A Medal of Honor winner’s greatest battle lies ahead

Hi again from the Bastion on the Puget Sound. I had the opportunity to watch a television interview with United States Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta after President Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor for heroism displayed during a night fire fight in Afghanistan three years ago.

I was struck by the total ingenuous of this professional soldier and his wife. The sergeant does not consider himself exceptional and it is very likely that he is correct. He was not saying that he is not a good soldier but rather that they all are. It is very likely he is correct about this too. He also claims that what he did was not extraordinary but rather what he and others like him are trained to do and ~ perhaps most importantly ~ do every night and every day not only in Afghanistan and Iraq but wherever American men and women under arms engage the enemy.

I admire Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta for insisting that he is an ordinary American soldier, for he infers that such courage is commonplace and it is. It is also why the suicide, domestic violence, and adrenaline-junkie behavior rates are skyrocketing among returning veterans.

It takes running into a hail of bullets to keep a fallen comrade from being captured to win these wars. It takes watching buddies blow up or perhaps worse, being blown up but not killed to win these wars. It takes knowing that darker side and that My Lai Massacres did not begin or end in another generation’s war.

And this generation of American soldiers goes back time after time after time. There is a limit to what the mind can take and recover. I think there must be a limit to what can be expected of these young men and women. I know two who served in the Persian Gulf War in Operation Desert Storm.

They did not believe in war, no more than I suspect many do now. They believed in answering their country’s call, in paying America back for providing them a relatively safe and nourishing place in which to grow to young adulthood. They chose the military as their way of doing that.

Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta is doing his best now to make sure that at least the American public understands that he represents all of them. I do not envy him the spotlight. I have memories of my own and I do not enjoy recounting them because they are not pleasant ones.

I hope we listen to Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta and I hope we believe what he is saying to us. This may be the bravest battle any soldier has ever chosen to fight. If he is successful, he may have just given peace one more chance and our soldiers in arms can come home and serve their nation in ways which do not destroy their souls in the process.

IN OTHER NEWS

We applaud Pope Benedict XVI for sanctioning the use of contraceptives to present the spread of AIDS. While in no way condoning their general use, his statement is considered a major reversal for the chief cleric, who on a tour of Africa last year, said condom fidelity and abstinence prevented the spread of AIDS, not condoms.

We mourn once again for Ireland as the worldwide Recession continues to destroy one of the most prosperous economies in recent European history, once again forcing thousands of young men and women to seek work abroad. It will be a sad time in Erin but it will not compromise her integrity, for as the world has learned, it is easier to wear down an iron mountain with words than it is to destroy the Irish soul by lash, rack, saber or bloody bayonet.

Last week, we reported that the Washington State Liquor Control Board put a temporary ban on the sale of the caffeinated alcohol beverage Loko, after several Central Washington University students were served it at an off-campus party, got sick and were taken to the emergency room of a local hospital. Apparently the Federal Drug Administration is taking this seriously. Last week, gave the four leading manufacturers of this product 15 days to either remove the caffeine from it or stop selling it. Now, that’s how I like to see my tax dollars in action.

Felina: This American human hero whose name I cannot pronounce so whom I will call Sergeant G., he seems like a very nice creature.

Sam: I’ll take a shot at this and say we’re talking about United States Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta.

Felina: Quite so. That Sergeant G. He was wearing this decoration that looks like the ones they give at the human Olympics. It has a very pretty blue ribbon on it. With all the attention he seems to be getting, I assume this “medal,” I believe they call it, is for superb performance as a killer of other human beings in this rather quaintly lethal ritualistic paring down of their population called ‘war’.

Sam: Yep, Felina, that Sergeant G. That’s the Medal of Honor. It’s like Canada’s Victoria Cross.

Felina: The one named after that big human colony on Vancouver Island. I think that is the difference between American and Canadian humans. The one is named for a virtue, the other for a city that even I must admit is beautiful.

Sam: Felina, you do know that Victoria wasn’t born with its own name, right?

Felina: Quite so. In my eyes, Queen Victoria of 19th Century England was also a beautiful creature. If they must have monarchs, let them reign as Victoria.
Sam: Or Diana.

Felina: Quite so. Or like Princess Diana, who did not like war either and dedicated a lot of her time and energy to removing those horrible things humans plant in the ground which continue to kill, cripple and maim long after the war is over.

Sam: Land mines, Felina.

Felina: Excuse me?

