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
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
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.
