NATION SAYS FAREWELL TO THE LAST OF THE KENNEDY BROTHERS AND TELLS FIRST LADY SHE CAN WEAR SHORTS ON HOLIDAY

SEATTLE

A skyline a good mayor helped to sculpt

Photo by MS(R)M

Hi again, folks. Well, this house joins the nation in mourning the passing of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy (D) MA. His passing marks the end of what many considered a political dynasty; others, an almost Shakespearean royal family rocked by assassination, scandal, a bit of Prince Machiavelli and more than a hint of Camelot.

In praising the youngest Kennedy brother’s contributions during nearly 50 years in Congress, Sen. Orrin Hatch, (R) Utah cited a list which included a federally funded program for HIV/AIDS victims; health insurance for lower-income children, and tax breaks to fund medical research and development for rare diseases.

"Ted Kennedy was an iconic, larger than life United States Senator whose influence cannot be overstated."

Senator Kennedy, whose sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver passed away last week, was 77 and succumbed to a malignant brain tumor. For a look at the life and times of this remarkable ~ if not often controversial ~ American, please go here.

I was so relieved last week to note that, according to a Today Show poll, 83 percent of those responding approve of the First Lady wearing shorts. The news was greeted by a flood of congratulations to Michelle from a host of world leaders, including those in Ottawa, Dublin, London, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Teheran and Austin, Texas. Many also said that it’s motivated them to take us, the American people, much more seriously for having decided that raging issue so decisively and in such relatively short order.

And without special interest groups. Or lobbyists, unions, picket lines, boycotts, protest marches, media blitzes and talk show barrages. We took a look, as a people, at the serious issues facing us and decided that this one must be dealt with swiftly, efficiently, and in no uncertain terms. We decided that a young woman who looks cool in shorts should be allowed to wear them on holiday. In public. And best of all, we did it together.

Well, here’s one that might have totally slipped under the Weird Radar, if nothing else but for the headline alone. Who needs gasoline if you have old beer? I mean what are we talking about, a garage full of partial empties and six packs with a couple cans we overlooked during the last orgy? This is Seattle. They don’t let you live like that here. It sets a bad example and encourages the wrong kind of people to come here.

But this comes from the Los Angeles Times so I took a look and what they’re talking about is this $10,000 machine that can take any organic waste and convert it to ethanol. It’s apparently just breaking the market and one of the investors in the system’s distributor is former L.A. Laker Shaquille O'Neal. It’s called the MicroFueler and you can visit their website here

The “Classiest Act in Politics” goes this week to Seattle two-term mayor Greg Nickels who finished third in this month’s primary and whose concession speech and press conference were totally lacking in rancor, recrimination or the least bit of ill humor. Greg’s served Seattle well for almost eight years and in citing what he felt were the contributions of his administration, he did not use the first person singular, nor did he limit those achievements to the political sector. It was about what “we” as the citizens of Seattle accomplished together. I hope his successor has Greg’s instinctive understanding of government’s role, as least as we’ve defined it here in our town.

Well, two critter stories this week and the first one is NOT fuzzy. But for anyone who loves watching what they keep discovering in the ocean, this one’s a trip. And again, you have GOT to love whoever writes the headlines. This one’s from the Portland Oregonian, my alma mater, and it’s slugged (newspaper talk for “titled”) “Flamboyant, deep-sea worms discovered off Oregon's coast”.

Okay, the fact that it creeps me out a little to think of someone getting to know a new species of deep sea worm discovered by watching the monitor of a remote controlled submarine 9,000 – 11,000 feet off the coast of Oregon well enough to ascribe personality traits to it, I do have to admire the spirit of discovery.

But a part of me is going to be watching this one real closely. We have tamed stranger species only to end up in the belly of the tiger, as it were. My general rule is that if I can’t meet these folks on their own turf or they on mine, it’s like give my best to the wife and family and have a good life. I do not box with bears, croon with cougars, dive with dolphins, fly with eagles, romp with Republicans or dance with wolves. They’re not that desperate for company and neither, quite yet, am I. Flamboyant worms. Yeah, that’s an image to cuddle up with.