Sam: They’re called “land mines,” Felina.

Felina: Ah, quite so. Such a cunning and clever device, created by the children of the Creator and totally devoid of conscience.

Sam: It’s a talent they have, creating weapons of destruction, implements of planetary population control, as it were.

Felina: And yet this same species can produce a creature as nice and as caring as this United States Army Staff Sergeant Salvatore Guinta.

Sam: Whose name you’ve apparently figured out how to pronounce, yep. And in all fairness, killing is not the only thing they do in the military.

Felina: Oh, I know. It has always just struck me as very odd that so many human beings of otherwise divine character could also treat taking another human life as an honorable occupation. And bestow such glory as they do on those who excel at it.

Sam: Maybe that’s something the Sergeant G.’s of their species can change, Felina. If anyone’s got a shot at it, he does.

Felina: It would be so nice to see them rewarding the peacemakers among them as generously.

Sam: No argument there, love of my life. And on that note, then?

Felina: And on that note, gentle readers, until next time. And may the Creator bless and keep you.

SURVIVING HARD TIMES

Sometimes, surviving hard times is knowing when it is time to let go of certain attitudes, certain ways we ~ as individuals ~ define ourselves and those around us. This story, by former print journalist Claudia Rowe, looks at the lives of several professionals whose careers have been terminated by the Recession. Ms. Rowe is a powerful writer and this story is not a dry intellectual read. Implicit in its conclusion, however, is that perhaps it is time to stop defining ourselves in terms of how we serve the economy and once again by how we treat one another. For more, please go here

ON THE CANCER FRONT

A new gene introduced into mice whose skin cancer had spread to the rest of their system re-engineered the immune system of these rodents and the cancer went into complete remission. Yep, for more on this one, go here.

RESOURCES AND RELATED LINKS:
Cancer Research Journal
National Cancer Institute (American)
Fighting Breast Cancer: Breast Cancer Survivor Stories
Science Daily: Health & Medicine News
American Cancer Statistics 2009
Canadian Cancer Statistics 2009

HEALTH NEWS

We’ve known for a long time that deep breathing has a real calming effect on the system and a rejuvenating one, as well. Researchers have found another good reason to do this. It helps prevent wrinkles. Yep, for more, go here.

GOOD EXAMPLES

In the wake of illness and death from contaminated food products such as peanuts, beef, eggs and produce, the United States Senate last week passed a bill which would give the Food and Drug Administration sweeping powers to inspect food products before they reach the market; to inspect and if necessary close down processing plants, and to enforce stricter standards to protect the public.

Last week, thanks to the efforts of the University of Washington's Student Labor Action Project, the University Book Store introduced a line of clothing from a third world country which pays a living wage. Way to go, Huskies.

Thanks to Los Angeles Times Op-Ed writer, Jonathan Bloom, we’ve discovered one way everybody can make a real difference. Eat all of the food we buy. According to Bloom’s research, 40% of what’s produced is not consumed. About 50 percent of what is purchased is wasted. That’s a real waste of the energy used to grow it, produce it, package it and bring it to the consumer. I totally loved this one.

NORTHSTAR FAVORITES

Sightline Daily is the best Pacific Northwest source of environmentally friendly news we’ve encountered yet. They draw from newspapers and National Public Radio sources in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.

Meade Fisher Observes Humanity From A Safe Distance is a blog authored by an outdoor writer, photographer, West Coast kayaker and environmentalist living in the San Francisco Bay area. These short, humorous, few holds barred observations on the machinations of the human species run from the whimsical to the arid and occasionally to the quietly outraged. I’ve been a fan of this particular writer for years and I’ve always found him worth the read.

The Northstar Gallery features photography of Seattle available as postcards, computer wallpaper and workspace art.

SEATTLE SCENES

Santa came early this winter too, U District, Seattle Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller.

What’s Going On Here?

Whether you live here or plan to visit ~ and whatever it is you enjoy doing at home or as a tourist ~ you’ll find it, you’ll find it listed here at seattlepi.com.

