font-family: arial;">is a big failure of electoral strategy for the Dems, as well as the Pro-Choice movement. The only reason I can think of that keeps them dropping our ball is cuz they're competing for the same billionaire dollars as the Repugs. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">They made a conscious decision to take "the quiet route" cuz of their relationship with corporate America and more to the point, corporate media. This kind of attitude is almost as infuriating to me as the trumpsters'. We needed real leadership when our actual bodies are on the line and they were AWOL. J</span><span style="font-family: arial;">ust like the Clinton campaign in 2016, they were listening to the same bad birds who whispered in their</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> ear "Just squeak through without rocking the donor boat." (Hello Rahm Emmanuel!!) and--need I say?--she lost to the most horrible head of state in modern times. Nice job, racehorse whisperers. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I'm furious. Aren't you?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: arial;">So yes, we missed the bullet the other day, thanks to everyone who turned out to vote but don't forget that dodging bullets isn't our only option. IMHO, it would have been a "blue wave" if the Dems hadn't fumbled the ball with Hobbs. Again, there should have been boilerplate pro-choice <i>initiatives,</i> not just candidates, ready to hit the streets in all 50 states the day after the Alito leak and on the ballot Nov. 8, and there were not. As much as many of us hate to admit it, the Dem are beholden to the same billionaire bucks as the Repugs and we should be just as mad at one as the other. Time and time (and time and time) again since Reagan the Dems have chosen to ride on the backs of everyone who shows up and does the legwork for them--voters especially included--despite the obstacles placed in their way by the corporatists, both Republicans and Democrats. At the very least, Dems should acknowledge the not-rich people who are coming out to vote for them--<i>in spite </i>of what they're not doing for them--with action: Climate Sanity, Universal healthcare, an Equal Rights Amendment, expanding the Supremes, getting rid of the Electoral College and filibuster, tanking "Citizens United", but so far they have not. The Dems, thanks to all of us who pay attention and care, are still playing the electoral game that should have more consequences than they think it does when they flub it. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">There has to be pro-choice ballot initiatives (or the equivalent) starting up in every possible state for 2024 and there has to be the hot oil of public opinion being poured down the neck of every Democratic candidate every time they show up to a meeting or rally for the next two years to not only support these efforts but to shake their money bushes to fund them. They have not felt our non-violent/ electoral/ moral wrath at letting us down so often for so long yet. They need to or there will be no electoral game for them--or anyone--to play in the very near future. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSRyPG-ovkEKjY80MogTv74lWGFmRUUo9p1bKdfd6BYH1zwbxGXcgoLT3D6i95_eOWPPefvarRP70eVAP7x-VaT4ts2crX8_pLfg2sdMdqLZkNIHiQfhr8ErjuLJJLkoi1URFyEVTj5i32QsZ8ukOHe1h5uQ8-CJ3YvtI1Msl4-YqB_JrxKat9ZAUjgQ/s4032/IMG_2628.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSRyPG-ovkEKjY80MogTv74lWGFmRUUo9p1bKdfd6BYH1zwbxGXcgoLT3D6i95_eOWPPefvarRP70eVAP7x-VaT4ts2crX8_pLfg2sdMdqLZkNIHiQfhr8ErjuLJJLkoi1URFyEVTj5i32QsZ8ukOHe1h5uQ8-CJ3YvtI1Msl4-YqB_JrxKat9ZAUjgQ/w300-h400/IMG_2628.jpg" width="300" /></span></a></div><span style="font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><i>"If you cut off my reproductive choices, can I cut off yours?"</i></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: large;"> </span></p></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></p></span></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-75910851858056762922022-11-07T10:18:00.009-08:002022-11-22T09:45:48.616-08:00Politically-Correct Forestry<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWV0miIJ3u2stWP1-EmpYvSgG5o9MI-0Y_9qKi5YH7EySCI5k8S6L4bfeWMkbpRYthTKOMxMR8dxgXp1iFTU0bSrUt8reBdK_xJvq0H7ivPDzPo0ginePoL-SQ9Qhwti1XKGxU0ZZWDsqkc6ickePTjP1QH9WvyBQIms78TPgrxZrWwUsk8NajR3_6Tw/s1336/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%201.14.20%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1336" data-original-width="1000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWV0miIJ3u2stWP1-EmpYvSgG5o9MI-0Y_9qKi5YH7EySCI5k8S6L4bfeWMkbpRYthTKOMxMR8dxgXp1iFTU0bSrUt8reBdK_xJvq0H7ivPDzPo0ginePoL-SQ9Qhwti1XKGxU0ZZWDsqkc6ickePTjP1QH9WvyBQIms78TPgrxZrWwUsk8NajR3_6Tw/w300-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%201.14.20%20PM.png" width="300" /></span></a></div><span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Mill Creek Canyon 18 years after the so-called "stand-replacement" fires of 2000</span></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></i></div></span><div><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span><i>Note: I submitted the below Letter-to-the-Editor to the </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>Bitterroot</i></span><i> Star a couple weeks ago in response to an </i><a href="https://bitterrootstar.com/2022/10/forest-service-tries-different-technique-in-mill-creek-fire-suppression-efforts/" style="font-style: italic;">article</a><i> they ran about a forest fire deep in the Selway-Bittterroot Wilderness that the Forest Service over-reacted to. This kind of forest mismanagement is of local significance but also of national interest. The current Bitterroot National Forest (FS) supervisor, Matt Anderson, is trying to implement a run around the National Forest Management Act (NFMA), which was passed in the '70s to require federal land agencies to have meaningful public </i><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>involvement in their projects. The FS has long complained about having to do </i></span></span><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i>Environmental Impact Statements (EIS's) on every logging project so Anderson wants to include the WHOLE Bitterroot Front, 150,000 acres, into a catch-all fuzzy-edged Environmental Assessment (EA), so the Forest can literally just cut-and-paste any massive, industry-friendly disturbance they choose within those boundaries under the rubric: "Trust us but if you don't too bad cuz we have the legal t's crossed and i's dotted so see ya later suckers....hahahaha......!) He attempted this at his old post on the Tongas in Alaska, got his (read: our) agency's ass sued over it, but it looks like it might go through this time cuz of false fire fears and wing nut local officials. I'm putting it here more so I can find it in the future than anything else.</i></span></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Your Oct. 18</span><sup>th</sup><span> <a href="https://bitterrootstar.com/2022/10/forest-service-tries-different-technique-in-mill-creek-fire-suppression-efforts/">article</a> quoted Stevensville District Ranger, Steve Brown, at length about his reasoning for carrying out a logging operation at the mouth of Mill Cr. Canyon under the guise of “fuels reduction” and “forest health” and was amazed at </span><span>how effortlessly he seemed to present himself as a forester just doing his job mitigating fire danger instead of an ideologue violating core wilderness principles in favor of “getting the cut out”. </span></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">I have a long list of disappointments concerning Brown’s statements on what he thinks his job is supposed to be, which I think Mill Cr. landowners, Jim Miller and Dr. Eric Keeling, who were also quoted in the article, covered pretty well, with the proper mixture of intelligence and cynicism appropriate for such bureaucratic shenanigans. Brown’s statements and actions were full of inconsistencies and paradoxes, maybe the biggest one being the fact that the father of one of the landowners he blew off was <a href="https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/2013/04/03/the-history-of-the-keeling-curve/"><span style="color: #0079cd;">Dr. Charles Keeling</span></a>, the internationally-renowned climate scientist who was among the first to notice Climate Change and to develop the first accurate system for measuring carbon in the atmosphere still used today: the Keeling Curve. I have to admit I smiled when I read that and realized that, notwithstanding recent and vigorous efforts to kill it, irony’s not quite dead yet.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">More to point: Brown used a wildfire deep in the wilderness that posed no danger to people’s ill-placed houses in the woods to invoke the worn-out, anti-wilderness boogie-man of “fires roaring out of the canyon” to carry out a logging operation using firefighting funds. I have lived through many intense fire seasons here, I’ve been evacuated, helped with evacuations and actually have firefighting experience. I watched both the Mill and Kootenai Canyon fires from our home on the west side, read the Inciweb reports and the weather reports accessible to anyone with a laptop(!) and I was not only not worried about it “roaring out of the canyon” but was wondering what the h… the Forest Service was doing running helicopters up there in the wilderness at thousands of dollars a trip! Wilderness fires are far cheaper and more beneficial to the environment than non-wilderness fires precisely because they aren’t supposed to be “fought”. Everyone who knows anything about wildland fire knows (whether they publicly admit it or not) that $10,000 bucket drops in steep mountain canyons far from any structures is not only not a serious firefighting effort, it’s a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-wildfires29-2008jul29-story.html"><span style="color: #0079cd;">political air show</span></a>. “A big bank in the sky that opens up and showers money.” To put a finer point on it, wasteful air shows in wilderness areas is the “politically-correct” thing to do in our current, facts-optional times, but are not based on any provable forest management techniques. To sharpen that point to where it actually might sting: a district ranger who authorizes them in a designated wilderness area is demonstrating either his profound ignorance of wilderness laws and ethics or his inexplicable disregard for them. When one considers that tens of thousands of acres within Brown’s district are within designated wilderness that includes much of the most pristine headwaters of our Bitterroot River and is also some of the most prized wildlands in the country for its own sake and that his job is actually to promote wilderness values rather than degrade and ignore them, his statements and behavior are jarring. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Even on Brown’s own terms, an actual “shaded fuel break” as a firefighting technique is supposed to be a couple hundred feet in width, not the size and shape of the logging project shelved by his district in 2014. His assertion that his only choices were to log the mouth of the canyon to protect the public from a fire not threatening them or to wait for the evil fire to advance multiple miles in wet weather and then punch an ugly dozer line in and “kill all the trees” in a backfire is just plain fearmongering, and clumsy fearmongering at that. His absolute silence about Climate Change being the real driver in today’s fire behavior speaks volumes about his perspective. Logging mature trees to “save the forest” while ignoring the fact that those are the trees that actually have the best chance of survival after a fire (and did survive above Bass Creek campground notwithstanding his inexplicable statement to the contrary!) and that logging them for the sole and obvious purpose of feeding short-term profits to mills while eliminating what’s left of those real heroes of carbon-storage has been standard fare for foresters since the ‘90s. But to wink and nod at wilderness detractors and “golden-days” logging proponents by claiming he’s merely trying to take the forests back to the way native people used to manage it is just plain insulting to those of us who’ve felt the brunt of such winks and nods. </span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the past I have often told folks who complain about the Forest Service “letting fires roar out of the canyon” that they have nothing to complain about. Given the complexities these bigger and bigger conflagrations present to firefighters due to defending homes in the foothills built on the assumption that tax-funded fire suppression will be provided when politicians panic, along the Forest Service’s own reputation for muddle-headed bureaucracy, on-the-ground firefighters do an amazing job at protecting the public’s life and property year to year. If district rangers like Brown would pay more attention to science than politics and leave the fire-resistant, carbon-sequestering mature trees alone (the very ones the mills want) rather than create next decade’s weed patches and scraggle-forests by using fire as an excuse to “get the cut out”, they could extend their amazing job by decades. It’s too bad that “politically-correct forestry” like Brown’s undermines public confidence, and adds to their confusion.</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: large;">Finally, I understand that some of my language in this LTE is charged, but I have a long, informed connection with these mountains and canyons and this latest violation of trust comes on the heels of BNF’s proposed Bitterroot Front Project which could give the BNF the green light to turn our Bitterroot faces right up to their peaks into a hundred thousand acre “shaded fuel break”. Again, by his own terms, a “shaded fuels break” by definition has to be “retreated” every 10 years in order to be “effective”. Will Brown promise us any such multi-decades treatment even on this relatively-tiny logging project of his? Of course not, and so I can’t help but look at this Mill Cr. chop-job as a sort of pilot program for the whole forest and feel well within bounds to opine: Really, who does he think he’s kidding?</span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">
</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-34404990227852633032022-11-07T08:22:00.004-08:002022-12-05T17:07:13.064-08:00Thought for the Day<p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;">Ok readers...</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HYoPhOriIBUzRRcRTVBgCBdgeo0bKH0cJ3KqxG0iWYmy8MnL0hfWZ8b7K96aUP8usFCcUvIzxK1uo957sn_hRVVtGrOKUMbqSD0_28XEjM3BO_0QSVzS-K0deV2vp_dlWjHeof4WoU8qYvpcJCGYe5oYCDLy--kS3QrGF3uzx4IbX9gMH47wyw2K7g/s794/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.13.38%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="676" data-original-width="794" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3HYoPhOriIBUzRRcRTVBgCBdgeo0bKH0cJ3KqxG0iWYmy8MnL0hfWZ8b7K96aUP8usFCcUvIzxK1uo957sn_hRVVtGrOKUMbqSD0_28XEjM3BO_0QSVzS-K0deV2vp_dlWjHeof4WoU8qYvpcJCGYe5oYCDLy--kS3QrGF3uzx4IbX9gMH47wyw2K7g/w400-h339/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.13.38%20AM.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">...C'mon. Quit the BS. You know who you are. ...</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Here's our thought for the day before the election where fascism is on the ballot and all the Talking Heads, who are getting paid more money per minute than you ever dreamed of getting for your house or first-born son, are predicting a win for fascism: </span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: New Rocker; font-size: large;"><b>If you can't laugh at your predicament, your predicament is too predictable.</b></span></p><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnL2ncXFPQl1zFnu8f0HPJoPMRAQvobY4hGQT57JbmmNMu4tGlwkOtD21PHBacSq9kuFmPU3q1A9-aLzC9OqBe98d7T1l9MaCrWIZKa7ajUdwjCg-YX2bcK4A0xdowGLF-0J65wFfBANgZUs57W4Ux2adC-nukSJi3_g8B80VXjwSIikFnwF20itLag/s962/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.14.41%20AM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="962" data-original-width="908" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnL2ncXFPQl1zFnu8f0HPJoPMRAQvobY4hGQT57JbmmNMu4tGlwkOtD21PHBacSq9kuFmPU3q1A9-aLzC9OqBe98d7T1l9MaCrWIZKa7ajUdwjCg-YX2bcK4A0xdowGLF-0J65wFfBANgZUs57W4Ux2adC-nukSJi3_g8B80VXjwSIikFnwF20itLag/w378-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-11-07%20at%2011.14.41%20AM.png" width="378" /></a></b></span></div><span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Your welcome.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-22520864866508283892022-07-17T17:34:00.010-07:002022-11-13T09:44:15.278-08:00Home Sweet Home<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha20wLuU8-eGrYjzBg_ThJ8Dod6sFyOAU-ePMSrx_UEIppnIm5Kz2CuGPwYPF7HKquX4riar-Rqr_TkEgnFO2DKMo0DFr2saURhbOBsUmNKlkK7vJVCRM1u6DJ3RDlEr505gFBXMaiyrUv7oPL5hwJZQfaaQjkUfITrxQy_yqMoDNAlQr79fleNno40w/s995/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-17%20at%206.27.56%20PM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><img border="0" data-original-height="995" data-original-width="661" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha20wLuU8-eGrYjzBg_ThJ8Dod6sFyOAU-ePMSrx_UEIppnIm5Kz2CuGPwYPF7HKquX4riar-Rqr_TkEgnFO2DKMo0DFr2saURhbOBsUmNKlkK7vJVCRM1u6DJ3RDlEr505gFBXMaiyrUv7oPL5hwJZQfaaQjkUfITrxQy_yqMoDNAlQr79fleNno40w/w266-h400/Screen%20Shot%202022-07-17%20at%206.27.56%20PM.jpg" width="266" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I've been walking around these days looking for birds. Where I live is up against the Bitterroot Mountains, surrounded by old cow pastures with rotting tree stumps shot through them, testimony to a time, not long ago, when this spot where our home now sits was forest. Still, it's a relatively-intact ecosystem compared to many places in the country, and there used to be--and should still be--a lot of birds. But for the last few years I've been seeing less and less of the normal residents: chickadees, warblers, bluebirds, Western Meadowlarks. Especially the Meadowlarks. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The lack of our common bug-eaters is scary enough if you're cursed with paying attention. Take a long-haul car trip in late-spring or early summer, for instance, and be amazed at how your windshield doesn't fill up with goobered insects between each fill-up anymore. This phenomenon is as recent as it is in-your-face. It's therefore no stretch to merely observe that there's something seriously wrong with the insect population you've just driven through, which is the definition of scary-enough. But the lack of ground-feeding birds like the Western Meadowlarks in areas where they used to be common but that are now infested with non-native California Quail should add the spice of anger to your fear. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">These quail are the result of sportsmen and women buying chicks and eggs from suppliers all over the country (Iowa, for example) for release into ecosystems that didn't previously have them for the sole purpose of shooting them, for pleasure. Each pair has two, sometimes three huge broods a year which, being birds, grow into adults very fast and become a moving carpet of eco-pox on the land, devouring whatever ground food remains in our compromised landscape that would normally help keep the native bird populations stable. Quail and Meadowlark habitat overlap. Is paying attention the specialized domain of "experts" then? I'm certainly no expert, so you tell me. I'm just sayin' what I see. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">I'm sure there are studies by now, although I won't look for or site them here. This paucity of (mostly) winged creatures is a personal observation on top of decades of personal observations in my Northern Rockies home, and is, more to the point, a deep and personal pain. How can I rejoice in the paradise within which I live when I know how very sick She is, possibly dying, because of our collective selfishness, neglect and, maybe most deadly of all, our inattention.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Let those who either know better or are addicted to putting a positive spin on catastrophes prove me wrong. I'd be glad if they would, because I dearly don't want to be right any more than I want to put in the work of being an "expert". I only want to write these lines and share what I think, which is this: too many of us who have been paying attention long enough to feel uncomforted by platitudes-with-no-visible-means-of-support are not angry enough about what we see unfolding in our beloved Land. I further think that too many of us are over-worrying the factoids and truisms which seem to be pedaled so cheaply, bought so blithely and bind our minds so thoroughly that no solution except more of the same seems possible. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Remember bugs on your windshield? Meadowlarks singing from every other fencepost?</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Here's an expert question then. What have we done to our beloved home? </span></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-15487349864680406302022-05-15T08:27:00.007-07:002022-05-15T13:20:47.345-07:00When "Thousands" are Millions<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5w_R0GVp7QUfjsWt7x0lRWQE5lSKGpnFl_DIHIbKh1ALPP6i7Mq0HRaNITN9xeFaGcf1UcRIAvt0paAcsZ-yv5q0AdlMr3zxkOgdn3DnRD_kghGfB-GyF3f4ms7QGtGwsaUaodw7Kpmtjhem7h1XbAGCrGxyWB3EIHJxzNfK_FUTaK8PnU6-5SCqREg/s4032/p5.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5w_R0GVp7QUfjsWt7x0lRWQE5lSKGpnFl_DIHIbKh1ALPP6i7Mq0HRaNITN9xeFaGcf1UcRIAvt0paAcsZ-yv5q0AdlMr3zxkOgdn3DnRD_kghGfB-GyF3f4ms7QGtGwsaUaodw7Kpmtjhem7h1XbAGCrGxyWB3EIHJxzNfK_FUTaK8PnU6-5SCqREg/w400-h300/p5.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Two Pro-Choice extremists violating 18 US Code. 1507 in front of the Supreme Court “exhibiting unadulterated rage while no longer recognizing any limits of decency or civility in our political discourse.” (according to <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3483105-protesting-at-justices-homes-should-be-a-subject-of-condemnation-not-criminal-charges/?fbclid=IwAR0O8LoSj0uU_Byo-wxWUVduVrWE7yQ3nKmh9HmazoPiXFB4NxU93evLbBI">The Hill</a>)</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">It should be recognized as common scheme by now that:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->A.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The cops never shoot <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/15/buffalo-shooting-supermarket-new-york-joe-biden">mass murderers</a> if they’re white. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="line-height: 200%; margin-left: 0.75in; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]-->B.<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span><!--[endif]-->The media always undercounts demonstrations held by anyone left of Atilla the trump.