Apparently Montana’s decided that collisions between 18-wheelers and grizzly bear, elk, deer, etc. along a 56 mile stretch of highway crossing a very popular migration path can be resolved on the side of interspecies cooperation rather than an apology for big road kill.

Not to mention what happens in a collision between the average grizzly and the occupants of these cute little phone booths on wheels insidious foreign nations have been covertly introducing into this country for some while now.

So human Montanans are building like 43 of these big wildlife crossing tunnels UNDER the highway. There’s some inspirational civil engineering and design going into these. The entire project is slated to be finished before this year’s first snows so if you’d like to see what this one looks like in development, here’s the site.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. We’re making it through this and it’s only a matter of applying what we’re learning now and hanging in just a bit longer. And we’re tough and we can do that, right?

Thanks once again for the ear. Take care, stay well and God Bless. We here at Northstar are honoured by your society.

Rusty

NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS

To Your Health

If you’d like to know whether your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.

Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.

Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.

Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.

Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.

Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.

U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.

The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.

Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.

Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist -- Yep, a little self-promotion here to help pay for the blog. Take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and samples of my digital lens work on my photography website. If you see something you like, email me and we’ll get together on it.

Are you a travel editor looking for colour shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.

If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.

LETTER TO A SOLDIER; HANG IN THERE SUU KYI AND NEW CROPDUST CIRCLES IN EASTERN WASHINGTON STATE

Ralph, a neighbour. Photos by MS(R)M

With thanks again to Siobhan

Hi again, folks. Nice to see you and I hope all has been well in your house. There’s been some interesting things going on in the world of Northstar and I’ll certainly get to them in a moment. But because this is a reader-interactive column, what needs to come first is a letter from one of you about a young American soldier who is going to war.

Hey Mick,

How are you? I enjoyed all your articles. I have been busy with a friend who's son is going to War. He has a son (just a babe) and a wife and is 26. He is going to be a foot soldier in the Infantry. First Tour of Duty. Family is proud of him and what he has accomplished, but, Mom is sick with worry as well as his wife. We are all praying for this war to end and bring our troops home.

Seem's like we have been in war forever through out the ages and it doesn't get any easier does it? Only new technology. When we mention to other vet's re: a foot soldier their response is (oh not good) under their breath. And this is very unsettling. Since you were in the war in the 60"s I thought maybe you could write an article for all those who are new to this world of war. And for the mother's family of those just getting started on their journey.
Thank you for listening and again a fan of your writing.

Your friend,

Lara,
dragonflychild4@aol.com
North Carolina

Lara, between your letter and my response? There is no way to sanitize war. Despite the fact that this soldier has had the finest combat training in the world, there is no way to truly EMOTIONALLY prepare for battle, no more than there is for life in general because each person experiences it differently. I know this from my own experiences and the experiences of others.

The battlefield does not judge. It executes the judgments of others and it does not discriminate between the noble and the base, the brave or the timid, the honest or the immoral. A battlefield has no conscience, no compassion, so sense of justice. It is a place where people are killed and the last discrimination it does not make is between military and civilian.

This is the baseline reality of war and as much as I wish there was a way to soften that, I cannot because it only makes reality harder to face up the road.

It sounds like this soldier has a good family who will support him while he's there. I would urge his mother not to worry so much as to simply plan out the next few months and be in contact with him as time and circumstance allow.

This young man also has the backing of his nation. Even those who do not agree with any of the wars still support the Americans sent to fight them. Morale is a critical factor in any war and in these regards, this generation of American warriors is far better off than some past generations have been. Yes, to have the love of family and nation often does make heroes and survivors of every son and daughter who serves.

I would counsel the family of this soldier to put their son's life in the hands of God now and to continue to live as though he was coming home at the end of his tour. Statistically, he has a much better chance of making it than he does not. That's not a guarantee but it is realistic. How free are we to truly love someone if all we can see and feel is the tragedy of a loss that may not, in fact, occur? Is it not better to mourn when mourning is appropriate?

