A GOOD PEFORMANCE, FULL OF PROMISE, THUNDER AND HOPE; AND ANOTHER EVERGREEN STATER GOES TO THE WASHINGTON ON THE POTOMAC

Former Washington State Gov. Gary Locke

Well, as I’m writing this, I’m also waiting for Barack to say something that will break his rolling chain of golden eloquence. (a few minutes later) Well, turns out he didn’t and I’m some relieved. Seems to me there’s a rusty old saw someplace that says that the longer the speech, the greater the chance of blowing it big time. This president is perhaps the greatest orator we’ve ever had and likely the most closely scrutinized. No pressure there, eh? Max dropped by to watch it with me and at one point, we looked at each other and he grinned.

"The President is pissed."

"Big time."

We figured Barak had been saving some of this up, the way he rolled out with it. He’s been slammed a lot lately for his poor cabinet choices, "his failure" to generate more bipartisan support for his economic stimulus package; his implicit insistence that education and the arts were also part of the recovery process and his consistent tendency to read the American public and respond to them, rather than the media. He doesn’t wait for the input of his constituency, he goes out looking for it.

At one point, Max mimed reaching for a fourth of July sparkler, lighting it, and waving it. I was hearing Kate Smith singing "God Bless America," and getting teary-eyed before Max took a swig of his root beer, belched and observed,

"Good staging."

I enjoyed it, both as good television and for the performances. Now, though, it seems like the time for talking about this is over. It’s filtering down to the state level and even though Seattle’s Viaduct project didn’t get funded, Governor Christine got ahold of Mayor Greg and said she’d work to get other federal funding for it. She’ll contact Senator Patti and the Representatives involved and eventually, it’ll get done. He tells that to his constituency, then gets on with the other business at hand.

I hope that happens soon. According to our local NBC affiliate, KING 5 News, Seattle now ranks as the 10th most congested metropolitan area in the United States. That Viaduct project, like the proposed light rail system, isn’t just necessary. It’s long overdue.

Where it’s possible, I still favor a minimum reliance on federal support. I’m also a proponent of regional economic independence. I think that if the Northwest is handling the current fiscal downturn any better than other parts of the country, it’s because we’ve learned the hard way what happens with an over-dependence on the international market place.

Now that green’s been proven profitable, there’s a stampede in that direction and the industrial processes themselves are environmentally viable. They’re ideal for a small community or co-op approach, as well.

The same "revolution" has taken place in organic farming in North America. Europe’s decades ahead of us and so are other parts of the world, including Japan. Now, community gardens and small farms employing more human beings and fewer machines are not only viable, but extremely appropriate. Here in Seattle, there are low cost housing units for seniors going up which offer rooftop garden plots.

We were headed down this road before this latest economic down turn and I think it’s a real plus that we’ve blended the two priorities. Considering it was over-industrialization driven by unrealistic expectations that contributed so substantially to planetary pollution and global warning in the first place, this looks like one solution derived directly from the problem. That kind of straight-line thinking is encouraging to me.

It’s also validating to see another Evergreen State native headed for the "other Washington". Former Governor Gary Locke, the first Chinese American elected to that office, has been tapped by President Obama as Commerce Secretary. Gary’s well-qualified for the position and he’s honest. The White House seems to be making more appropriate choices in these regards and yep, that’s another reason to be guardedly optimistic.

Until next week, then, take care, stay well and God Bless.

Rusty

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LINKS TO RELEVANT SITES:
The PCC Sounder Consumer
Sightline Daily

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND ECONOMIC STIMULUS

Mt. Rainier, from the U of Washington

Photo by MS(R)M

Hi again, Folks. Well, as I’m putting this together, it’s still President’s Day. I understand Abraham Lincoln’s been voted the best national chief executive we’ve ever had and George Washington, the second. I notice that George is on the one-dollar bill and Lincoln’s a little higher up but not by much. Grover Cleveland and William McKinley are waaay up there.

I’m sorry but that seems to me just a little out there, even for Americans. It’s like we’ve got this weird inverted pyramid going for us. I’m thinking, albeit real generously right now, that it just goes to show that in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, you don’t have to be first or even historically important to have value in this country. At least not on our money, eh?