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">This has always been hard for me to understand. After all, they never seem satisfied to leave it to your imagination and report on the mere “thousands” attending a Super Bowl or a Rolling Stones concert in New York City. We know why, but it’s frustrating all the same. So this morning, after I and my daughter attended the <b>HUGE </b>pro-choice rally in D.C. yesterday, I did my due diligence and perused the “news”, looking for hard numbers, or at least fair estimates for how many people gave up their Sundays to break the law (according to <i><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3483105-protesting-at-justices-homes-should-be-a-subject-of-condemnation-not-criminal-charges/?fbclid=IwAR0O8LoSj0uU_Byo-wxWUVduVrWE7yQ3nKmh9HmazoPiXFB4NxU93evLbBI">The Hill</a></i>) to express their outrage at five Supremes trying to take us back to the 17<sup>th</sup>Century. No such luck.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">Fortunately for my readers (you know who you are), I developed the habit of estimating crowds when I was perpetrating them for the Montana Human Rights Alliance back in the days before my wandering the Earth seeking adequate education services for my deaf daughter whom our inestimable Montana School Superintendent, Elzie Arntzen, may or may not describe as a “vegetable” not deserving of such services, as some of her honorable Republican colleagues have done in the past. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">It’s pretty easy and here’s how I figured it this time. First, here’s a pic of the march from Washington Monument, where the rally was held, and the Supreme Porch, where the march was aimed at, and concluded:<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjElbamddUkgxmuMqzHAD6UBPDVWPRz6grDFOXkFiuR9VTXqVEFMQv6EH_1xgpk2W1Q2XiUjFTyIqhLUSdGvZ0ocGkYgRrPMwE35hbP_eOBSpH1wOE-ZSVFCcEdKPP_K56pxD98LduD3ClPM7EB9E6ShGG5RBu5uvq4Ng5KY-OVJ9gctuP6IWplXtNww/s2706/p1.jpg" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2706" data-original-width="2613" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjElbamddUkgxmuMqzHAD6UBPDVWPRz6grDFOXkFiuR9VTXqVEFMQv6EH_1xgpk2W1Q2XiUjFTyIqhLUSdGvZ0ocGkYgRrPMwE35hbP_eOBSpH1wOE-ZSVFCcEdKPP_K56pxD98LduD3ClPM7EB9E6ShGG5RBu5uvq4Ng5KY-OVJ9gctuP6IWplXtNww/w618-h640/p1.jpg" width="618" /></a></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">The cops had us channeled down Constitution Ave, so I had a finite area from which to make a micro-estimate of (thank you, cops). Constitution Ave is 8 lanes huge, and it was packed all the way across for the mile (plus or minus) between the presidential phallus and Porch (we were somewhere in the middle here). 8 lanes times 8 ft is 64 feet and cars are 2 passengers-width apiece (plus the extra space for the rest of the car). Suffice to say that a very fair low-ball figure for a Constitution Ave packed like it was yesterday would easily hold 100 “pro-choice extremists expressing unadulterated rage” (<i><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3483105-protesting-at-justices-homes-should-be-a-subject-of-condemnation-not-criminal-charges/?fbclid=IwAR0O8LoSj0uU_Byo-wxWUVduVrWE7yQ3nKmh9HmazoPiXFB4NxU93evLbBI">The Hill</a></i>) per every 10 feet. Now, simply multiply that by 500 (5000 ft divided by 10 ft) and there you have it. 50,000, The magic number you’ll never see on the nightly news. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">Okay, okay. I feel your pain. "I get it", as the more fashionable marketing houses are fond of putting in "cool peoples" mouths these days. Let's do give <i><a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3483105-protesting-at-justices-homes-should-be-a-subject-of-condemnation-not-criminal-charges/?fbclid=IwAR0O8LoSj0uU_Byo-wxWUVduVrWE7yQ3nKmh9HmazoPiXFB4NxU93evLbBI">The Hill</a></i> even more than its due and admit that we “pro-choice extremists expressing unadulterated rage” are so immature as to be prone to exaggerate. So let's do cut that already-conservative figure in half...and there we have it again. 25,000 this time. A number no reasonable human being sitting on that fictitious-but-certainly-uncomfortable-ass-poking fence can argue with. That’s still (conservatively) 10 times more than the “thousands” that most people would assume attended these rallies if they merely perused Corporate Media and then believed them. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">Now let's multiply by 10 any lowball estimate you may or may not have seen about how many citizens of this country are truly outraged and ready to show it that Alito (or let’s be honest, Barrett, cuz, you know, govt. funded, top-tier healthcare) can’t have the pleasure of experiencing a terminal ectopic pregnancy.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">And furthermore, as much as I generally assign The Hill to the toilet bowl of corporate propaganda, they do have journalists working for them, who occasionally let slip something useful like the following:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><i>"Demands that Garland arrest all of the protesters (at justices' homes) is a case of the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction. Such prosecutions could create a massive chilling effect on free speech, even if any convictions are unlikely to be upheld. After all, protests are common at the court itself, which is covered under the same federal provision; if it is unlawful to seek to influence a pending decision through picketing “near a U.S. court,” such protests could be viewed as crimes under this interpretation."</i><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">Are we there yet? Can we move on from having any respect for these pearl-clutching A..holes and focus on saving our democracy"?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-size: medium; line-height: 32px;">Here's my story and I'm sticking to it. We are the vast, undercounted, over-pissed-off majority. Don't forget it. Don't back down.</p></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg--mpJrgUljWh8y54E2wekvRZarRxHJQCh--2G_bUX62KILMSqinLd0428SH4c_XMQoAIPXttdM9r6gxpenDGYe9HuNp0Ug4a1Fa3eQXP3sr53jJeuxT2VQ0yizi8aK9IAGhRrbE_6rcV6Ej55gJSy9yFplTbNaruia3W-ISHXRghRFKucVL-6UykkDQ/s3085/p4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3085" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg--mpJrgUljWh8y54E2wekvRZarRxHJQCh--2G_bUX62KILMSqinLd0428SH4c_XMQoAIPXttdM9r6gxpenDGYe9HuNp0Ug4a1Fa3eQXP3sr53jJeuxT2VQ0yizi8aK9IAGhRrbE_6rcV6Ej55gJSy9yFplTbNaruia3W-ISHXRghRFKucVL-6UykkDQ/w393-h400/p4.jpg" width="393" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAUcikigPaUXc3dabyYFCk_raBUtCdMO1H6xgDZMV8ZVytCnC9feIv6D-tmou0DGUJnd6-oCc-JQl7rpBcdR-qyxaMDZpo-m4kYJFHT5GjkIDQVFLTcAzyjPSGn1oqrROCls2wXpoBhjDBK7xXt84YvcSIPZ8Q4ndhY-_pC9fMZ5L7NqeDlP9tdrQwA/s4032/p2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyAUcikigPaUXc3dabyYFCk_raBUtCdMO1H6xgDZMV8ZVytCnC9feIv6D-tmou0DGUJnd6-oCc-JQl7rpBcdR-qyxaMDZpo-m4kYJFHT5GjkIDQVFLTcAzyjPSGn1oqrROCls2wXpoBhjDBK7xXt84YvcSIPZ8Q4ndhY-_pC9fMZ5L7NqeDlP9tdrQwA/w300-h400/p2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><br /> <p></p><style class="WebKit-mso-list-quirks-style">
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</style>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-26944874396269816002022-05-04T12:30:00.004-07:002022-05-05T11:55:42.480-07:00The Winner!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggDIBb5q-lVeOmKhK7o6p2QQW2AjdkntXvjW5sFDxTbzcPZvUPF2YTf4-uGjuXK1ax4W2PbEkN5sbhSjqm0UNVyIPf6sPtDoH_5-1SG8dJ91iU8giG4OnqjxRRar7v9wuyuYsFobvPKztQmdvfRpaW2VvhIsCFs_NUX7ridsaRO2ZMNEGRrHdpon9KdA/s4032/IMG_2626.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggDIBb5q-lVeOmKhK7o6p2QQW2AjdkntXvjW5sFDxTbzcPZvUPF2YTf4-uGjuXK1ax4W2PbEkN5sbhSjqm0UNVyIPf6sPtDoH_5-1SG8dJ91iU8giG4OnqjxRRar7v9wuyuYsFobvPKztQmdvfRpaW2VvhIsCFs_NUX7ridsaRO2ZMNEGRrHdpon9KdA/w480-h640/IMG_2626.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Here is the winner for <b><u>Best Sign</u></b> at today’s (May 4<sup>th</sup>) Pro-Choice demonstration in front of the “majestic” Supreme Court steps and pillars. Behind the sign is a self-assured young woman enjoying her right to A: demonstrate her knowledge of human anatomy and B: have an opinion about it. Beside her is a Wise Man (Wise Guy in the vernacular) who may or may not understand the connection between anatomy and opinion and may or may not have a problem with the way our democracy is getting flushed down the toilet bowl draining into the upside-down swamp called ‘Susan Collins In Wonderland’ (where Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dumb go to Congress and float across the mythical aisle in a pea-green boat with Tweedle-Dumber) but knows enough to bite his tongue when his opinion doesn’t match his anatomy, which is what he’s pictured doing here.<o:p></o:p></p><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">When Wise Guy showed up on the steps of the Supremes this morning, there were about half a dozen women and a couple guys holding signs. An hour or so later there was a couple dozen and shortly after that there was four, five, six dozen chanting Pro-Choicers and lots of support from the onlookers. This compared to about three flat-earthers who—wait for it—were dutifully interviewed for “balance” by the media grips and gabbers who showed up. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Never mind them. Know this, that you are in the supermajority of Americans who not only do not want the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade but want Tweedle-Congress (and Joe Biden) to get off their asses and codify reproductive rights into law. Also know that this is the way you do it. Show up and build your voice, over and over, and over and over until the bastards can't ignore you (us) anymore.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Finally, for all you guys out there who aren’t sure about how this affects you, consider biting your tongue before you say anything really, really stupid to these totally-pissed off women.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">In other words, if you can’t figure out how this pending decision is going to flush us all down the toilet bowl of wing nut libertarianism where your freedom isn't loved by those educationally-challenged bigots who love their own but want to legislate yours out of existence (google: 'fascists'), just stick to the fallback position of any sensible Wise Guy on this one:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b>No Uterus-No Opinion</b></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kRbLu5eC3MCgyvHps2HUC7ApCmKm_IMD0bAAPxUGBkCxhdyc2N9k_p3Q_uYBeIR38NPRbbkUMaTd3gl4e2kBTwyWtt_eya5WeXoplWhhnViejWSNC6XnApuBNWSrstxtbXAUfKZX55takev_Q6OhDYnAeVYdM_zA7S9ZtB-aKv7Q6GG5jXA8IOFJ-Q/s4032/IMG_2606.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1kRbLu5eC3MCgyvHps2HUC7ApCmKm_IMD0bAAPxUGBkCxhdyc2N9k_p3Q_uYBeIR38NPRbbkUMaTd3gl4e2kBTwyWtt_eya5WeXoplWhhnViejWSNC6XnApuBNWSrstxtbXAUfKZX55takev_Q6OhDYnAeVYdM_zA7S9ZtB-aKv7Q6GG5jXA8IOFJ-Q/w480-h640/IMG_2606.jpg" width="480" /></a></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i>7 P.M. update: When I went back down to the Supreme Porch around 4:30 there were a solid 40-50 Pro-Choicers AND NO FLAT-EARTHERS IN SIGHT. When I left about 15 minutes ago (becuz I had to pee) there was a joyful, young, loud 300+ AND ONLY ONE ANTI-CHOICER WHO HURRIED THRU WITH AN INSCRUTABLE SIGN which was the only way to tell whether or not she had a date with the edge of the world which I could have told her was just south of Conner, Montana if she’d just stuck around. <o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i> </i></p><i><span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;">Tomorrow promises more. I’m planning to be there.</span></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><b><br /></b><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-74971690701060258762022-04-22T07:06:00.010-07:002022-07-19T20:47:57.951-07:00On Boomers, Founding Fathers and Cultural Relativism<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqST3kxksjOTRpmvHTuMnntD4eta1iT5T3svrZdB0mDXVSgt5zxBqcoLX4Fn9wUMClgEi22NNskpV0MbvI-_Y-5YhkrLBKT1fJHtG4vLW39aS2cfFMrHnUYCCophcxvP-AYMD9lZsV5zmjJO3QNpoAQKfxBwmk8sSEjlBekvSSexQUBniRFtZT0QCaKQ/s2954/g8.