And until then to celebrate each moment, each day that is to be shared?

Mick
aka Rusty

Okay, take a second with that. I sure did. Maybe a couple more seconds because this next one involves an American veteran who swam across a lake in Rangoon and ended up getting the already house-arrested Burmese opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate and her housekeeper five more years in prison. They let him stay there two days and he got caught swimming back.

What really just pops the flipping lid off this particular jar of briny pickles is that this yo-yo would still be in prison had it not been for the intervention of one of the most respected men in this country, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), who, for all his military, journalist, legal and legislative credentials and influence could not get Suu Kyi or her housekeeper released.

I respected Jim Webb when we served in some of the same theatres of operation and I respect him now. This American veteran was not a soldier and he had no business being over there in the first place. The idiot tried the same thing the year before.

Meanwhile, here’s the Asia living Statue of Liberty who has been under house arrest for the last fourteen years and is not in the best of health but whose stand earned her the Nobel Peace Prize, frail in health, and facing five years in prison.

To me, it’s not a matter of leaving no one behind. Someone got left behind and she was far more a soldier than this rescued American was. What got left behind? WHO got left behind? A frail, softspoken symbol of Burmese freedom got left behind. I’m hoping Captain Webb’s not quite done with this yet. I wouldn’t be.

Well, under critter stories this week, we’ve got a couple of them which strongly suggest that humans are NOT at the top of the evolutionary ladder, but a rather loose and precarious rung in it.

Bobcats have joined black bears and cougar in wandering Seattle’s suburbs as if they owned the place. Local residents are not real thrilled with this newest wave of immigration but appeals to State Fish and Game are to no avail because the bobcat is not classified the same way cougars and black bear are.

The bobcat is considered a nuisance, which means, “deal with them but don’t kill ‘em.” And because there are also rabbits, squirrels and a host of other natural prey in the area, these small wild cats are not going after pets or small children. As Darwin has suggested, survival is not about the strongest but the most adaptable. Yep, I’m leaving that one just hanging there.

This other one involves a Canadian couple on vacation and a squirrel popping up in a photo these humans had taken with a self-timer. There seems to be some controversy about whether this photo was enhanced and my experience tells me it probably wasn’t. I got mugged by an American/Seattle squirrel several years ago while taking lunch at the Convention Center, where I was also working at the time.

It wanted my peanut butter sandwich and I was so stunned and yet somehow refreshed by the straight forward and unvarnished single mindedness of purpose of this creature that I did not put up much resistance.

I did not, however, eat lunch in the same place again. Until I figure out where that squirrel’s going with this, I’m not feeding it. Human being of some 6’3 and 170 versus a creature about six inches long and maybe three pounds. The squirrel took the round and probably the match.

And what’s really weird is that I am really okay with that. Just like I am having bald eagles, black bear, bobcats, cougars, raccoons, Republicans, rich folks, two mountain ranges and three volcanoes for neighbours.

Speaking of which and NOT something I need to be reminded of daily, the Cascade Volcano Observatory is getting $2.4-million in federal funding to upgrade its monitoring system. We’re being told that this is just to provide us earlier warning in the event of an eruption, not necessarily that one is anticipated. Yet in this same story is a reminder that Mount St. Helens still rumbles to life occasionally. And get this. Washington’s not the only state getting this kind of money.

According to the KING 5 story, “There is also $7.56 million for the Alaska Volcano Observatory, $3.3 million for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, $950,000 for Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, $800,000 for upgrading networks in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, and $200,000 for the Long Valley Observatory in California."

Yep, you can run like a hyper-caffeinated hamster in an exercise wheel but you can’t hide. If there’s a volcano with your name on it, right? Sometimes you really pay a lot for the good view up here.

Well, this last one sort of redefines “weird” to me but there’s a possibility than extraterrestrials may be vacationing in a tiny wheat farming community 65 miles west of Spokane, Washington. Last week, five new rings and a circle were found impressed into a wheat field out there and this is the second time ~ not the same field ~ that this has happened in as many years.

