SOUR GRAPES IN THE PUGET SOUND, SHE BEAR CAPTURED IN BREMERTON, MATH REVIVES COMATOSE TEEN

Hi again and yep, from the ramparts of the Bastion on the Puget Sound, it’s been another interesting week. Our congratulations to South Carolina for winning that Boeing 787 Dreamliner assembly plant contract. The Palmetto State, one of the oldest in the Union, has been particularly hard hit by this Recession and those jobs are desperately needed there.

And my apologies for some of us here in Seattle and Everett for forgetting two things; Boeing’s never been stable employment in the Puget Sound and sometimes the Puget Sound forgets that it’s also part of the greater America and that what benefits South Carolina will, if we give it a chance, benefit the rest of the United States, including us.

SWINE FLU

Like everywhere else in the States, we’ve been hit hard by a shortage of the swine flu vaccine. A lot of us with jobs but no sick leave have had to go to work possibly sick with it but with no health insurance. It’s a grim choice for bosses especially if it involves a critical need for emergency services. Sometimes when you’re a Metro bus driver with a route to serve, you drag yourself out and pray to whatever gods you can to get you through it.

It’s the same over most of this city and what we’re learning is to first of all, step back a second and take a deep breath. Stress is the number one killer and root cause of most deaths in America and, I suspect, some elsewhere.

There are “simple” precautions that can be taken and changes in diet and exercise. This is not some weird extraterrestrial microbe that flew into the tucked wings of our last space shuttle. It began here. It’s among us. We can deal with it.

We just may need to shed some unworkable behaviours in the process. And that goes as much for the CEO who won’t pay sick leave to the worker who has no choice but to show up know matter how ill they are simply because they literally cannot afford to be sick. The best all of us can do right now is to try to stay healthy and to take appropriate precautions. Here are our local best sources for getting through this.

CRITTERS

Well, Puget Sound critters are once again in the news. In this case, it was a black bear who decided to visit Bremerton, a small city northwest of Seattle and which is known for its shipyard and its US Navy installations. It’s not apparent what she wanted but she didn’t cause any damage. It was just a little unnerving for the locals so rather than risk some human getting trigger happy or the she bear getting claw quick, State Fish and Wildlife caught the bear.

It’s not apparent from the story what happened to the bear but we called Fish and Wildlife and their public relations person told us it was another catch, transport and release, which is pretty much the way they handle interspecies relations. Most of the time, these animals are only passing through or just curious and leave on their own. When the local community figures they’ve stayed long enough, DFW comes out and all’s well that ends well.

This week we’ve got several more under this one and I love it because this first “critter extra” comes from Western Canada and involves really easily harvested abalone that, as it generally goes, are tasty and somewhat vulnerable to exploitation by the quick grab and run set. The local community, however, is getting a bit riled and if you’d like to know more about how “quiet Canadians” deal with stuff like this in their own backyards, go here.

The next involves a cougar who was spotted on the outskirts of Tacoma, Seattle’s sister city at the southern end of the Sound. It didn’t stay around long enough to make much news.

In an interesting interpretation of American-Canadian critter relationships, it’s also worth noting that American president Barack Obama has decided that polar bears need protection. Considering Alaska and despite his interesting history with that state, he’s addressed a continental concern close to the hearts of Americans and Canadians alike.

A MIRACLE

Thank you to the reader who sent us this “miracle” story from across the Pond. After you read it, you’ll never look at a math education again the same. Seems there was this fifteen year old girl who could not be aroused from a medically-induced coma and despite all efforts, the medical team at Leicester Royal Infirmary prepared the teenager’s family for the worst. Her father wanted to try one last thing. His daughter had a passion for math so he began posing questions for her. Her brain started showing activity and slowly, she surfaced and is now fully conscious. This is a real tearjerker. For a photograph and more detail, please go here.

SELF-SUFFICIENCY

This week’s Self-Sufficiency Award goes to a retired United States Marine Corps officer and his wife who own and work a small farm in the Rogue River country of southern Oregon. Not only do they run a herd of small Nigerian goats for the milk to make cheese, they also raise horses to ride, a steer for beef and most of the other food stuffs one would expect from a typical family operation. What makes this one unique is that it also generates its own electricity and joins a growing number of small farms in Oregon which are not only prospering in the agrarian sense but getting off the grid. For more on this one, please go here.

Well, that’s it for this week, folks. Take care, stay well and thanks once again for the ear.

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

Entertainment

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.

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.

News

The New York Times – Best source of American news.

Reuters – Best in world news and an international perspective on American headlines.

Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “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. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.

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

FROM METEORS TO MINNESOTA SENATORS, AND THOSE WE WILL REMEMBER

To My "Daughter" Judah

Looking north across Seattle's Ship Canal

Self-Portrait

Well, hi again, folks. It’s been kind of a sad past week, hasn’t it, then, eh? Some good people are no longer with us and the reaction worldwide and certainly among this readership strongly suggests that English cleric, essayist, and poet John Donne was right when, in the second paragraph of Meditations XVII, he contended:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Well, I for one was delighted to see that Minnesota finally decided on who their other senator is going to be. My best friend/”kid brother” Denny’s from the Red River Valley so I got to kid him about Jesse Ventura and Al Franken both. NOT one of my better ideas. Why? (Sigh)

I was raised in California? As in Governor Ronald Regan, Senator George Murphy and the present governor, whose last name I don’t even want to try to spell? Point, game and match to the Minnesota farm boy.