SEATTLE FACTS AND FIGURES
Seattle Rainfall in Comparison To Other US Cities
Seattle Geography & Climate
For more information about Seattle

OTHER RELATED STUFF FROM THE SHORES OF THE SALISH SEA
For live cameras on Seattle, the Puget Sound and Washington State
Mount Rainier slide show
Eat healthy while you’re here – Seattle PCC Co-Op
Take some fresh produce back to your hotel – Seattle Farmers Markets

CRITTER STUFF

I’m reasonably sure everyone has heard of seeing eye or guide dogs to help the vision-impaired. But what if you came from a culture which didn’t allow canine pets or helpers in the house? For years, one woman struggled on with the help of human family and friends and then one day, someone told her about The Guide Horse Foundation and their miniature horses (NOT ponies) about the size of German Shepherds and trained to assist the visually impaired. Yep, for more on this one, go here.

Recommended Related Links:
National Wildlife Magazine
Go Northwest: Northwest Wildlife Websites
BBC’s wildlife finder
National Geographic Daily News - Animals
Retrieverman’s Weblog: Engaging articles on domestic & wildlife in the American South

YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP

This isn’t weird, it’s totally fascinating and it has the coolest photos I’ve seen in a long time. Back in February, the International Space Station got Internet capability. In June, American astronaut Douglas Wheelock, known to his nearly 68,000 Twitter followers as Astro-Wheels, took command of the orbiting facility, has been using the station’s cameras to beam down hundreds of pictures of the earth from 225 miles “up”. For more on this one, yep, go here.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for the ear. Before you leave, if you’re in a shopping mood and into some interesting choices? We’ve got a “reader stocked” General Store that you might want to check out. If you’d like to sell something with us or know someone who does, email us at minstrel312@aol.com and we’ll see what we can do.

The Northstar Journal is funded by contributions from readers like yourself. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please click the donate button below.

Salish Sea shoreliners prepare for a stormy winter

A scene from an early winter past
Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller

Hi again from the Bastion on the Puget Sound. Well, as the implications of La Nina continue to manifest in colder weather sooner and in longer and harder stretches of rain, those of us who live on the shores of the Salish Sea are preparing for the blizzards that will probably arrive even before Pearl Harbor Day.

As http://www.globalsecurity.org/ describes it: “Puget Sound is located in an area of complex geography and topography. The central part of the Sound is bordered on the west by the Olympic Mountains and to the east by the Cascade Mountains. The two mountain ranges create a relatively narrow channel for southerly/northerly winds as they move through the area. Strong southerly winds are common over Puget Sound during late autumn, winter and early spring. The most severe wind conditions are associated with fronts and low pressure systems approaching from the Pacific Ocean. The effect of strong winds across the Puget Sound region varies greatly from location to location. Wind conditions that may adversely affect one area of the Sound may have little or no effect on another.”

The snowstorms will not arrive gently in Seattle, for they will come from the north, blasting out of the western Arctic until they reach the Fraser River Valley in British Columbia and roar down the Interstate Five corridor from the Border Crossing at Blaine. With the Olympia Mountains to the west and the Cascades to the east, it is a funnel effect, with Seattle at the spout.

When those winds hit, they will whistle and scream through our seven hills and nothing with any sense of self-preservation will move. It will freeze the snow and glaze everything with a glacial crust blue in sunlight and invisible in shadow.

It will be time to bundle up, to huddle close, to feel forces far older, fiercer, stronger and less inclined to compassion than even we, the most savage species on the planet can manufacture or muster. Unlike so much of what we consider so important that we blast the atmosphere with news of it, this will NOT be a tale told by an idiot. And the sound and the fury will mean everything.

IN OTHER NEWS

Thousands cheered when Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was released from 7½ years of house arrest. The former Burma has been under military dictatorship since 1962 and Ms. Kyi has been imprisoned several times for her implacable advocacy of democracy. For more, please go here.

We join American parents nationwide in praising the success of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crackdown on teenaged prostitution. Their operation "Operation Cross Country V" rescued 69 children in 40 cities. In the Greater Puget Sound area (Everett-Seattle-Tacoma), 23 kids were saved and nine pimps were arrested. This is the third year in a row that our area has topped the list of recoveries. Yep, for more on this, please go here.

This week, a local rescue group saved a Seattle-born racehorse from a Canadian slaughterhouse and called for an end to the practice. The process of turning a retired four-legged athlete into dog food was been outlawed in the United States since 2007 but is still legal in Mexico and Canada. For more on this one, please go here.

Felina: Samuel, I am reading about this human practice of turning beasts of burden, leisure or profit into food for their other domesticated animals.

Sam: Interesting spin on recycling, isn’t it?

Felina: It is certainly another interesting permutation of an ancient animal behaviour.