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2954" data-original-width="2708" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqST3kxksjOTRpmvHTuMnntD4eta1iT5T3svrZdB0mDXVSgt5zxBqcoLX4Fn9wUMClgEi22NNskpV0MbvI-_Y-5YhkrLBKT1fJHtG4vLW39aS2cfFMrHnUYCCophcxvP-AYMD9lZsV5zmjJO3QNpoAQKfxBwmk8sSEjlBekvSSexQUBniRFtZT0QCaKQ/w366-h400/g8.jpg" width="366" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Slippery Slope</b></span></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Okay…remember money? If you’re a ‘boomer’ you do. If you’re not, you still suffer from embarrassing cultural delusions whether you want to admit it or not—which is what we 'boomers' did and is where you came from, so get over it!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Either way, grab your wallet and pull out a dollar bill. Lay it on the counter and take a good look at that sly guy glancing back at you. Is that not the condescending smirk of America's mythical version of Zeus? The all-knowing, paternal metaphor for financial security? The chiseled face of money, the only path forward for what has been considered possible on this continent since that "filthy little atheist", <a href="https://thomaspaine.org/aboutpaine/the-van-der-weyde-t-roosevelt-letters.html">Thomas Paine</a> (whose face isn't on anybody's money), outlined the democratic underpinnings of the American Revolution?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">We live in an age when high-quality pictures and videos are readily available at the snap of an iPhone, and, as is typical with our species, we haven't been very thoughtful about it. In fact I think this ever-devolving fascination of ours with the visual image has all but killed off whatever remnants of organic perspective on the natural world we managed to drag into the 21st Century after 50 years of the mass-hypnosis experiment conducted by television producers whose credentials on mental health or ethical-hypnosis techniques were always known to be sketchy at best.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">There comes a time, though, in most cultures at least, when its hubris outweighs its paradigms, and it needs to examine and re-arrange itself in order to survive. In the old days, before climate chaos, it was fine if this didn't happen. The composting culture just went extinct and a new one took its place. But this time the slow-motion arc of human evolution isn't an option anymore because...well...it's slow, and we've finally proved ourselves too stupid to manage our own destruction with enough aplomb to allow another culture to rise from our ashes. These are the times of not only climate chaos (which IMO includes the Covid debacle) but of nuclear-tipped oligarchs either warring with each other or propping each other up over resources, which is just another way of saying "money", and I think we've finally arrived. This is the point in our evolution as a species when no cultural icon is too trivial to snark at. Fair warning, but it beats feeling stupid. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">So, keeping these admittedly-arbitrary guardrails<span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"> in mind, </span><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;">check this out:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnH1BO71f3NM5WU8Zxg16maDuBGQ1F9gcdc_Wn47NoS424wjl47AoRGf1OsRJaRSf92G5BPqJfPEKp00JUj8gEXySR_VvgjzphXw5i2aBWtrXX1BYvrr4At-txSgkSP6p2IWn-JOAmj6ANPwAWQGD-vo7qTqHITl4IrjvTTb7cfEzKBQISIhy71bhhkw/s4032/g4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnH1BO71f3NM5WU8Zxg16maDuBGQ1F9gcdc_Wn47NoS424wjl47AoRGf1OsRJaRSf92G5BPqJfPEKp00JUj8gEXySR_VvgjzphXw5i2aBWtrXX1BYvrr4At-txSgkSP6p2IWn-JOAmj6ANPwAWQGD-vo7qTqHITl4IrjvTTb7cfEzKBQISIhy71bhhkw/w300-h400/g4.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16px; text-align: justify;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">This was the stoic fountain from which all those billions (and billions) of dollar bills sprang. It's Gilbert Stuart's 1796 portrait that Martha, who liked a previous portrait Stuart did of George, commissioned him to do for her so she could have one of her own. Stuart, however, didn't want to give up what became his best prototype (and moneymaker) to the First Lady so he never finished it, and kept it around to crank out future founding images with. Follow this story to its logical end and it's hard not to conclude that Stuart took Martha's money (which didn't include faces of George yet but whose Custis "dowry" included over 100 slaves who, along with their descendants, were never freed until the Emancipation Proclamation) but failed to deliver, placing him at a watershed moment in our country's history of canonizing cheats who can afford to get away with cheating, but never mind. No matter his intentions, his mythic image endures. Three years previous, though, in 1793, portrait artist Edward Savage had George looking like this:</span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHgFdCX3X0j8J_cdIK3oi8Dw-uA3-mdJvhMjqNqRY5QPDTDW14LWPyo6_7F9wCBUo0V_co5ezFIDbGt7X-aw7A0Pi2JI3Hoy8QZmScTdPk1GiR4uSsNqmAFMYL0IeGqyRDw1iIBGv5WP8GJ81WTHOUTYa--h-WlvJTM6YmkfR0otv5f1knlrN9xF5g9Q/s4032/g1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHgFdCX3X0j8J_cdIK3oi8Dw-uA3-mdJvhMjqNqRY5QPDTDW14LWPyo6_7F9wCBUo0V_co5ezFIDbGt7X-aw7A0Pi2JI3Hoy8QZmScTdPk1GiR4uSsNqmAFMYL0IeGqyRDw1iIBGv5WP8GJ81WTHOUTYa--h-WlvJTM6YmkfR0otv5f1knlrN9xF5g9Q/w300-h400/g1.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 26.666664123535156px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Two years goes by, and in 1795 another American portraitist, Rembrandt Peale, gives us this one:</span></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OxBmMc23P0m658uTb8eClhcCCuQetFX97FBQ_GXOZIhw_zpOsIIH13LOGUY0zlnylX32PS4OyrrwiOViIn5SETE__6Z13S63VgUIsRHxll7wr-SdGOkSzloYHHyLSXFBOLtP7UPPYbvQdjRDTH3AlafDgVPWED03PPcwt4It9ZNR9lmhdvXweIurrw/s4032/g2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-OxBmMc23P0m658uTb8eClhcCCuQetFX97FBQ_GXOZIhw_zpOsIIH13LOGUY0zlnylX32PS4OyrrwiOViIn5SETE__6Z13S63VgUIsRHxll7wr-SdGOkSzloYHHyLSXFBOLtP7UPPYbvQdjRDTH3AlafDgVPWED03PPcwt4It9ZNR9lmhdvXweIurrw/w300-h400/g2.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif">And then, later that same year, Rembrandt's father, Charles Watson Peale, did this one:</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisjQzGD6dOZBzXHx4qKp10hOey7R3FnNGAnIMy7qGn_c0aMoFydf6aolpkDikogvrRpgxH6AMowgyf2pzlBmJorbNqHAkvv4AQgCn7-y1m4J6kBWhCGEiURS9MKDc59GaC4c32dO3YkSaocaVWjYNUpKeFNFN2zrt7qCMzgDoqm_Q9LRQYYvzUYp4xWw/s4032/g3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisjQzGD6dOZBzXHx4qKp10hOey7R3FnNGAnIMy7qGn_c0aMoFydf6aolpkDikogvrRpgxH6AMowgyf2pzlBmJorbNqHAkvv4AQgCn7-y1m4J6kBWhCGEiURS9MKDc59GaC4c32dO3YkSaocaVWjYNUpKeFNFN2zrt7qCMzgDoqm_Q9LRQYYvzUYp4xWw/w300-h400/g3.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">Seeing a pattern yet? If you're noticing that George's image was undergoing the same transformation our movie stars' images do today, of getting younger as they became more iconic, then you're seeing what I did when I accidentally stumbled on these portraits while walking through the American Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">I've been in D.C. since the beginning of the 2021-22 school year (more or less) accompanying my daughter who is going to high school on the campus of the first--and still foremost--deaf university in the world. Ironically, Gallaudet University was chartered by another American icon, Abraham Lincoln, who, coincidentally, did not get younger as his star rose. Maybe that's because Lincoln, like<span face="Calibri, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><a href="http://www.asjournal.org/60-2016/lincoln-paine-american-freethought-tradition/" style="font-size: 12pt;">Tom Paine</a> who also didn't get any iconic makeovers, actually believed in democracy, or at least his era's version of it, and acted accordingly, unlike a lot of old-time slaveholders and modern (mostly Republican) Montana politicians. In other words, I've been in D.C. most of the year instead of my beloved Montana because our once-healthy politics has been captured, hogtied and tortured by our inimical social warriors, like Montana's current Superintendent of Public Schools, <a href="https://montanafreepress.org/2021/12/07/montana-superintendents-express-no-confidence-arntzen/" target="_blank">Elsie Arntzen</a>, who can't possibly give special needs kids what they need to have a decent adolescent experience because they believe Jesus was white. Really. No kiddin'.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnH1BO71f3NM5WU8Zxg16maDuBGQ1F9gcdc_Wn47NoS424wjl47AoRGf1OsRJaRSf92G5BPqJfPEKp00JUj8gEXySR_VvgjzphXw5i2aBWtrXX1BYvrr4At-txSgkSP6p2IWn-JOAmj6ANPwAWQGD-vo7qTqHITl4IrjvTTb7cfEzKBQISIhy71bhhkw/s4032/g4.jpg" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnH1BO71f3NM5WU8Zxg16maDuBGQ1F9gcdc_Wn47NoS424wjl47AoRGf1OsRJaRSf92G5BPqJfPEKp00JUj8gEXySR_VvgjzphXw5i2aBWtrXX1BYvrr4At-txSgkSP6p2IWn-JOAmj6ANPwAWQGD-vo7qTqHITl4IrjvTTb7cfEzKBQISIhy71bhhkw/w300-h400/g4.jpg" width="300" /></a></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">So again, full disclosure. I'm a "boomer", as is Elzie Arntzen which, if that ridiculous insult to the future of Social Security means anything at all, means that I was:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">A. Sitting at the Round Table in the school library when my 5th Grade teacher came into the room crying, informing us that President Kennedy had been shot and that school was out for the rest of the day and:</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">B. I was raised to believe that George Washington had false teeth made of wood and that his stern tight lips were necessary to keep them from falling out, which all of these portraits, I believe, faithfully represent. He could not tell a lie because he had to hold his teeth in. Ask any 5th grade teacher (which Elzie was in her previous life), or 18th Century portrait artist.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">None of this is not to disparage false teeth, wood or 5</span><sup>th </sup><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Grade school teachers, God forbid. All have their issues and uses. But there comes a time, maybe in these times of oligarchs and their Final Wars of Choice over money, to point out this tiny yet obvious flaw in our linear thinking that forever leads us into such debacles. Ready?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">The face of money is as absolute at myths, oligarchs and 5th Grade school teachers.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="text-indent: 0px;">You’re welcome, and remember, you heard it here first.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 26.666664123535156px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnmu-4LWxnUhzJR2QFI-Vjs7HcR4-2-cj1RDEXtRNerNmsfjnv-tAKcUGnF9UQ9xepwQmg94PQQFiLuPIdO7TSfsOmtydemrDZ0ay3ZOA6S0JU-sfBrMVrxxaBPGOVky2sE7VMXpXpZPPMmdlCjHUN9jJ--Bc2eUhfx1NuxDNBhmzpU8P-2EgI1MnKw/s4032/g5.jpg" style="font-family: -webkit-standard; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSnmu-4LWxnUhzJR2QFI-Vjs7HcR4-2-cj1RDEXtRNerNmsfjnv-tAKcUGnF9UQ9xepwQmg94PQQFiLuPIdO7TSfsOmtydemrDZ0ay3ZOA6S0JU-sfBrMVrxxaBPGOVky2sE7VMXpXpZPPMmdlCjHUN9jJ--Bc2eUhfx1NuxDNBhmzpU8P-2EgI1MnKw/w300-h400/g5.jpg" width="300" /></a></span></p><p align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 26.666664123535156px; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 32px;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div><br /> <p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-39606508086338082942022-04-20T13:39:00.007-07:002022-04-21T06:57:06.065-07:00Democracy (Socialism) vs Capitalism (Fascism): Our Choice<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9qHOfr58BDkZVfcAuB05_O3loeR3jDh1AXPHdEXOPmgAT1kuNGBoN-_4R5gWi3NhfS2YA3VXPnT_m35nleCDBMkcMWA10guTHmtbH9chTec7ALoIy4MVynJ_KEjCC9qNMgteOI32s5b8YRdwMnAWny1AvGey4B-4F_-ccqg9WRsFId0fdRPyoyOMavA/s3072/Grandfather%20tree.