So, a lot of people from University of Washington scientists to folks wearing tinfoil hats to at least one naked dancing troup have been flocking to Wilbur again, spending their money and going home. This despite the fact that some crop circles have been proven hoaxes in the past. It’s got to be real entertainment for this village of some 900. It’s also a good weekend vacation getaway from most of the Northwest what with the oscillating cost of gasoline and limited discretionary funds.

Are we making the trip “east of the mountains”? Ummm, nope. Something tells me UFOs really are visiting Wilbur, Washington. I’m not so sure some of them aren’t staying. I know my luck. I’d meet one of them.

And I honestly can’t imagine what I’d say to someone in a John Deere t-shirt, denim jeans with a butt crack and an accent somewhere between Spokane and Sirius the dog star. Wilbur is not Disneyland and if it worth traveling 8.6 light years to visit, I shudder to think about how amusing life must be on the home planet.

Until next week, folks, take care, stay well and God Bless. And thanks once again for the ear.

Mick
Aka Rusty

NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS

To Your Health
If you’d like to know how your eating habits are either adding years to your life or taking them off, take this RealAge quiz. It will not only score your real age against your health age but give you a program for improvement. I’ve been working this one for about a month now and yep, I feel a lot better.

Want to know how to live to be 100? Try this one.

Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.

Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.

Ask Barbie, Advice Columnist. -- a blog that delivers the amiable maternalism of Ms. Landers, the slightly off-centre humour of Erma Bombeck and the ingenuousness of an unreconstructed romantic with no axes to grind.

Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.

Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.

U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.

The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.

Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.

Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist -- Yep, a little self-promotion here to help pay for the blog. Take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and samples of my digital lens work on my photography website. If you see something you like, email me and we’ll get together on it.

Are you a travel editor looking for colour shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale.

COMING ATTRACTIONS

In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.

If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.

GOODBYE, EUNICE, WE WILL MISS YOU; HILLARY, PLEASE CHILL & THREE NEW CRITTER STORIES

The ATNMBL isn't just "green;" it's intelligent.

Well, hi again, folks. We note with both pride and a profound sense of loss, the passing of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics and the younger of the two sisters of Joe, Jr., John, Robert and Ted Kennedy.

She was a feminist long before it was acceptable and the influence she wielded among her brothers was totally in keeping with her intelligence, her compassion, her passion for justice, and her political savvy. It was said that even the Machiavellian Kennedy patriarch, Joe, Sr., considered her a force to be reckoned with.

Her marriage to Sargent Shriver, founder of the Peace Corps., produced a daughter who in many ways embodies what Eunice was and what she sought to bring to the world. After a very successful career as a television journalist, Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger went on to support her Republican husband in his bid for the governorship of California. Eunice, a lifelong Democrat, was right there for both of them, demonstrating perhaps that at least for the Irish, blood is thicker than even politics.

And we certainly hope that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is feeling better now than she did Monday, when at a town hall meeting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, she fielded that question about her husband or President Obama, depending on which of several versions of this incident one accepts, by pulling off her translation head phone and snapping, "I will you tell you my opinion, I'm not going to channel my husband."

Understood, Madam Secretary, and good call. But the context begs some. This was an African student and a translator, both from a dominantly male culture, and I don’t think it was WHAT you said that made the press, but rather how you said it. I’m sure by now you’ve had some cause to pause on the difference between those who disagree with you and those who are simply trying to understand you.

That would certainly be in character with the Hillary Clinton I feel I know and whom I am profoundly honoured to have representing America. I don’t think about Bill when I watch you moving out on that international stage. And in my heart of hearts, I don’t think most of us do.

So with all due respect, Lass? Could you just chill a little in this regard? We need you too much for you to be worried about something as inconsequential as your husband having the license to be a good EX-president.

Hillary, I don’t know if you remember during your presidential campaign, one night you were in Minneapolis and at a sports bar when a wee small darkhaired woman with a brogue as thick as green butter introduced herself and said that she was sorry that you were wasting a handshake on someone who couldn’t legally vote for you because she’s not from this country. From her account, your eyes twinkled and you smiled.