Sam: It’s been a dog eat dog world for a long time, yep.

Felina: And certainly in nature, wolves bring down wild horses. That is probably why their domesticated counterparts love it so much.

Sam: And since wolves eat other wolves, coyotes and other canines, they like that too.

Felina: They used the meat of dead dogs in pet food?

Sam: Dead house pets.

Felina: Including what?

Sam: Before I do that, please ask yourself if you really want to go there? Even for the sake of understanding the Baby Huey of the Planet better?

Felina: It just seems so inconsistent with the adulation, praise, attention and reverence they pay their pets. Dogs, cats and horses figure so prominent in their art, literature, cinema and songs

.
Sam: Not to mention all the pet shows and the horse racing.

Felina: Quite so. Where tiny humans ride famous horses with valiant names and big men who wear dark glasses on rainy days and at night give bundles of leaves to another human behind a window. And when the race is over, sometimes go back to the window for a bigger pile of leaves. I had no idea humans loved leafy vegetables that much.

Sam: They love that particular leafy vegetable a lot, Felina.

Felina: It is not wise to love abundance too much, I think. Not even Gaia herself can guarantee a good harvest.

Sam: Sometimes maybe it’s a matter of loving the beast who brought you that harvest, treating it compassionately and when its end has truly arrived, rendering its crossing without pain.

Felina: Samuel, that does seem a bit to expect when they have such a difficult time doing that with members of their own species. I am surprised cannibalism among them is not more widespread. It seems to me that raising humans for consumption would employ thousands and feed millions more

.
Sam: That would be about the only thing so far they have not raised others of their species for. Imagine little humans being told that there was an even greater good than serving your feeling man.

Felina: And that would be, being served by your fellow man.

Sam: A feast prepared by a master chef.

Felina: A cordon bleu chef. And served on the finest china.

Sam: And the royal silver set.

Felina: And the tablecloth for when the Pastor and his wife come calling for Sunday supper.

Sam: Prepared with only the finest organic herbs and spices.

Felina: And served by humans who do not belch on the bread before buttering it.

Sam: Humans of true refinement and dignity, serving a meal of human beings of true refinement and dignity, to humans of true refinement and dignity.

Felina: An unbroken circle.

Sam: The wheel of life.

Felina: The Great Mandella.

Sam: However, we digress.

Felina: We are the Wright Brothers of Digression.

Sam: The White Sands and Cape Canaveral of Digression.

Felina: The Starship Enterprise of Digression.

Sam: And on that note, Love of my Life?

Felina: And on that note, gentle readers, until next time. And may the Creator bless and keep you.

SURVIVING HARD TIMES

In this cyber age, sometimes surviving hard times is knowing what not to do or where not to go. PC World and the US Office of Homeland security have published a list of the 17 deadliest sites on the Internet. Please go here.

Often, surviving hard times is also about hearing how others are facing the same issues and concerns and this segment from The Today Show’s Money does exactly that. It’s one of the best like this we’ve read in a long time. Yep, go here.

ON THE CANCER FRONT

One of the most surgically frustrating aspects of particularly insidious strains of cancer is that they can start out so tiny they’re both hard to detect and to treat. Now, thanks to the use of tiny radioactive seeds, that’s no longer the case. In the tests of this one, only something like eight percent of those who received this treatment needed further surgery. For more and a video on this one, please go here.

RESOURCES AND RELATED LINKS:
Cancer Research Journal
National Cancer Institute (American)
Fighting Breast Cancer: Breast Cancer Survivor Stories
Science Daily: Health & Medicine News
American Cancer Statistics 2009
Canadian Cancer Statistics 2009

HEALTH NEWS

For years, we’ve been hearing that “laughter is the best medicine” and that’s even what one of the most popular magazines in America, Readers Digest, calls their humor section. Well, it turns out to be true, at least in part, and it could be a life-saver to those with critically high blood pressure. Researchers have found that watching just 20 minutes of a funny video lowered the BP of study participants about 10 points. They project that doing that each day, just kicking back with something that evokes laughter, could add eight years of life at the other end. Yep, for more, go here.

GOOD EXAMPLES

We applaud the Washington State Liquor Control Board for approving an emergency ban on caffeinated alcoholic beverages after several Central Washington University coed had to be taken to local emergency rooms when they drank Four Loko at an off campus party. For more, please go here.