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3072" data-original-width="2304" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9qHOfr58BDkZVfcAuB05_O3loeR3jDh1AXPHdEXOPmgAT1kuNGBoN-_4R5gWi3NhfS2YA3VXPnT_m35nleCDBMkcMWA10guTHmtbH9chTec7ALoIy4MVynJ_KEjCC9qNMgteOI32s5b8YRdwMnAWny1AvGey4B-4F_-ccqg9WRsFId0fdRPyoyOMavA/w300-h400/Grandfather%20tree.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Today's news, once again, is all about war and nothing about climate chaos and, while climate change is yet to reach "visceral" status with our species, the atrocities of war have been consistent attention-getters ever since we started using our "smarts" to organize around it as a solution to problems. War, the vast majority of our species agree, is gruesome and no one in their right mind would want to be on the same continent as one. It's curious, then, when that supermajority dwindles to a rough plurality when it's happening on a different continent. From a distance, that wonderful, atavistic revulsion of ours to murder, rape and torture somehow morphs into a good vs evil fantasy tale. How easy it's been for the warmongers (read: oligarchs) du jour to sucker punch us over the ages, but we're story-based critters, after all. We love our epics, which usually include a war or two to get the juices going, which is to say that the thought of war is entertaining. In fact, as anyone who's subjected themselves to a writing workshop knows, good narratives are based around conflicts and, at times, their resolution. War is conflict writ-large and ready-made. No resolutions need apply, just winners and losers. Literally speaking, though, war as a narrative devise is shallow water by definition and should long ago have become a toxic cliche but, sadly, hasn't. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Which brings me to the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/war-mariupol-azovstal-last-stand-ukraine-azov/31811117.html" target="_blank">Azov Battalion</a> that has been "heroically" defending Mariupol for the last six weeks. Members of this unit, which has been fighting Russia in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, are now <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/20/humanitarian-corridor-out-of-mariupol-agreed-with-russia-says-ukraine" target="_blank">trapped</a> in the city's last holdout, the Azovstal Iron and Steelworks and threatened with annihilation--in real time on Twitter and YouTube--if they don't surrender. Their plight, along with the plight of the 200,000 civilians still trapped in the city, is the current cause celebre for shaming nuclear-tipped western democracies like ours into formally entering a regional conflict against another, equally-nuclear-tipped one. So first of all, let's recap: War is gruesome and anybody in their right mind, which probably includes the vast majority of people stuck in the hellhole that is now Mariupol, wouldn't want to be anywhere near one. What's being perpetrated there by Russian forces is surely evil if there's still a meaning to that overused word and no excuses need apply. But wouldn't a meaningful definition of "evil" also include those who choose war as their natural habitat and then force others to endure it as a consequence of their bad boy choices? That definition would include the Azov Battalion which, despite protestations from jingoists to the contrary, was formed and is no doubt still buckshot through with <a href="azov battalion wikipedia indonesia" target="_blank">nazis</a>. It would also include the Neo-Cold-Warriors of the west (NATO comes to mind) who chose years ago to <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2022/04/18/siding-with-ukraines-far-right-us-sabotaged-zelenskys-peace-mandate/?fbclid=IwAR083bllc50H4m9hZg4xeUCrQvQzxMJ8WX4cQa8DOR1cTBEa5JYXueI2g6Q" target="_blank">fight Russia "to the last Ukrainian"</a> with the help of the Azov Battalion.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">I have zero doubt that there are dozens of Netflix screenwriters drooling over plot scenarios involving impossibly-muscled Ukrainian soldiers fighting the Russian invaders to the last "patriot", with the Azovstal Iron and Steelworks, which was already a dystopian, industrial deadzone before the war, as a backdrop. I'll just say "Rambo" and leave it for you to google up. Meanwhile, climate action, the narratives of which don't generally include musclebound "patriots" with bloody assault weapons and dysfunctional wartime love affairs, is dead in the water. Our story-based minds have, once again, led us to the edge of the existential cliff in the name of War and, just like so many times these last few millennia, we're f....d. What to do?</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Well, I'll admit that maybe this time it's too late for hope. But how about we give at least a thought to where we'd be as a species if we were as capable of being viscerally-fascinated by, say, epic tales of saving our planet from Climate Chaos as we are by war. I'd call such a narrative paradigm shift akin to evolution, similar to approaching the consciousness of trees, who have learned to thrive over the eons with their network of root hairs and micorrhyza that communicate and help their fellow rooted beings for the good of the Whole. They've been here longer than we have, you know, and it's the height of hubris to ignore their example. Yes of course there's competition. Over water, sunlight and other existential necessities and "duh" to that. But please consider how much more cooperation there is than competition in their--and by definition, our--natural world. They don't "compete" with each other to the point where whole forests are destroyed for the sake of feeding their oligarchys' egos. There'd be no such thing as forests and the climate we all live within, would there be? They, and every other creature on this planet including ourselves if we gave ourselves half a chance, are hardwired to cooperate as a Whole and that is why there is life--and democracy--on this Earth. Fascism (Brazil in its current iteration) is the antithesis of healthy forests and Capitalism (the U.S. in our current iteration) is the antithesis of healthy democracies. Yin and yang so to speak.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">What's happening now in Ukraine--which nobody in this country ever distinguished from Russia until a few short years ago--is despicable, just as what has happened to Iraq and Afghanistan has been. A better case could be made than not that these wars could have been avoided if we weren't inflicted with such creatures as arms dealers, mercenaries and craven politicians who've taken one too many Rambo movie to heart, but the dog's out now, and he's a runner who doesn't come to call. Good luck shouting our lungs out for the next, what? hundred years or so until the hatred and trauma being perpetrated before our e-eyes cools enough to at least be stored underground into perpetuity. In the meantime, I won't be presumptuous enough to offer any suggestions out of this mess except to pray for a miracle.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Or hug a tree. To me that's one and the same. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p></o:p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-20458628058288989882022-04-05T08:52:00.001-07:002023-08-15T06:16:06.621-07:00On Ether<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifYHhdEhl_IBvx7x4WFjLcxTh1_BsggjelEOsKXBPwXAcvI43S-9j8YmjgEGpfJdGrN_92RRXOPRaNYyuZ6mw_4A6JDmzZZy6CdmNXgRXL2f1hgcqT3HAfV430H_S4AwTxpXz3SZExPXXq1vqkgGAmzTdFWNCM3mGaTYIYKTZgDbxPqBvWLV_12eCB_g/s1006/Screen%20Shot%202022-04-04%20at%201.56.26%20PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="978" data-original-width="1006" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifYHhdEhl_IBvx7x4WFjLcxTh1_BsggjelEOsKXBPwXAcvI43S-9j8YmjgEGpfJdGrN_92RRXOPRaNYyuZ6mw_4A6JDmzZZy6CdmNXgRXL2f1hgcqT3HAfV430H_S4AwTxpXz3SZExPXXq1vqkgGAmzTdFWNCM3mGaTYIYKTZgDbxPqBvWLV_12eCB_g/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-04-04%20at%201.56.26%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i>Think of Facebook like Mark Zuckerberg does, as a “rarefied, elastic substance that permeates all space including the interstices between the particles of matter, the medium whose vibrations constitute light and other electromagnetic radiation.” <o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i>Actually, that’s the old-fashioned definition of ether before atoms, electricity and the <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/february/new-armless-abelisaur-dinosaur-species-discovered-argentina.html" target="_blank">armless abelisaur</a> were discovered, but never mind. It’s a good description for what kind of toy these billionaires think our Known Universe is to them. <o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i>A counter-point to the world view of bastards is the way I think of Facebook: it sucks, but people live and read in that airy reality Zuckerface and his ilk presumes to dominate, which is the very reality writers presume to occupy, too. So writers gotta go with the flow, move with the rest of the circus, be one with the elephants. Fine.<o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Of course, neither definition is correct, but the fact that we even have to ponder such mushy mush means I am free to bend and manipulate whatever archaic universal laws exist or don’t to my own, personal will. I’m doing this not because I’ve sussed out the secret to the distance between atoms or whether Greek gods really wear loincloths, but rather because my blog, after a solid $@%##! year of refusing to function despite my hours (nay, days!) wasted clicking this and that floating button of frustration into the Elon-Musk-polluted Universe, has healed itself, or at least its attitude, and I can post on it again. Why my blog decided to work again is the stuff of conspiracy theories (if you are a 21st century Trumpian) or crystal energy</i><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> (if you're a 20th century hippy). Either way, the upshot is that, instead of firing off half-baked missives about a world gone wrong to friends and other innocent bystanders as “replies”, I’m going to condense, curate and, yes, edit them into blogposts, and use those posts as my Facebook presence. Zuckerface can still make money on my “content”, and I can still post my (hopefully more-fully-baked) rants on the great bulletin board of post-pandemic human interaction.</i><i> </i><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">It’s liberating to finally enter the 21</i><sup style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-style: italic;">st </sup><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;">Century, albeit kicking and screaming. Win, win, win, whether ether exists or not.</i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i> </i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: start;"><i>You’re welcome. <o:p></o:p></i></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTkcKmpuvwWSyiRRE9NA9I_zW8hWSUpgDG7tHMy3WJphkisrYyiDI7j0ZTYGEWWgaOo-9t2gV9US2wYRYqhTeextmmShsPRIuxmPuPvQ6zA2i4xfNQ4QGskhSUp4VbiA1iN0Ld591_b2FY7ncoGQByesRtyjjmpKFsBzASoeH9T-cOGfqHtKzjIJrOng/s3243/IMG_2321.