“Siobhan, you may not be able to vote for me yourself, but you certainly know people who can.”

In my humble opinion, Madam Secretary, it was a good call then and it’s still a good call. We know the difference between Hillary and Bill. For the sake of this country and some for the world, I hope you’ve really figured it out too.

Well, this is where the critter news gets to happen and there’s more than one this time. And it sure looks to us like they’re taking over the ‘hood as it were and in some ironic places.

Check out this mouse who made a nest of twenty-dollar bills in an ATM machine in a rural town in Oregon. There are lots of places waaaay too tempting to go with that one and I’m sure that no matter how many of them I might go, they won’t nearly do justice to the readership. So have fun with this one, yahoos and yahoo-ettes.

And as if some non-nature types didn’t have enough to worry about with Seattle’s suburbs acclimating to bear and mountain lion, now the bobcats are moving back home.

And this last one (for this week) that I truly love because it’s happening not too far from a place I’ve lived and also because it’s another Canadian point of entry, is that apparently owls are attacking joggers on the Anacortes Community Forest Lands, a site set aside for them and other species in the first place.

What’s weird is that apparently these attacks have been going on from Vashon Island, in the heart of Seattle’s Elliott Bay, to Vancouver, BC, over the last ten years. And now they’re on the increase. And there doesn’t seem to be any scientific explanation for it.

I can think of one line of critter reasoning that MIGHT explain it. “It wasn’t your land to take away from us in the first place. Thanks for correcting for course. Now please stop running through our living room.”

It’s also not lost on me that these attacks are occurring during daylight hours and owls are nocturnal. I guess I’d be kind of grouchy if my sleep was disturbed by a bunch of owls flapping around in my house in the middle of the night. I’m not real happy when Ralph the Raccoon shows up at three a.m. with some buddies in a party mood.

But this is, after all, the Puget Sound, where earthquakes, volcanoes, Boeing, Microsoft, rain and hot summers are just another day in the life of, along with the critter invasion and eight different microclimates within the city limits. There’s something to be said for a place where all you’ve got to do to escape the hottest day on record is to go for a short walk and then go swimming. And nude if you want to. (Judah, please do not EVEN go there with this, “If you don’t put a bathing suit on your pets and stuff.” Understood, Lass)

And for the technologically enthusiastic among us, here’s an electric car that thinks for itself? Admittedly, it’s not built for speed but for surviving gridlock which is to say this little pup will, according the ABC New Technology and Science reporters Ki Mae Heussner, Liam Berkowitz and Dean Praetorius, “not only help navigate through traffic, but will also let passengers surf the Internet from the road.”

Why do I have a problem with this vision of all these people cell phoning, twittering, doing family stuff, running a home business and making all the decisions that are made online from a STATIONARY position, being made on a freeway in a rainstorm with several thousand other people depending on a car and a computer not to crash into one another? Good luck with that one. If I need to do that, someone else drives. Smiling. For more on this one, check out their homepage.

And under a final economic note and with special significance to America’s relationship with her neighbour to the (true) north, Canada just signed a deal with Boeing for 15 Chinook helicopters and at a price tag of $1.5 billion.

Despite the fact that this deal won’t produce any jobs here in the Puget Sound, it does strongly suggest to me that economic recovery is not just about one’s home. These jobs are going to the Rust Belt and maybe it’s just me, but I figure that what helps one American find work during these hard times helps all of us over the long haul.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Just FYI, this blog now reaches some 400 of you, by mailing list, in the States, Canada, the UK and France. Your emails, your IMs, the links and photos you send, it’s an impressive interaction for an enterprise as modest as ours. Perhaps even more impressive is the spirit you’re demonstrating.

You’re showing pretty good out there, folks, and we here at Northstar are honoured by your society. I wish I’d had a few more of you on a couple of teams in a long ago war. A few more of us would have made it back and in better shape. Thank you for being here now, for us and for one another.

Thanks again for the ear then. Take care, stay well and God Bless. Until next week, have a good one and keep the faith.