However, I digress…(front page news, right?)
One of you sent The Northstar Journal a letter he wrote to his elected officials, with permission to publish. He’s from Michigan, where his governor is making some history of her own. Her name’s Jennifer Granholm and it looks like she’s proving that both cleaning up and producing industrial products that address the root causes can pay off for her constituency. I caught her on the news the other night in a story about the solar panels being produced in Michigan and being used to provide energy to a variety of structures and enterprises in the States and abroad. The author of this letter has books on a wide variety of topics, is an avid golfer, has a radio show and is a cancer survivor.

Dear Senator,

Regarding this economic crisis I would recommend you and congress explore putting a 9 month stay on home foreclosures with a mandatory provision for face to face renegotiation; 10% reduction in payroll taxes; suspend issuing new personal credit cards and a freeze on renewal of existing credit cards for a period sufficient to facilitate a balancing of personal credit system.

These actions are cost effective and quick to implement. Should you have any questions let me know.

Kindest regards,
Michael Cortson
Attorney at law (retired)
Writesit@aol.com

I need to share with you folks a real nice email I got from Senator Patti Murray (D) Washington.

Subj:
Response from Senator Murray
Date:
2/12/2009 1:34:26 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:
Senator@murray.senate.gov
To:
mailto:minstrel312@aol.comminstrel312@aol.com

Dear Mr. Miller:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Northstar Journal blog. I appreciate having the benefit of your views on this matter.
The views of Washingtonians are very important to my work. I will keep your thoughts in mind, and I encourage you to stay in touch. Please do not hesitate to call on me whenever I may be of assistance.

Again, thank you for contacting me. I hope that you will continue to let me know about this and other matters of interest to you.

I hope all is well in Seattle.

I also had a real nice phone chat with Maria Cantwell’s press secretary and they’re reading us as well. Maria’s our other U.S. Senator and coincidentally also a Democrat. Both of these people have served Washington state, the Pacific Northwest, America and, by the resonance of what they do on these levels, the international community as well.. Neither was born into money, power or politics. The term "bootstrapping" comes to mind. They have, I suspect, a lot in common with us and with Barack.

At the risk of offending those of you from other political persuasions, they didn’t have much in common with their immediate predecessor. We don’t do the dynasty riff very well out here. The Pacific Northwest is, among other things, a land of volcanoes, earthquakes, deep lakes, swiftly moving streams, mountains which reach up to touch the face of the Creator, the North Pacific in all her moods, schizophrenic weather and all-year around Birkenstocks.

My best friend of 30 years, Dennis W. "Denny" Steussy, a farm boy from Minnesota and a mover and shaker in the arts community in greater Seattle, is also sending the NSJ along to our legislators in Olympia. Denny and I have been saddle bums for some while now, like Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott. He’s a good man, this one, and he knows stuff.

What it basically means for the readers of this blog is that what you share with The Northstar Journal is shared with people positions to act on it. I don’t want to get into a "we are the world riff, but one of the reasons I started this blog was to also provide a reader forum or perhaps, more simply expressed, an opportunity to share ideas, experiences, feelings and resources with one another.

As this blog goes to press, President Obama’s in Denver, signing that $787-billion economic stimulus package into law. Only three Republican Senators voted for it but at a recent annual meeting of American governors, 22 Conservative state chief executives endorsed it. Congress still seems a little slow in waking up and smelling the coffee.

Maybe we should fund a round-trip to Seattle on a warm sunny day; Seattle, aka Land of Starbucks and Seattle’s Best. We wake up to the aroma of coffee. We go to sleep and dream by it. We buy stock in small Brazilian plantations which produce it. If it wasn’t also on the expensive side, we would very likely bathe in it. There’s even been some talk about making it the State Beverage.

I also noted a new study out of Duke University which says that angry men don’t live as long as their mellower counterparts. I got to thinking about all the angry people I’ve encountered and most of them have also been bigoted, sexist, homophobic, anti-Semitic, jingoistic or in some other way, extremely humanity impaired.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I was glad to learn that obnoxious people don’t live as long as the rest of us. I just also wish they wouldn’t keep procreating and polluting the global gene pool. Do me a favor? The next rude person you run into? Promote celibacy. And solitude. Total solitude.

Until next week, then, take care, try to relax and keep communicating with one another. We’re going to get through these hard times and this time, yep, we’re going to learn from them.

