Calm in the face of pyromaniaphoto by MS(R)M
Hi again and yep, from the ramparts of the Bastion on the Puget Sound, it’s been another interesting week. Where I live is under two alerts now; one for an arsonist sliding into pyromaniac status and the other for the swine flu. This is the U District, so named for the University of Washington, with a student body of approximately 42,000, making this one of Seattle’s more densely populated neighborhoods.
Faced with a choice between the swine flu and someone who likes setting buildings on fire, I would take the former in a country heartbeat. Fire does not turn me on. If it had been left to my ancestors to invent it, we’d be eating our meat sushi style. I don’t even like roasting marshmallows. My feeling is that if the Good Lord had intended them lightly browned, He’d have made them crispy to begin with. So I’ll take mine fresh from the bush, thank you.
I also don’t like fire because I’ve seen what it can do up close and personal. We survived one in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when I was a kid growing up in Northern California. I fought one on a destroyer in the Mekong and then spent some time in an intensive care ward of a hospital ship when helicopter crash victims were coming back from Vietnam proper. Some twenty years later, in southern Oregon’s Umpqua Valley, there were two forest fires the same summer, Bland Mountain and the Angel Complex. And I’ve covered probably another twenty or so as a newspaper reporter and photographer.
What was particularly insidious about these last two incidents here is that they involved setting fire to flammable materials and then semi-blocking the rear exit of two apartment buildings. This arsonist doesn’t just want to see something burn, he wants to hurt people. And he wants to strike fear into the heart of every resident in the District. He wants to distract 42,000 students from the start of a new school year. He wants to deploy emergency services often and at the taxpayer’s expense. He wants the satisfaction of knowing that however small, insignificant, impotent and lacking in courage he himself may be, he is still capable of exercising the power of a piney woods Caligula or another legendary pyromaniac, Nero.
Well, this freak isn’t having it entirely his way. There is no panic in the University District. I happened to be out walking one night when Seattle Fire and other emergency services were called to the scene of one of these and there was no hysteria, no fright. This is a land of earthquakes, volcanoes and weather as chimeric and unpredictable as any the planet has ever known. Northwesterners do not frighten easily. They know what vigilance is like. They know how to take care of one another.
Eventually this fire fetishist will be apprehended, hopefully before his lethal hobby hurts anyone. So far that hasn’t happened but God forbid that it should. Seattle’s justice system will not be inclined to show leniency, compassion or much understanding. These young people ~ some of them veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan ~ are the future of this region. They are, in that sense, children of us all. The surest way to hell in this part of the country is to hurt one of them.
Here’s one that’ll rock your socks a little. Apparently, based on new fossil evidence, scientists have decided that human beings are not related to chimpanzees or any other simians. There is no “missing link”. We cannot blame any of our uncivilized behaviour on a common gene pool. There is no “going ape” or “aping”. We cannot fault the gorilla for our chronic chest beating nor this recurrent sport of mooning on the orangutan. I’m sure, once the word hits the jungle telegraph, that will come as some relief to them as well. It’s time to quit slandering these poor creatures and get on with it.
Well, residents along the northwestern coasts of British Columbia, Canada and Washington State are welcoming back some old friends. One of the most beautiful of all seagoing creatures and one nearly hunted to extinction is off the endangered species list and thriving. We’re talking about the humpback whale and you really need to experience this story firsthand. So please go here.
This week’s “Interesting Application of New Technology Award” goes to the farmer whose cattle were polluting a stream where salmon came to spawn and decided to try an alternative. He installed a small pump in the stream, ran PCP pipe underground and pumped water for his cattle into two big watering troughs. Where did the power to run the pump come from? A single solar cell installed with a fence around it. Now the cows aren’t polluting the stream and the Coho are starting to return in greater numbers. By my reckoning, that’s got to have applications a lot of other places besides Washington State.
Thanks, among other things, to two American Belgian draft horses, a couple in Walla Walla, Washington is proving that thirteen acres is enough to not only sustain a small family but produce a surplus to sell to the local community. It’s totally organic and includes eggs laid by organically raised and fed chickens. Again, another example that is imminently exportable. For more, please go here.
And finally, I have never been to the Colorado Rockies but I have always admired the music of John Denver. For all of that, I have heard rumours of high mountain eccentricities and of the strange relationships between man and beast. Therefore, I was more than a little curious when I came across this story about the rescue of a white llama from the top of Pike’s Peak. It turns out that some hikers had seen it wandering alone, were concerned it might fall victim to a predator and decided to rescue it and relocate it to friendlier territory. My opinion, then, is some revised about people who live in that part of the country.
Well, that’s it for this week, folks. Thanks once again for the ear. Take care, stay well and God Bless.
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.
Ever had trouble getting behind eating a lot of fruits and vegetables despite how good they are for you? Ever had trouble selling that one to your kids and grandkids? Ever been totally sold on the idea then gone to the market and been totally tasered by the price of good health in some places? If your answer is yes to any or all of the above, you really need to check this site out. Fruits and veggies: more matters.