Rusty


FROM YOU GUYS:

Hi Rusty,
There are a few things you have to know about goats. These are the following;
1. They eat all day and they poop all day and very non selective. The will eat you if you let them.
their poop is circular and spreads like raisins dropped by a helicopter. It is a vegetarian poop so it does not stink much. lol
2. If you wear a green skirt you better run. It is a skirt chaser, lol
3. It has horns for a reason so don’t even stop them from grass munching.
4. If you imitate the sound of a baby goat you will give new meaning to Mother and baby goat opera.
5. If you have decided you have enough of goats...you can eat them but cooking
might take awhile and the meat does not smell like beef. lol
6. Finally, if you decided to pass the experience to a friend, goats usually just have one or two or three goats at a time. If you really love your friends see goat virtues above. lol
Maya (MRUHlOl3@aol.com)

Maya, I imagine Judah’s reading this even as we speak. Do I expect it to deter her in these regards? Ummmmm, nope. As a kid, she used to leap over dollhouses and race electric trains. IF she decides to get the goats, she’ll have them all over Las Vegas within a year and within a year after that, she’ll have one on the City Seal. She is nothing if not ambitious. Rusty

NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS

Other Blogs
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.

Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.

Ask Barbie, Advice Columnist. -- a blog that delivers the amiable maternalism of Ms. Landers, the slightly off-centre humour of Erma Bombeck and the ingenuousness of an unreconstructed romantic with no axes to grind.

Media
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment, and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.

Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from those sources. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.

U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.

The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.

Online Tools for the Kit
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.

Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist -- Yep, a little self-promotion here to help pay for the blog. Take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and samples of my digital lens work on my photography website. If you see something you like, email me and we’ll get together on it.

Are you a travel editor looking for colour shots of Seattle? Are you an art dealer looking for new work to carry on consignment? You might enjoy checking out a gallery of my work for sale.


COMING ATTRACTIONS

In the weeks to come, we’re going to create ~ in addition to Northstar Recommends ~ a Northstar General Store in which you, the readers, will have an opportunity to market your own goods and services and, as well, to shop here. We’re going to get real creative with this and whenever possible, we’ll have tried what we’re carrying on the shelves, as it were. We’ll be taking a straight ten percent for this, via Paypal. We’ll also consider barter and trade.

If you’ve got any recommendations of your own and are interested in the General Store, email me and we’ll talk.

AMERICAN JOURNALISTS RELEASED, BRITISH COLUMBIA IS ON FIRE AND A LADY LOGGERHEAD TURTLE CAPTURES THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF A NATION

Beating the heat on Lake Washington during the hottest day in Seattle history, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

Clockwise: bathers beating the heat on a public swimming pier near the University of Washington;

a swimmer, his board in the background, treads water and watches the boat traffic;

looking across Lake Washington at Kirkland as these two coeds paddle a UW canoe. The University rents these and other watercraft for $8.50 an hour.

All photos by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller

Well, hi again, folks and how totally cool is it that those two Asian American lady journalists were released and are now home safe in the arms of their families? I see Oscar-winning movie written all over this. Quite a few of us here in the Bastion on the Sound were tuned in this morning and there was not a dry eye in the house. Including Patti the Palm Tree-ette, who normally considers anything that isn’t reality television right up there with feel good nature flicks and watching bird eggs hatch. (yawn)

And now I can put my framed letter from Bill Clinton back on the wall. It went into deep storage after him and Monica did that incredibly weird danse in the White House when he was president. Father Murphy had a garage sale for the church and I got this real nice metallic toned and gold framed portrait of Mother Mary to replace it with.

I put things on the wall that inspire me and I admired Bill Clinton for a long time. He was a good personal example and I promoted him as a role model. But after Monica, I lost all respect for him as a person and as a man. I’m sorry, but women are just not treated the way he treated Hillary, not in my house anyway. The shame he brought to that woman would have killed any human being of lesser character and integrity. In my family, Bill Clinton would be singing soprano. And walking funny.