Rusty

FROM MY OWN BOOK OF LOVE, WAR AND OTHER REMEMBRANCES

USS Blue (DD 744) off Hawaii

Hi again, folks. Since it’s Valentine’s Day, this a love in war story, It’s true, except for her real name and a condensing of some events. It’s also a chapter from my own Book of Love, War and Remembrances. (With appropriate acknowledgement to Herman Wouk for the title.)

We need to go back a few years, to the Fall of 1968. The Vietnam War was raging furiously and the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing. High school classmates were returning, sometimes walking and sometimes in body bags. The voting and drinking age was 21. A small matchbox of pot could get you hard time at Folsom, a 45 minute drive from where I lived.

There was a Draft on and I was holding a student deferment while attending Sacramento City College behind a busted home, two jobs and a devout attempt to keep the small dance and show combo which had been sustaining me in several ways, alive. My generation was fighting for its life and in my world, those who were not preparing to do duty for God, country and whatever were protesting the war and suffering their own casualties. There didn’t seem to be much middle ground.

Autumn is a lonely time in Sacramento. The harvest is over and the seemingly endless delta, with its network of rivers, levees and vast barren fields stretches to all horizons under grey skies that mark the flights of southbound Canada geese.

In some ways, I was a lot older at 19 than I am at 59. For the last three years, I’d been leading six other teenagers into a career union musicians twice our age envied. We played everything from the USO and high school proms and balls, to military base service clubs and for private parties at such Class A houses as the Sacramento Inn and the Mansion Inn. We had one motto that served us real well. Don’t play for the money, play for the people.

With all that was going on around us, we figured we’d be lucky to see 21. So we broke some rules and assumed a few of the rights of the adults we actually were. We worked hard and we played hard. We were tough, prematurely cynical and had less than no patience with anyone who tried to suggest a different way of living. It was like, if you can’t handle it, fine. Just don’t (expletive deleted) with it.

Kirsten was about the last person I should have met back then. She was slim, lithe, doe-eyed shy, and her thick ash blonde hung in long, loose natural waves, draping her slim shoulders and brushing them, like angel wings. She was from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the east, and she reminded me, in a lot of ways, of Heidi. She was down in Sacramento, living with her sister and family and going for an AA degree in art.

I worked for the school newspaper and she helped print it. There was a glass partition between the newsroom and the print shop and I one morning, I looked up from my typewriter to see this Hallmark and Campbell Soup young mother holding a baby in her arms. (It was the print shop teacher’s daughter but I didn’t know that at the time.) I was just blown away by this incredible wave of gentleness that was suddenly washing over me. I felt vulnerable and that’s not always appropriate. I was tough because I needed to be and there was room for sex but there was not room for romance.

So I turned away and made it a point not to look at her working on a layout table about a foot and a pine wainscoted and glass wall away. I "heard" her humming softly to herself and remembered my own time in her mountains. Half of me needed and enjoyed it. The other half of me was telling me to focus on the tasks at hand. I was running on about 12 cups of coffee and a pack of Winstons a day and about the only time I had to myself was lunch.

Sacramento City College is situated across Freeport Boulevard from one of the most understatedly beautiful parks I’ve ever been in. Back then, it includes the Sacramento Zoo and a duck and boating pond. Trees all over. An amphitheater, some baseball diamond and tennis courts. I liked to go over to the duck pond, dine on peanut butter and/or baloney sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, and a half pint of milk. I brought old bread for the ducks and we had some interesting conversations. I always ate alone, except for the ducks.

So when noon came, I shoved Kirsten to the back of my mind and made a beeline to the duck pond. I remember that day as particularly Canada goose lonely, with an east wind blowing off her mountains. I’d just found out two of the guys in the band had been reclassified 1A, which meant "first available". We had weekend gigs through New Years. After that, my job was pretty much over and my outfit and way of life scattered to the winds.

Her shadow flickered across me before I actually saw her. She was dressed in a nice Weinstocks car coat with a mock fur collar and I remembered she’s been in a man’s workshirt and levis under that. She had a khaki knapsack that I later learned her grandfather had worn in Belleau Wood and the Argonne. She glanced at me and the only bench available, which was also the one I was sitting on, in the middle, with my own kit spread out on both sides. She arched a delicately feathered eyebrow and I stared back at her, without moving.