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3243" data-original-width="1681" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTkcKmpuvwWSyiRRE9NA9I_zW8hWSUpgDG7tHMy3WJphkisrYyiDI7j0ZTYGEWWgaOo-9t2gV9US2wYRYqhTeextmmShsPRIuxmPuPvQ6zA2i4xfNQ4QGskhSUp4VbiA1iN0Ld591_b2FY7ncoGQByesRtyjjmpKFsBzASoeH9T-cOGfqHtKzjIJrOng/w332-h640/IMG_2321.jpg" width="332" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv155xy3MvQTcWr1gzjngohkglHRcY8BktbYZRzsu00Zgy5iUFNLwScyLpkMcsyIPkBldhVW2DMSLWXJnIo9xWpvt1hqtTIB0aG5Y9eqgQpPFw8Psz0TfIayaNsHSNimU_D20ExkSgJq2E1qI0xXPpAsbs-fEI73mV5m_lv0WRExxxBCnz4WMSd-gUHg/s2261/b2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2244" data-original-width="2261" height="639" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv155xy3MvQTcWr1gzjngohkglHRcY8BktbYZRzsu00Zgy5iUFNLwScyLpkMcsyIPkBldhVW2DMSLWXJnIo9xWpvt1hqtTIB0aG5Y9eqgQpPFw8Psz0TfIayaNsHSNimU_D20ExkSgJq2E1qI0xXPpAsbs-fEI73mV5m_lv0WRExxxBCnz4WMSd-gUHg/w642-h639/b2.jpg" width="642" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /> <p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-86656569587276973442021-04-23T09:35:00.002-07:002021-04-23T09:35:23.659-07:00The Long Covid<p style="text-align: left;"> <i>Note: This piece was first posted exactly a year ago, and after stumbling over it while looking for something else on this blog, I thought, hell. If history is repeating itself, this piece bears repeating, too. The original title was "On False Patriotism" and I thought it was pretty clear at the time that, in the face of a bona fide global disaster, a large swath of our fellow travelers were ardently choosing to make things worse, not better and, in this country, doing so under the banner of a piece of cloth fluttering from the back of a few testosterone-propelled pickup trucks. A year later and we're still wearing masks largely because of their childish refusal to acknowledge such a simple survival concept as "the common good" and they're still the ones whining about how much they love their freedom, and how little they love yours. A lot of toxic water's been dumped under the bridge by the carriers of such insanity since April, 2020, and I suppose I should feel sorry for them by now. After all, they're obviously short a few bricks and it may not be their fault. But I don't. In fact, I think it's fair to say that, after a whole year of sustaining such unfathomable idiocy, I propose that anyone who's been doing their best to do their part all this time, worn their masks and got their shots so we can all emerge out of this Covid hell as soon as humanly possible and are still wearing their masks because of the utter ignorance and selfishness of those wrapping their bad behavior in a flag should be mightily-pissed-off by now. It's obvious, to me anyway, that that would be a very American response.</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbFiH8432o45ul3DhN-o8l4jWUt3G0NCiWDTvl4a6buQrjntBTo8x1-g-gpspgIWv6uSranoeIa1Q5n_o4NwC_CoEC999NZVa4nl8Xj0zNHgcmfZ0XONG5QEx3YV74U0nvfhroIPlYaXw/s1600/fl2.5.png" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1600" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpbFiH8432o45ul3DhN-o8l4jWUt3G0NCiWDTvl4a6buQrjntBTo8x1-g-gpspgIWv6uSranoeIa1Q5n_o4NwC_CoEC999NZVa4nl8Xj0zNHgcmfZ0XONG5QEx3YV74U0nvfhroIPlYaXw/s320/fl2.5.png" width="320" /></a></p><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: left;">My ancestors have only been on this continent for a short time, since the 1600s. The same blood flowing in my veins has been in every major conflict that the colonists (later the Americans) have fought in since that time. I had ancestors who participated in the Revolutionary War battle where the American flag was invented, and if any hairsplitters out there want to argue the point with me then they can kiss <i>my</i> ass. I actually signed up for a war myself, and ended up serving four years in the Navy, but didn't go to Nam, not because I was some kind of smart, but because of the simple luck of the the other side of my family, the Irish. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In other words, I feel I can say something about this flag thing, and here it is: I don't hate the American flag. In fact, I have every reason to love what it stands for in my own mind. But this child of pilgrims and pioneers hates what it has become in the hands of our seemingly-bottomless pit of psychopathic "leaders", and I offer up a new, colorful equation, a flaggy one (!) which is really an ancient formula reworked for us unfortunates who inhabit a more and more two-dimensional age, where colorful pictures apparently have more impact than actual thinking.</div></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVifpo8IyhPbaATtXjswkvpauYIuhZPMCTrn_SFlP0G1GebFe_et_T3Du1CZRqc4cgNRh5VLdN1QU0kDiO2_OI3IsfBns_Hn6QTV8ZrWTW2jrLGYW-esS8MXnpuCUOlC8XS5_dl53_FeU8/s1600/fl2.5.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="864" data-original-width="1600" height="172" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVifpo8IyhPbaATtXjswkvpauYIuhZPMCTrn_SFlP0G1GebFe_et_T3Du1CZRqc4cgNRh5VLdN1QU0kDiO2_OI3IsfBns_Hn6QTV8ZrWTW2jrLGYW-esS8MXnpuCUOlC8XS5_dl53_FeU8/s320/fl2.5.png" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span></o:p><b><span face=""calibri" , sans-serif" style="font-size: 72pt;">÷</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0puEwv0NWpalfq6Zc2uywXbU2wmGwpzfIL_zryFgGGjodIVtW01D-GfzqVU_LB62ApmDzJXQVp6bwW-sUbO5WiZET3xBFEzFR6NEKzzeAAO53fVFrhuW1FW42w6HaS7hDCey3d5QC338t/s1600/fl2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0puEwv0NWpalfq6Zc2uywXbU2wmGwpzfIL_zryFgGGjodIVtW01D-GfzqVU_LB62ApmDzJXQVp6bwW-sUbO5WiZET3xBFEzFR6NEKzzeAAO53fVFrhuW1FW42w6HaS7hDCey3d5QC338t/s1600/fl2.png" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 72pt;">+</span></b></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_q87LqB61xb0xgQa-bTA5ei23TpVZ0XS3bQVRdmEh8XXwiaLmmyMzicQzsJnoylqWPwO8AZoel3Zx_P3xPrsmTb7IUW6BLYmRV91Dq-TmbHYnt5ssaFkg6GCa_ETASIkA8GDACkriBSfK/s1600/fl3.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1056" data-original-width="1600" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_q87LqB61xb0xgQa-bTA5ei23TpVZ0XS3bQVRdmEh8XXwiaLmmyMzicQzsJnoylqWPwO8AZoel3Zx_P3xPrsmTb7IUW6BLYmRV91Dq-TmbHYnt5ssaFkg6GCa_ETASIkA8GDACkriBSfK/s320/fl3.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 72pt;">=</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPF1_7YcKpM_JtTyUDRz1UoJshk52PbVoGcDjH8TTtmrENnLrR-8u_ocgJy2DDGo4RtXIAdc5Zr-1Bqd4IWypgd4CV00c74akh36fl__j2XfBVA1_x9OMXnaF7Fq8SLEC38NxRi1oUuJT/s1600/fl4.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="558" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrPF1_7YcKpM_JtTyUDRz1UoJshk52PbVoGcDjH8TTtmrENnLrR-8u_ocgJy2DDGo4RtXIAdc5Zr-1Bqd4IWypgd4CV00c74akh36fl__j2XfBVA1_x9OMXnaF7Fq8SLEC38NxRi1oUuJT/s320/fl4.png" width="320" /></a></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><o:p></o:p></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Yes, Hitler certainly was an evil man, wasn't he? But he had lots of help. In high and low places. The equally-evil men in the high places had agendas, wanted power and knew the formula for getting what they wanted.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YUHvutaEbDYbRzaggUBRSEbHVptd-q7aeU_ahmF9XFe-6mG4hjNbEtudp2kq92PxhcATQfq24ztAZsVNHC8z2Dxibdb9k4CYU_V_8spUqCfQ6ggDO3kXy3Z3gzUCGQhGBHwR0wzEwNbD/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-21+at+8.29.30+AM+2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="685" data-original-width="445" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YUHvutaEbDYbRzaggUBRSEbHVptd-q7aeU_ahmF9XFe-6mG4hjNbEtudp2kq92PxhcATQfq24ztAZsVNHC8z2Dxibdb9k4CYU_V_8spUqCfQ6ggDO3kXy3Z3gzUCGQhGBHwR0wzEwNbD/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-21+at+8.29.30+AM+2.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZm9c7B4uaNz-lQYkIEpAjsSJpZ45HXk9LL5UNJxMEpTtWTW-AyxRKv5TiQ8qjbL033Q0AluCL8VJz4ymIxnfCf3Qr0ElGP2R1HxST5DDOFG8Knwhlus9WKnNXvRxR7toR-RO4nxo14Zr9/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-21+at+8.32.11+AM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="924" data-original-width="920" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZm9c7B4uaNz-lQYkIEpAjsSJpZ45HXk9LL5UNJxMEpTtWTW-AyxRKv5TiQ8qjbL033Q0AluCL8VJz4ymIxnfCf3Qr0ElGP2R1HxST5DDOFG8Knwhlus9WKnNXvRxR7toR-RO4nxo14Zr9/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-21+at+8.32.11+AM.jpg" width="318" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1wxrJVxyaqtcQ1QGGjbYdcqL_U7k64rbDTBhedW3-x0cCiCaV8lP51TMkOsmQw7p_ezHfh6tYe2u8NQNofZ1iecSuhCvnXXgVBfH4QxlWQT86UPC-8T3OVK8EtCdgBOtkTRyIxdi-qCM/s1600/Screen+Shot+2020-04-21+at+8.29.30+AM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="742" data-original-width="728" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT1wxrJVxyaqtcQ1QGGjbYdcqL_U7k64rbDTBhedW3-x0cCiCaV8lP51TMkOsmQw7p_ezHfh6tYe2u8NQNofZ1iecSuhCvnXXgVBfH4QxlWQT86UPC-8T3OVK8EtCdgBOtkTRyIxdi-qCM/s320/Screen+Shot+2020-04-21+at+8.29.30+AM.jpg" width="313" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />But the low ones, the enablers? They have no excuses anymore for falling for this bullshit, do they? And they will have much to answer for in the very near future. Won't they? </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">How dare they wave American flags at us? How dare they?</div></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-83697923974381545902021-03-14T19:06:00.007-07:002023-04-05T07:50:46.063-07:00News Flash: Machine Guns are Pro-Life<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7YuqSTFLR4oH6ULuyX1LXq1IvTH8mHy7FxzHaGqNpS9YOwkexlnDMRrKM8lkIeezXgXsAolRR4oGYa4iV2nM4TcNUBNvxs61DKJjx-0zk2gX7GSVxeOtZvtwG2aP9fMxnuoSqJFc4rGwz/s1032/Screen+Shot+2021-03-13+at+9.50.13+AM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1032" data-original-width="758" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7YuqSTFLR4oH6ULuyX1LXq1IvTH8mHy7FxzHaGqNpS9YOwkexlnDMRrKM8lkIeezXgXsAolRR4oGYa4iV2nM4TcNUBNvxs61DKJjx-0zk2gX7GSVxeOtZvtwG2aP9fMxnuoSqJFc4rGwz/w294-h400/Screen+Shot+2021-03-13+at+9.50.13+AM.jpg" width="294" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Sen. Jason Ellsworth (R-Ravalli County) has a machine gun pointed out his business window (above).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">There is no better picture to show how 'pro-life' and 'pro-freedom' Sen. Ellsworth is, so I’m sharing it with you. Like all Republicans in Helena this session (and the last and the last and the last....) he is adamantly in favor of telling young women what to do with their bodies and threatening fellow citizens with machine guns. Add to these stellar qualities a can-do willingness to expose vulnerable neighbors to a deadly virus and you have a profile of a certified, freedom-loving patriot who is so ‘pro-life’ he's willing to point a machine gun out the window of his business to prove it. This, by the way, makes Sen. Ellsworth’s machine gun ‘pro-life’ by definition. Isn't tortured <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">English wonderful?