But right now, this nation of ours, this United States of America, needs every talented international negotiator it can find or seduce away from an infinitely saner way of life. Bill Clinton happens to be brilliant at this.

So his letter goes back on the wall and Mother Mary goes back in the cedar closet, along with a devout prayer that this boyish, barefoot and backwoods Arkansas heathen can again represent this country without unzipping his pants and asking the world to salute a second flag. As an appetite suppressant, that image works just a little too well.

But am I ever again going to trust him again after the Lewinsky affair? I’m Canadian, not stupid. If anybody’s picture ought to be on the wall, it should be that of Saint Hillary, patron saint of geniuses, fools and those who would be king.

Now, moving right along here, thanks for all the mail concerning the heat wave up here and especially the several of you who have asked us to thank the individual who presented the case for the wives and families of working stiffs not able to do that right now. The word’s been passed along and it’s making a difference. Thank you for caring.

And while the heat wave may be over on the lands surveyed from a turret of the Bastion on the Sound, smoke darkens the skies over British Columbia, and because I have blood in the Okanagan, I have seen BC burning before. I have fought forest fires and I know what the woods are like when they are “engulfed.” I know far too much about what fire can do. Far too much.

That vast and sparkling lake where I discovered first love and LaBatts and which reflects the quiet and gentle majesty of this yet pure and pristine patch of Gaia mirrors now a presage to a hell that has visited too many too often in recent years.

It also saddened me to learn that Canada lost two more soldiers in Afghanistan this weekend. To especially America perhaps, the numbers are not worth the mourning. However, these numbers are also relative. Canada has about a tenth the population and a considerably greater land mass, most of it largely unsettled. Canada doesn’t just stretch from “sea to shining sea,” she ambles from the Pacific to the Atlantic with all the grace of a country lass in a Paris original. And because she’s so cute doing it, the rest of the world is not mad at her, if they notice her at all.

Canadians are also the children of John Donne and what matters to a fisherman’s family in Halifax; a cobbler’s family in old Quebec; a forester’s family in northern Ontario; a seal hunter’s family in Nunavut; a farm family in the Prairies; a ski patrol family in the Northern Rockies; or a university professor’s family in Victoria, matters to all of us.

We are a small family separated by time and distance. That does not stop us from lighting a candle for Kelowa, from Sooke to Halifax and well beyond the Banks. We are a simple people and wherever there is a Canadian, the woods of Kelowna are on fire this night. And our sons are still dying in Afghanistan.

Well, this week’s critter story comes to us from clear across the Pacific, in Japan and it’s about this lady loggerhead turtle named Yu Chan. She got tangled up in some fishing nets and when she was brought aboard one of the vessels affecting rescue, it was discovered that she had significant portions of two flippers chewed off, apparently by sharks.

The fishermen took her to the Sea Turtle Association of Japan (no, I am NOT making this up). The STAJ has a saltwater pond near Kobe and that’s where Yu Chan’s been staying while ~ and get this ~ she’s being fitted for prosthetic plastic flippers. No, I have NOT been drinking.

The citizens of Kobe have adopted Yu Chan and apparently she’s captured the hearts and minds of the rest of the country as well. Leading plastics engineers and designers, marine biologists, turtle experts, even ordinary citizens. For more on this and some really cool pictures, then, go here.

Well, here’s an example of what can sneak over your back fence and bite you on the butt during a neighborhood barbecue. I’m having the draw bridge of the Bastion inspected, the moat drained, the polar gators given their annual physicals and a couple of sentries doing extra duty just to make sure nobody gets the idea that I’m going to put up with stuff like this escaping my attention. This is like letting a termite into a toothpick factory.

A Seattle company has developed this small, self-contained video camera that can be mounted on a bike or construction helmet so the world can get a real good view of what the wearer’s seeing and hearing. Their CEO is quoted as saying,

“The whole premise is to make it really simple for a guy that skis or snowboards or mountain bikes to shoot and share video," said Barros. "We have different mounts. So you wear it on handlebars, or goggles, your backpack. Make it really simple to record."