I read loneliness in her eyes and half of me wanted to tell her to just truck on because I had enough on my own plate, including a girlfriend with whom I was also having a real interesting time. The wind off her mountains rose a bit and scattered the bag of bread, the waxed paper open with the sandwiches, and the partially consumed bag of potato chips. By the time I recovered what didn’t land in the duck pond, she was comfortably ensconced on one end of the bench, drinking vegetable soup out of a plaid thermos and feeding the ducks from her own bag of stale bread.

Kirsten and I got to be friends after that. It turned out that we lived just a half mile apart so we were together most of the walk home from school we managed to make every late afternoon. It gave us a chance to talk and to get to know one another.

I learned that the war hadn’t left Kirsten untouched. On her right wrist was a bracelet with the name of her high school sweetheart, by then a Marine Missing In Action in Vietnam. She talked about the plans they’d made for him to come back and get a good job in the woods, while she found work in Placerville, the county seat. There was some land they could save for and he’d build the cabin. And together, they’d raise a son who would be, like their father, a football hero, and their daughter, like her mother, good with animals and art.

Kirsten tried to get me to talk about my life but since there wasn’t a lot of good news to report, she didn’t have a lot of luck with that. Instead, I listened to her and her dreams. They were modest and they were wholesome. And they depended on a Marine missing in action.

When grades came out in December, I found out, not to my total surprise, that I’d flunked most of my classes and was no longer eligible for a student deferment. By then, it was a lot colder and it got darker a lot earlier so Kirsten and I met in the cafeteria before starting home. That night, when everybody else was comparing report cards, she read the look on my face and tears gathered in her eyes.

She held my hand when we walked across the street to the bus stop. She hugged me tightly with her face buried in my chest on the ride home. We got off at her stop and I walked her the half mile in the thick tule fog to her sister’s front door. She held me even tighter and before putting the key in the lock turned and faced me.

"Please don’t do this to me, Please don’t leave."

Neither of us had a lot of choice and I did, by enlisting in the Navy and volunteering for Vietnam. The first time I returned to Sacramento, a some two years later, she was living with a hippie musician and sharing his needle. The second time, seven years or so later, she was running a flower shop in a real mellow part of downtown, near Sutters Fort. She said she wasn’t in love with anyone and hadn’t been in a long time. She was just as lovely then as she was the first time I met her. But when I went to cup her cheek and tell her that gently, she withdrew and shook her head.

"Nor do I ever intend to love again. It hurts too much."

It’s been some thirty years now and several other wars. I wonder how many other Kirstens there are out there. I suspect there’s a few.

On Valentine’s Day, I dream of a time when there won’t be quite so many.

WHEN POLITICIANS ACT LIKE QUARRELING CHILDREN

Hi again, folks, from the Bastion on the Sound. In response to several of you who have asked for my reaction to President Obama’s Monday address to the world and press conference following, he continues to live up to my expectations. He’s assuming personal responsibility for the problems he’s having building consensus for the economic stimulus package he’s proposed. He also reminded us that he’s already told us he’ll make mistakes occasionally.

While that thought doesn’t exactly inspire me to bluegrass and The Happy Dance, I appreciate his candor. He’s a human being governing a nation of same and I expect no more or less of him than I do myself or anyone else. He’s got a job to do and I sincerely believe he’s doing the best he can. I’m a little less than impressed with the Republican Party for continuing to play "politics" at a time when the constituency needs THEM to attend to the task at hand, restoring the national economy and contributing to the fiscal healing of the global community. In other words, knock it off and FOCUS.

Closer to home, our own elected officials are moving swiftly. While waiting for our share of the above-cited federal economic recovery package, Washington governor Christine Gregoire is streamlining state government by eliminating more than 150 state boards and commissions and closing 25 Department of Licensing offices. She estimates that the latter measure would save approximately $2.6-million over the next two years. For the full story, click here.

Seattle’s mayor Greg Nickels, apparently taking his lead from Olympia, is working on a capital improvements plan which is expected to create 6,464 jobs and cost an estimated $223,758,774. It covers everything from AMTRAK to low income housing, energy, streets and roads, and the hiring an additional nine officers for the Seattle Police Department. For a breakdown, click here For an overview on what other American cities are doing, click here.