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">There’s one other thing about Sen. Jason Ellsworth you may not know about that puts him in even higher esteem with the life-loving, freedom-shooting gang he hangs out with. He was caught bilking unsuspecting people his telemarketing company called (unsolicited) by selling them magazine subscriptions for $3.83/month for four years and then billing them almost $50/month for almost a year and a half and then (presumably) siccing a collection company on them when they didn’t pay up (</span><i style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Palatino;"><a href="https://ravallirepublic.com/news/local/article_5fa4543f-b659-5a97-9b82-25bdcb06c3f4.html?fbclid=IwAR0cX8rD1CS2wPYonIrDYjCeeIxh1NKJe-pgERoru9IxWf6za52lUMOg2Uo">Ellsworth bilks unwary costumers</a>). </span></i><span style="font-family: Palatino;">If Sen. Ellsworth hadn’t made $600,000 bilking unsolicited owners of telephones he wouldn’t have been able to buy an out-of-court settlement and he would have gone to prison with a felony conviction. But that’s the kind of guy Sen. Jason Ellsworth is, and why he is held in such high esteem with all the ‘freedom-loving’, ‘pro-life’ patriots currently legislating us back to the days of the Montana Copper Kings. He’s all about ‘personal responsibility’, and maybe that explains the machine gun pointed out the window of his business. Out of 35,000 magazine subscriptions ‘sold’ to unsolicited owners of telephones, over a thousand of them complained about his company’s fraudulent practices to the Federal Trade Commission. To anyone who's had to endure unregulated telemarketing calls that promise you the moon and then sell you a hat for the price of a car, that means that a lot more than 1000 were ripped off and knew it but didn’t complain because they figured if they did he’d probably rise to the level of a state senator or something. So maybe Sen. Ellsworth is justifiably worried that one of his bilked customers might take the ‘personal responsibility’ to come visit him to discuss their ‘buyer’s remorse’, which is Sen. Jason Ellsworth’s euphemism for explaining away the not-so-perfectly legal con of bilking unsuspecting owners of phones in the name of 'freedom' and 'life'.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Palatino;">While I’m on the subject of ‘pro-life assault weapons’, here’s a little déjà vu. a pop-up quiz. Can you name the machine gun pictured below?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYCq3QRzMLI3SfTIWKHHOJI8pfVyFujEGAUqnPQLuQrdeafcZAiDuhLfyrZtOtaD7Ui_q4dGGY-AvptLS-OQ7uSMHvlG_E-NonDhQsW5cchtplLV6DwZ8o5hAae-Csjzu9w8cqTPKChVk6/s950/Screen+Shot+2021-03-14+at+7.46.07+PM.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="320" data-original-width="950" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYCq3QRzMLI3SfTIWKHHOJI8pfVyFujEGAUqnPQLuQrdeafcZAiDuhLfyrZtOtaD7Ui_q4dGGY-AvptLS-OQ7uSMHvlG_E-NonDhQsW5cchtplLV6DwZ8o5hAae-Csjzu9w8cqTPKChVk6/w400-h135/Screen+Shot+2021-03-14+at+7.46.07+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Yep. that's right. It's a Bushmaster .223, </span>the main weapon Adam Lanza pointed at little children--and fired into the faces of. The Ravalli County Republican Central Committee, the club to which Sen. Ellsworth belongs, has been auctioning off a machine gun looking very much like this one at the Ravalli County Fair ever since, where countless local children walk by it and are impressed by how much the Ravalli County Republicans, including Sen. Ellsworth, love 'freedom' and 'life'. <br /><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;">Finally, here’s Bushmaster clinical description of such a ‘life-giving’ weapon, designed soley for combat, capable of firing up to six rounds <i>a second </i>into a crowded classroom of little children by literally anyone who can afford to buy one online:</p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Palatino;">“With a Bushmaster for security and home defense, you can sleep tight knowing that your loved ones are protected. Bushmaster offers everything you need to ensure the safety of you and your family. Our high-quality pistols, carbines, and rifles are extremely reliable, easy to shoot, and include lightweight carbon models that are perfect for women. And with their intimidating looks, all Bushmasters make a serious impression.</span></i><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 24pt; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Are we there yet? Can we start evolving now, or at least start talking like grown-ups?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFat1dam7fL6qbctxd2nSAqgoJQilnZ73e39jhoFoNmViHByXHqr6jt6dGPs7mhCvn0C6zDl-555BFLficp_TlIKPfKDAGNA1h6XhtbdCh_LcAY7Zul5Wj2ALs7BWNN9Ydhh2BDiW0jPw/s1306/Screen+Shot+2021-03-14+at+12.27.19+PM.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="776" data-original-width="1306" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilFat1dam7fL6qbctxd2nSAqgoJQilnZ73e39jhoFoNmViHByXHqr6jt6dGPs7mhCvn0C6zDl-555BFLficp_TlIKPfKDAGNA1h6XhtbdCh_LcAY7Zul5Wj2ALs7BWNN9Ydhh2BDiW0jPw/w640-h381/Screen+Shot+2021-03-14+at+12.27.19+PM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><i>Bitterroot Gun Garage and Telemarketing Complex</i></div><br />bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-60524097174338333852021-03-05T10:34:00.003-08:002021-03-06T09:12:26.671-08:00Pilgrim's Progress Redux<p><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 24px;"> </span></p><div class="post-header" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 12.600000381469727px; line-height: 1.6; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><div class="post-header-line-1"></div></div><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-995189438269468043" itemprop="description articleBody" style="line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 520px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7O98T2rmP7Id1XFkAnDC2WS_Nh6NAECS3QNRW_wfIqjaV9k8i9Hk31CZcuRzx920HR852gah7DRrrHhrHfezHVmn7Hc5RkviM0IsCSJeRVt-RrgZc06s42iUzp0c6WcXUGcEgozb4exzS/s2048/freezout.jpg" style="color: #888888; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="384" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7O98T2rmP7Id1XFkAnDC2WS_Nh6NAECS3QNRW_wfIqjaV9k8i9Hk31CZcuRzx920HR852gah7DRrrHhrHfezHVmn7Hc5RkviM0IsCSJeRVt-RrgZc06s42iUzp0c6WcXUGcEgozb4exzS/w512-h384/freezout.jpg" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; background-color: white; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 1px 1px 5px; padding: 5px; position: relative;" width="512" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); clear: both; color: #222222; font-family: Georgia, Utopia, "Palatino Linotype", Palatino, serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><i style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif;">Freezeout Lake, Teton County, Montana</i></div><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The Dagwood Sandwich</b></span></i></p><p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">Note: A little bird told me that if I want people to follow my blog I have to post more than one piece every few weeks. "Duh," I told this little bird, poor and blameless little thing that it is.The problem is that most writers would have to stretch the patience of their readers to act like they have anything useful to say more often than that which, of course, most writers do these days, and I'm competing with them for your justifiably-limited bandwidth! Grrr...I snarl in the general direction of these modern times, but that's all the disclaimer I have to show for reposting this piece originally posted August of last year while we were in the throes of so many converging disasters while being swallowed whole-hog by </i><u style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">Covid Times</u><i style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> (emphasis mine). I re-read it </i><span face="calibri, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"><i>while</i></span></span><i style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> thinking about how the Democrats, who were gifted control of the presidency and both houses of Congress by a desperate people (us), are blowing it again with the Covid Relief bill they're about to pass with no Death-Cult (oops...I meant "Republican") support and no $15/ hour minimum raise hike and, sadly, not even a blip of discussion about Single Payer/ Medicare for All. Bernie and progressive House Democrats bravely fight on for us, and it's my enduring hope, which may be labelled an Act of Faith at this point, that they become the new center of the party in the near future, but in</i><i><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> the meantime, I think the words of a centrist-Democratic governor of Minnesota who </span><span face="calibri, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">misperceived</span></span><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;"> the size of the sandwich he and his party are still trying to get </span><span face="calibri, sans-serif"><span style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-size: 15.399999618530273px;">their lips around are appropriate to repeat and examine. I don't have any other useful words to describe a Democratic political system whose elites respond to a pandemic that has ravaged a people and their economy and can only be addressed by providing immediate not-for-profit medical care to the least among us by tacking right and never mentioning Medicare for All as a serious possibility than to repeat the below. My apologies to the easily-bored.</span></span></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">When I was a kid I used to read “Blondie” in the rolled-up paper that'd get tossed on our porch every morning. Those were the days before virtual gizmos, when the comics were the only 'memes' we kids had other than the sports page which, like the comics, was meant to entertain. And we were.<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">In those good old comics, Blondie’s husband, Dagwood, would rise from his napping couch about once a week, sleepwalk to the refrigerator and pull out a dozen rich ingredients that every good old suburbanite was supposed to have in their refrigerator, too. He'd slather two slices of white bread with mustard and mayonnaise, layer cold-cuts, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and olives until the sandwich was a foot-thick and absolutely inedible. Then he'd crack a joke. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">Dagwood was a nice, white guy. He wore a tie to work, and he wanted us kids to know that this was what America looked like. Everyone should have a foot-thick Dagwood Sandwich that you couldn't possibly eat but that you should have nonetheless. Everything was as it should be, this cartoon-husband wanted us to know, and we believed him.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">That Dagwood Sandwich should have hit us white folks like a ton of bricks when the Black Lives Matter protests took off a few month ago. It did me when the Mayor of Minnesota was quoted saying that his city was between "two crises that are sandwiched on top of one other.” The George Floyd uprisings occurring within the COVID pandemic. An edible sandwich with only two different coldcuts, in other words, squished in with lettuce, sliced tomatoes and tasty pickles. Something you can wrap your mouth around enough to take a bite out of, have an effect on.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">Well, I've had some time to think about it, and I think Mayor Frey's two-ingredient metaphor is the classic kind of understatement that comes from politicians who don't take cartoons seriously enough. I understand the rock and the hard place he's in between. George Floyd was lynched in Minneapolis, and Mayor Frey is a Democrat. Being a Democrat in Minnesota means he is actually a member of the Minnesota Democrat-Farm-Labor Party, which means he is the beneficiary of a legacy bequeathed him by 150 years of socialist uprising and organizing from the co-op infested plains of the 19th Century Dakota lands that, thanks to Hubert Humphrey in the 1940s, morphed into the Minnesota Democrat-Farm-Labor Party. It follows, then, that if you belong to a formally-socialist party that allowed a guy like Hubert Humphrey to crash it, then you have a serious case of political cognitive dissonance. In other words, Mayor Frey was wrong about the size of this sandwich he's trying to eat.