Yeah and real easy to hide and take instantly Twitterable and MySpace available video and sound. In settings like emergency rooms, scenes of violence or natural disasters in progress, as an online classroom to retrain dislocated workers, on the decks of ships at sea and commercial airliners, I can absolutely see these and others.

What I don not want to see is some idiot with a big gun and a bigger axe to grind ramping up a robbery because of the instantaneous real time coverage it will have. I don’t want to see some kid from the Kansas National Guard being tortured to death in front of his family and the global community. I don’t want to watch the rape of a child.

I don’t want to see it become the technology of the demented or the demonic. I would no more give a video cam that small and that portable to a Charles Manson, a Ted Bundy, an Adolph Eichman or you average chatroom misanthrope, msangynist or misogynist than I would put a cat in a cage with a canary I loved.

So I hope some thought is being given to the control of who gets to play with this new toy. For all its potential for good, in some ways it is worse than a loaded gun in very shaky hands. The camera does not fire the bullet but it can pull many triggers.

Finally, this week’s Outstanding Leadership in Government must necessarily go to San Francisco Mayor Gary Newsom who, last Wednesday, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “issued an executive directive he hopes will dramatically change how San Franciscans eat.”

He’s essentially banning junk food on any City property, including government buildings, schools jails and hospitals. He’s ordered vendors to supply healthy and, whenever possible, locally produced alternatives. He’s also called for an audit of every piece of city property, including vacant lots, roof tops and median strips which could be turned into community gardens which could be worked by city residents and the produce sold by them, as well. Way to go, Mayor Gary.

And the cool thing about it is that nobody in the City by the Bay is going to accuse him of being some kind of Closet Vegan Pure Food and Drug Administration NAZI storm trooper who is secretly preparing to fertilize the streets of his beloved metropolis with the soylent green of the unbelievers and those who would prefer a Big Mac in Hell to a tofu burger in the Heavenly Hereafter.

Everybody who wants junk food will simply move out to the distant suburbs, like Sacramento, Bakersfield and Van Nuys. Californians are accustomed to long commutes so this won’t be the hardship it would be for normal people.

And this just in. Hundreds of tiny animal tracks have been discovered in rural Utah in Dinosaur National Park, which I guess is where prehistoric creatures went on vacation or just hung out. Paleontologists on the scene date what they call these “rat like” tracks about 190 million years ago and said it looked like several of these were dragging a scorpion along with them. Now they’re looking around for tiny skeletons to match those tracks.

Yep, you’re way ahead of me. It takes a rare strain of human being to live in a land with a big lake so salty only brine shrimp can handle it; that is mostly nothing but desert, bad mountains and prairie that is subject to periodic infestations of locusts (grasshoppers, Judah) of Biblical proportions.

Such a creature does not evolve over night. Those little tracks are not from rodents. They are from tiny human beings who went barefoot and weren’t much into pedicures. They’re the original Utah natives. There’s no other accounting for it. Rats cannot survive in places the average Salt Lake City citizen goes to cool off. You won’t see any other creature in the world in Utah other than a human being taking a dune buggy out into the desert. No other species on the planet is that masochistic or technologically evolved.

And on that note, gentle readers, until next week, take care, stay well and thanks once again for the ear.

Rusty

NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS

OTHER BLOGS
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.

Lords and Ladies of Leisure is sooooo misnamed and it’s an example of the humour with which a Seattle high tech victim deals with the wonderful world of unemployment. Kerri Marshall’s admittedly offbeat sense of humour spices up a blog also rich in practical advice. The comments from her readers are almost as entertaining of she is. If you’ve got a few minutes and want a little perspective on your own hard times, I highly recommend this one.

Ask Barbie, Advice Columnist. -- a blog that delivers the amiable maternalism of Ms. Landers, the slightly off-centre humour of Erma Bombeck and the ingenuousness of an unreconstructed romantic with no axes to grind.

MEDIA
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.

Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. Its editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.

U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.

The Vancouver Sun, outstanding source for Canadian and world news.

ONLINE TOOLS FOR THE KIT
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.