(For those interested in a quick but dynamic overview of what our region, including British Columbia and California are doing, I strong recommend the Sightline Daily. It gathers news from the print media, large and small, and presents it with the lead and a link to the rest of the story. I’m learning a great deal and it’s having a real effect in countering what seems like an overwhelming amount of negative coverage by the other media sources I consult each morning.)

To our north, Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has promised more relief in addition to the $40-billion slated for economic recovery over the next two years. He's proposing this should the global community's fiscal problems continue to impact this nation of 36 million.

Harper, a Conservative, is having some of the same problems with opposition party members of his government that have thus far plagued President Obama and has sent the same message to all concerned. He invited the leader of the Liberals to "do something he never did in the pre-budget period, which is actually provide some economic policy suggestions to Parliament." For more on this, click here.

It appears American elected officials are not the only ones prone to putting party politics before the welfare of the constituencies they were elected to serve. Both our nations, I believe, are fortunate to have chief executives who are not afraid to take a firm but measured hand in insuring the integrity of the true national agenda.

Well, that’s it for this week. Keep the faith, folks. Granted, times are tough now, but as long as we pull together, communicate and continue to love one another, we’ll get through this. Whether you’re American, British, Canadian, French, Irish, or Scots, you live in a nation of heroes. And heroes don’t give up, do they?

SEATTLE SKETCHES - MR. SIMS GOES TO WASHINGTON

Seattle Skyline - photo by MS(R)M

Howdy, rowdies, from sunny Seattle. Nice to be able to say that after all this snow and ice we’ve had this winter. Hope the good weather lasts but Rainier Ralph, the beaver, (we don’t have groundhogs) saw his shadow Monday, so it looks like another six weeks of rain. Unless we get another earthquake like we had last week. Or the Lady Volcano decides to throw a hissy fit. I’ve been polling the locals and either is preferable to more wet stuff falling from the sky.

Which means we’ll probably get 42 straight days of liquid sunshine. Seattle’s like that. It’s built on seven hills in the shadow of a rain forest and enjoys about eight microclimates. The Emerald City has multiple personality disorder and that’s not surprising considering downtown had to be rebuilt on higher ground after the tides kept making the toilets back up. In winter, it’s a great place to live if you’re a duck. Or related to one. Some of us have been here so long, we’ve got webs between our fingers and toes. (Putting my hands in my pockets)

We’re also the fashion capital of the Pacific Northwest, which is to say that after grunge, we sort of slid further into the Land of Laid Back. So many of us are descended from Klondike claim jumpers that we don’t wear ties because it’s too convenient to hang us with them. We prefer Birkenstocks to boots, even in winter, because sandals and wool socks are easier to dry out than Gucci leather and somewhat kinder on the cow. As a general rule, we’re almost as polite as Canadians except when something happens far away that gives us an excuse to yell a lot in support of lofty causes. Once we get it out of our system, we retire to a neighborhood pub to quench our thirst with a politically correct microbrew.

It’s also a good place to be a woman or a minority in politics. Our governor, Christine Gregoire, is the second of her gender to hold that office in 40 years. Our two U.S. Senators are Maria Cantwell and Patti Murray. We’ve got a green mayor, Greg Nickels, who banned bottled water from city offices after piling up a month’s worth of empty plastic bottles on the steps of City Hall to make his point. Ron Sims, a black man, has been our county executive since 1996, when he took over from Gary Locke, who became our first Japanese American governor. Ron’s been appointed deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and will be in charge of HUD's day-to-day operations, a nearly $39 billion annual operating budget and 8,500 employees. He’s squeaky clean so his confirmation by the Senate is not expected to be a problem.

And he’s not likely to be the minor embarrassment Heath and Human Services Secretary nominee Tom Daschle has been over that $120,000 in taxes he said he forgot to pay. I just hope he keeps better track of our money than he did his own. It does bother me a little, though, that this is the second Obama appointee with a bad memory. But I guess if the guy who’s now running the IRS after disclosure of his tax-paying problems can get confirmed, we shouldn’t be too surprised if the individual responsible for the national health policies of America slides into the cabinet as well. I guess that’s why a surgeon never works alone in an operating room. I do wonder how many times we’re going to hear "oops" again though. After eight years of the Great Decider, I don’t imagine the national constituency is going to be quite as patient as they’ve been in times past.

I know I’m not. So good luck, Ron. Don’t let ‘em rub off on you.