The Denster and I have both been in the Pacific Northwest for well over 30 years now, though, and we’re living in a state which has produced two outstanding women governors, two U.S. Senators of considerable integrity, who also happen to be women; and so far, under the present presidential administration, those we’ve sent to ”the other Washington” include a former governor, a King County chief executive and a Seattle Police chief. So we figure it’s all worked out the way it was intended. But maybe that’s just us, eh?

This week’s critter story is a LIT-TLE weird, even for this column and for Seattle. (But not for you yahoos and yahoo-ettes, no offence and just sayin’) Several days back, someone caught a giant squid right from the shore near a boat house pier in West Seattle. What it was doing there, no one’s quite sure. It was returned to the water but, for other reasons upon which we can only speculate, it was later “retrieved” by Fish and Wildlife, who said it was the biggest of its kind seen in the area.

As near as we can figure, considering the “encroachment” of bear and cougar from the landward side of Seattle and the fun Fish and Wildlife has had with them, they’re just not really in the mood to fight containment on two fronts. Totally unreliable and unconfirmed sources report that this squid is going to be reeducated and returned to the Puget Sound to spread the word among its mates to just cool it for awhile until negotiations have been reached with said bears and cougars.

Stranger things happen out here, folks. Trust me on this one. Like the 3.7 earthquake we had on July 1 here that hardly anyone really noticed. We’ve been told by the University of Washington’s seismology lab that this is a wakeup call. But I live four blocks west of that lab and I haven’t noticed anything in the behaviour of my neighbours which suggests we’re the slightest bit worried about it.

But then that’s us. We live with volcanoes, earthquakes, a bit of rain now and then, the odd week-long blizzard, hot summers, weather as schizophrenic as the Seven Faces of Eve, The Boeing Aircraft Company, Microsoft (no offence Melinda and Mr. Gates), and other natural and unnatural phenomenon. We’re also slowly pulling out of this current recession so it’s probably just a matter of priorities. Nature we know. The rest of it, just like everyone else, we’re still studying on some.

I’m also very proud to report that our Canadian cousins are kicking a little slumlord butt in Vancouver. According to the Sun’s Rebecca teBrake, The city now has the ability to take landlords to court to ensure that buildings are kept in a safe condition, and will consider this week whether to use that option in an ongoing battle with the owners of a rundown Dundas Street apartment building.

They’ve been fighting this one hard since 2005 and as far as I’m concerned, even if you’ve no particular fondness for “Canucks,” this is still good city government in action.

Under the heading “recognition long overdue” and this one I love because I hate women driver jokes, on July 4th, President Obama gave the Congressional Gold Medal to a group of World War II veterans most folks have never heard of. They were test pilots of military aircraft; they trained and they ferried all manner of aircraft across the Atlantic when they were needed most.

They were known as WASPs, Women Airforce Service Pilots and according to the National Public Radio story:

“Even though they wore uniforms and worked on bases, they were never considered members of the military. Their contribution to the war effort was so controversial, in fact, that all records pertaining to their service were sealed and deemed classified in 1944. That pretty much consigned the WASP to the dustbin of history for decades.”

Theirs is an incredible story and one more chapter in the history of women who have been serving valiantly in battle on this planet for at least the last 4,000 years. It’s nice to see America getting up to speed on that one. No offence intended, Mr. Obama. And I assume none taken, Mr. President.

I’d also personally like to thank President Obama for going to Russia and getting the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks going again. Ever since Seattle went digital tv, I’ve been able to relax with “vintage” (notice the wince?) movies and I watched Meteor this weekend. Sean Connery alert here folks.

It’s nice to see our two countries getting together BEFORE the cosmic “big one”. And remember Brian Keith? He played the Russian scientist involved in helping save the world. Say whatever you want about Hollywood, there’s no denying creative casting when it slaps you on the butt. Yep, I digress.

And on a final and hopefully encouraging and empowering note, we’ve taken a look at some economic forecasts and the news is guardedly optimistic. We just could be pulling out of this current economic downturn as early as this year. Check this out and judge for yourselves. It’s headlined:

Is The Worst Of It Over? Most Economists Say Yes

It’s been an admittedly tough week and there’s no getting around that, is there? I mean really? But then again now ~ and across the four nations this blog reaches ~ we’re tough folks when the times require and this too will pass, right? Until next week then, take care, stay well and God Bless. And thanks for the ear. (and stuff)

Rusty aka Mick McGuire


NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS

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 an ultimate celebration.

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

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.

Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The United Press International/BBC/CBC/Reuters of the American Northwest. Delivered by email to subscribers and available on their web site, they offer 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. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition. And they’re growing.

If you folks have any to recommend, send them to us and we’ll check them out.
minstrel312@aol.com

Rusty