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.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
Media
BBC – Best source for international news
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.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color 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
Faced with a choice between the swine flu and someone who likes setting buildings on fire, I would take the former in a country heartbeat. Fire does not turn me on. If it had been left to my ancestors to invent it, we’d be eating our meat sushi style. I don’t even like roasting marshmallows. My feeling is that if the Good Lord had intended them lightly browned, He’d have made them crispy to begin with. So I’ll take mine fresh from the bush, thank you.
I also don’t like fire because I’ve seen what it can do up close and personal. We survived one in the Sierra Nevada Mountains when I was a kid growing up in Northern California. I fought one on a destroyer in the Mekong and then spent some time in an intensive care ward of a hospital ship when helicopter crash victims were coming back from Vietnam proper. Some twenty years later, in southern Oregon’s Umpqua Valley, there were two forest fires the same summer, Bland Mountain and the Angel Complex. And I’ve covered probably another twenty or so as a newspaper reporter and photographer.
What was particularly insidious about these last two incidents here is that they involved setting fire to flammable materials and then semi-blocking the rear exit of two apartment buildings. This arsonist doesn’t just want to see something burn, he wants to hurt people. And he wants to strike fear into the heart of every resident in the District. He wants to distract 42,000 students from the start of a new school year. He wants to deploy emergency services often and at the taxpayer’s expense. He wants the satisfaction of knowing that however small, insignificant, impotent and lacking in courage he himself may be, he is still capable of exercising the power of a piney woods Caligula or another legendary pyromaniac, Nero.
Well, this freak isn’t having it entirely his way. There is no panic in the University District. I happened to be out walking one night when Seattle Fire and other emergency services were called to the scene of one of these and there was no hysteria, no fright. This is a land of earthquakes, volcanoes and weather as chimeric and unpredictable as any the planet has ever known. Northwesterners do not frighten easily. They know what vigilance is like. They know how to take care of one another.
Eventually this fire fetishist will be apprehended, hopefully before his lethal hobby hurts anyone. So far that hasn’t happened but God forbid that it should. Seattle’s justice system will not be inclined to show leniency, compassion or much understanding. These young people ~ some of them veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan ~ are the future of this region. They are, in that sense, children of us all. The surest way to hell in this part of the country is to hurt one of them.
Here’s one that’ll rock your socks a little. Apparently, based on new fossil evidence, scientists have decided that human beings are not related to chimpanzees or any other simians. There is no “missing link”. We cannot blame any of our uncivilized behaviour on a common gene pool. There is no “going ape” or “aping”. We cannot fault the gorilla for our chronic chest beating nor this recurrent sport of mooning on the orangutan. I’m sure, once the word hits the jungle telegraph, that will come as some relief to them as well. It’s time to quit slandering these poor creatures and get on with it.
Well, residents along the northwestern coasts of British Columbia, Canada and Washington State are welcoming back some old friends. One of the most beautiful of all seagoing creatures and one nearly hunted to extinction is off the endangered species list and thriving. We’re talking about the humpback whale and you really need to experience this story firsthand. So please go here.
This week’s “Interesting Application of New Technology Award” goes to the farmer whose cattle were polluting a stream where salmon came to spawn and decided to try an alternative. He installed a small pump in the stream, ran PCP pipe underground and pumped water for his cattle into two big watering troughs. Where did the power to run the pump come from? A single solar cell installed with a fence around it. Now the cows aren’t polluting the stream and the Coho are starting to return in greater numbers. By my reckoning, that’s got to have applications a lot of other places besides Washington State.
Thanks, among other things, to two American Belgian draft horses, a couple in Walla Walla, Washington is proving that thirteen acres is enough to not only sustain a small family but produce a surplus to sell to the local community. It’s totally organic and includes eggs laid by organically raised and fed chickens. Again, another example that is imminently exportable. For more, please go here.
And finally, I have never been to the Colorado Rockies but I have always admired the music of John Denver. For all of that, I have heard rumours of high mountain eccentricities and of the strange relationships between man and beast. Therefore, I was more than a little curious when I came across this story about the rescue of a white llama from the top of Pike’s Peak. It turns out that some hikers had seen it wandering alone, were concerned it might fall victim to a predator and decided to rescue it and relocate it to friendlier territory. My opinion, then, is some revised about people who live in that part of the country.
Well, that’s it for this week, folks. Thanks once again for the ear. Take care, stay well and God Bless.
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.
Ever had trouble getting behind eating a lot of fruits and vegetables despite how good they are for you? Ever had trouble selling that one to your kids and grandkids? Ever been totally sold on the idea then gone to the market and been totally tasered by the price of good health in some places? If your answer is yes to any or all of the above, you really need to check this site out. Fruits and veggies: more matters.
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.
Know Thy Elected Officials - Just type in your zip code and this site will supply you with the names and contact information for your legislators from the state level up. This is a two click site with a host of other relevant features.
Media
BBC – Best source for international news
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.
Talent For Hire
Rusty Miller, Freelance Photojournalist – Whether it’s a one time press release, book or product review, difficult business correspondence, resume or classified ad composition you need, take a look at the services offered menu on my writer-for-hire homepage and we’ll get together on it.
Are you a travel editor looking for color 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
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