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">There are multiple crises “sandwiched” together into a epic, impossible sandwich. There's institutionalized bigotry and the COVID crises, of course. But the rise of fascism also comes to my mind, coupled by murderous COVID outcomes in countries run by them (Brazil, the U.S., Russia, Britain). Economic depression caused by the same scoundrels for the same reasons also shows up, worldwide environmental collapse and, (spoiler alert for us American humans) a D.O.A. healthcare system. That’s not just two ingredients in a crisis sandwich that can be dealt with by taking it one bite at a time. That’s a Dagwood Sandwich, multi-layered, all the ingredients part of the whole while being nothing without all the ingredients, and completely inedible unless you're a white cartoon husband about to crack a joke. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">The problem with us white people is that we think we’re white, which isn't the case. The COVID bombshell should have taught us that, but I guess learning comes hard which, by definition, means slow. COVID should have been an existential lesson in equality for all of us. Yes, we honkies opine from our comfortable Northern Rockies’ zones, it is hitting poor communities worse than ours, but it’s hitting ours, too. And, given how much time and energy we’ve put into isolating ourselves from the outside-world uglies, it’s hitting us very hard indeed. Furthermore, we honkies in the Northern Rockies may feel smug about getting “far from the madding crowd” and there’s a certain amount of self-satisfaction in accomplishing that. But then we insist on thinking there’s nothing we can really do, and that blows our cover. <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">I recall a conversation I had with a “fun-hog” friend of mine at a brewery after returning from Standing Rock in early-2017 (full disclosure: I'm a part-time fun-hog myself). He had been out skiing while I had chosen to face off against a militarized police force in a blizzard. During the debacle that took place on those same co-op infested plains from which the Minnesota Democrat-Farm-Labor Party sprang I thought about all my hedonistic Montana friends playing expensive, consumptive outdoor games in the face of an environmental/social collapse that would take down those very ecosystems we claim to cherish so. I think it was in the middle of helping to butcher a cow in sub-freezing weather at the Veteran's Camp that I worked up something in my head to say to them when I got home, which, unfortunately for this truly-good-hearted friend of mine who was the first one to ask, I did. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">I told him, listen, man. This kind of activism is right down your alley. You’re going down these wild rivers and skiing these insanely chilly mountaintops for the sake of excitement and the love of the outdoors when you could be having the exact same kind of excitement and outdoor experience in a North Dakota blizzard with armed soldiers to bump up your adrenaline rush even more. You want brave? Do it with a purpose. You got the chops, and you don’t have to sacrifice your outdoor time. Not anymore. Maybe not ever again. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">Those of us in the Northern Rockies who care talk about "minority" communities and how “they” need more justice so the sandwich shrinks and becomes edible for us. Those of us who don’t care just talk about “those people”. But the end result is the same. We don’t acknowledge the giant-ness of the Big Problem, nor how much we, no matter how good our intentions, are part of it. This goes for people of all shades, by the way, because the sandwich is epic. But us pilgrims have had such a long run these last three or four hundred years, I think it's only fair to say, "listen, man." </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">So, for what it's worth, here's the punchline to the joke I'm trying to tell you while staring at this cartoon sandwich. The damning finger of "white privilege" is now pointing straight at a fixable target, the predatory for-profit healthcare systems currently crumbling against the rocks of the Pandemic Age. How can anyone deny the urgency or the opportunity. You can bet this won't be the last bug to come after us, and after the next couple-three hits, a 'white', privileged class will not exist as a functional fantasy, false identity or false flag for less-thoughtful folks to rally around when times get tough. There's only one race of humans, multi-shaded (duh), and to deny some of those shades adequate access to medical attention as a basic human right, everyone runs the risk of dying horrible deaths while the rich, who do so love to keep us divided, will just get richer. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">Tax the bastards and tax 'em hard, in favor of Medicare For All and a $15/hour minimum-wage or it's bye-bye to our cherished Democracy. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;">Simple. Why's it taken so long?<span style="color: #222222;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="caret-color: rgb(34, 34, 34); color: #222222; font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15.399999618530273px; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; text-align: left;"> </p></div></div>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-30854517149482930772020-11-02T09:39:00.002-08:002020-11-26T10:01:25.261-08:00 Is That The Smell of Freedom On Your Breath?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-aQXk7xisDFm6J89a0pIrk4vMf5VYrZl9JBkxL0N4rTvW8ew1DTeXWYP3ldkcD_cSxc4zuwx1YsinvYmNvw_dVjLqdHZdsCDwdcuVPKgpwgklhyuJ8RK0KaVH-rrdNVYD4bWThaK8enr-/s2048/IMG_1014.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1922" data-original-width="2048" height="375" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-aQXk7xisDFm6J89a0pIrk4vMf5VYrZl9JBkxL0N4rTvW8ew1DTeXWYP3ldkcD_cSxc4zuwx1YsinvYmNvw_dVjLqdHZdsCDwdcuVPKgpwgklhyuJ8RK0KaVH-rrdNVYD4bWThaK8enr-/w400-h375/IMG_1014.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Wreck on the Highway</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>A Musing</i></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 15pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">At a recent Ravalli Co. Commissioners’ meeting to ‘<span style="color: #222222;">develop a message about COVID-19’, one man stood up to proclaim that he was an ‘Americanist’, which meant (to him) that he wasn’t responsible for his neighbors’ wellbeing. The commissioners, who apparently are also ‘Americanists’ , agreed, declaring quite adamantly to the mostly-unmasked people in attendance that they weren’t interested in infringing on peoples’ ‘liberty’ by being the ‘mask police’, that they would settle for ‘encouraging’ people to act responsibly while letting their fellow ‘Americanists’ decide how much harm or benevolence they choose to visit on their neighbors. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 15pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Palatino;">Well, I’m only someone who’s lived in Montana for the last 4 decades and whose ancestors have only been on this continent for the last four centuries. I do have a keen interest in U.S. history and have never come across this new breed of impervious citizen before, but I’ll admit that more than a few bold movements have been woefully unreported on these last few hundred years, including this ‘Americanist’ thing. Maybe I just read too much and am therefore ignorant, but this child of pilgrims still feels entitled to share a few facts and ask a couple questions of our commissioners who are getting a good salary on my dime in order to speak for me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Palatino;">It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to observe that both traffic laws and Covid 19 mandates are enforced on behalf of public safety and welfare. This is easily demonstrated by simple math. Since January there have been 167 traffic fatalities in Montana. In that same timeframe Montana has seen 365 Covid 19 deaths. Four of those Covid deaths and two traffic deaths (that I’m aware of) have been in Ravalli Co. In other words, there are at least twice as many Covid deaths in our state and county than fiery scenes on the highway, yet traffic laws clearly meant to oppress citizens’ freedom to drive recklessly are still enforced while mask ordinances that would muzzle an ‘Americanist’s right to whine but would potentially save twice as many lives are not? I’d agree with any freedom-loving ‘patriot’ that not all traffic deaths would be avoided if everybody drove as if somebody else’s life depended on it, but some would be. So why does a mask ordinance that would save twice as many of those random lives get a pass while the city of Hamilton is still writing $100 tickets for going 29 MPH in a 25 MPH speed zone? If the commmissioners’ logic of not being the ‘mask police’ is followed to its natural angle of repose, </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">should we expect the police to ‘encourage’ citizens not to drive drunk while acknowledging that it’s every citizen’s constitutional right to drive drunk if she wants to? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">I don’t know if any of my ancestors were actively-involved in the Salem Witch Trials, if they were passive bystanders or if they actively spoke out in resistance against tyranny. I do know some of them were involved in some pretty sad wars against the indigenous people they sought to displace and that history is a lesson we either learn or don’t. I also know that everyone barring one individual who attended that commissioners’ meeting failed to wear a mask. That meant that folks like myself who take personal responsibility in respect to my neighbors seriously as well as my own health can’t attend public meetings convened to discuss the public’s business in a public building because the commissioners have decided to opt-out of enforcing ordinances that reflect nothing but basic human decency. This is undemocratic by definition, which begs the real question here. With such doings afoot right under our (masked or unmasked) noses, I think We the Taxpayers who foot the bill for these public officials’ gold star health plans but who don’t share their peculiar political ideology should hear from them on where they stand on this thorny issue of Democracy? It’s a pretty simple question. Do they believe in it or not? Can we participate in our democracy while protecting our loved ones and ourselves or do the commissioners really believe some of us deserve less freedom than others? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Democracy, then, commissioners. It’s such an old fashioned word, but a simple yes or no will tell us all we need to know.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; line-height: 32px; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><o:p> </o:p></p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8886824431925117812.post-34636930472839286002020-10-25T09:31:00.000-07:002020-10-25T09:31:29.227-07:00Bitterroot Redux<p style="text-align: center;"> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD0xDcJCEqm44CvZ93bFqPnPBn6Zjt7XnbJJmc5wLF-8IR9sfdEo6CPEiDbDRZHmcbZSZwgiQx0kvFY3fvMoB-HPQVBIJt9cYq4_3slCyQbbRvDUgZpsmDja1rj6a1to-1ylXB0qV5gYpi/s1076/P1010027.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="907" data-original-width="1076" height="541" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD0xDcJCEqm44CvZ93bFqPnPBn6Zjt7XnbJJmc5wLF-8IR9sfdEo6CPEiDbDRZHmcbZSZwgiQx0kvFY3fvMoB-HPQVBIJt9cYq4_3slCyQbbRvDUgZpsmDja1rj6a1to-1ylXB0qV5gYpi/w640-h541/P1010027.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Historical Monument along Highway 93 just south of Hamilton, Montana</i></p><p style="text-align: left;"><i><br /></i></p><p style="text-align: left;">No explanation necessary, really. Just a question. Are we there yet?</p>bill LaCroixhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17078770838589921002noreply@blogger.com0