Thanks go a cooperative effort among Western Canadian organic food producers, processors and farmers markets, consumers in British Columbia can now identify where in their own communities to find the foodstuffs they most enjoy. To see how this was organized and how it works, please go here.

NORTHSTAR FAVORITES

Sightline Daily is the best Pacific Northwest source of environmentally friendly news we’ve encountered yet. They draw from newspapers and National Public Radio sources in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.

Meade Fisher Observes Humanity From A Safe Distance is a blog authored by an outdoor writer, photographer, West Coast kayaker and environmentalist living in the San Francisco Bay area. These short, humorous, few holds barred observations on the machinations of the human species run from the whimsical to the arid and occasionally to the quietly outraged. I’ve been a fan of this particular writer for years and I’ve always found him worth the read.

The Northstar Gallery features photography of Seattle available as postcards, computer wallpaper and workspace art.

SEATTLE SCENES

Seattle Skyline

Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller.

What’s Going On Here?

Whether you live here or plan to visit ~ and whatever it is you enjoy doing at home or as a tourist ~ you’ll find it, you’ll find it listed here at seattlepi.com.

SEATTLE FACTS AND FIGURES
Seattle Rainfall in Comparison To Other US Cities
Seattle Geography & Climate
For more information about Seattle

OTHER RELATED STUFF FROM THE SHORES OF THE SALISH SEA
For live cameras on Seattle, the Puget Sound and Washington State
Mount Rainier slide show
Eat healthy while you’re here – Seattle PCC Co-Op
Take some fresh produce back to your hotel – Seattle Farmers Markets

CRITTER STUFF

Whales, porpoises, dolphins and other marine mammals along America’s west coast are going to be a lot safer as the result of an agreement the US Navy reached with federal wildlife officials. Sonar tests and underwater explosions will not be conducted when the presence of these creatures is detected. It’s considered a good example of inter-species diplomacy as the Navy also uses dolphins and sealions to guard the country’s coast and in its war on terrorism. Yep, for more, please go here.

Partly because I’ve never been to the East Coast and especially because I do not assciate the state of Connecticut with wilderness, I was delighted when one of you sent me an email about bears and bobcats being spotted in a town near Hartford. I was curious so I did some checking and my view of the East Coast as this vast environmentally burned out coastal dead zone between Maine and North Carolina has been revised some. Tolland County is actually a place rich in natural beauty and it also has a stretch of the Appalachian Trail. To see how the town of Tolland is handling these sitings, please go here.

Recommended Related Links:
National Wildlife Magazine
Go Northwest: Northwest Wildlife Websites
BBC’s wildlife finder
National Geographic Daily News - Animals
Retrieverman’s Weblog: Engaging articles on domestic & wildlife in the American South

YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP

Since I love dolphins, porpoises and other marine mammals so much ~ even though I refuse to swim with any of them ~ I’m delighted when they get good press. It helps raise human awareness of the other species with whom they share the planet and one of several with a great deal more compassion and common sense. In a recent interview to promote a DVD release of the movie “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” American actor Dick Van Dyke said that his life was once saved by a bunch of dolphins at sea. Yep, for more, go here.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for the ear. Before you leave, if you’re in a shopping mood and into some interesting choices? We’ve got a “reader stocked” General Store that you might want to check out. If you’d like to sell something with us or know someone who does, email us at minstrel312@aol.com and we’ll see what we can do.

The Northstar Journal is funded by contributions from readers like yourself. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please click the donate button below.

The second coming of Barak Obama and other messiahs we created

Hi again from the Bastion on the Puget Sound. Well, now that the dust has settled here, in my house, around the American mid-term elections, it’s perhaps appropriate to reflect a bit on President Obama’s nationally televised reaction to the results.

It was hard for me to watch a man who tried so hard to be so much because the nation whose call he answered needed what he felt he could facilitate and what he hoped he could inspire others to help with, take full responsibility for the failure of some of his agenda.

I watched him do that before a national constituency which still refuses to accept the fact that we’re in this situation now not because “they,” that nebulous place we park our frustrations because it’s easier than admitting that we are also a government “of the people,” failed us but because it meant more to us to be materially comfortable than it did to participate in a citizen-driven democracy.

We still look for others to “lead us” and as long as that’s true, we’re not going to lead ourselves. As long as power and influence and the high dramas that are played out in a town built on the shores of one of the worst swamps north of the Big Muddy, and as long as we, the rest of America, from Bangor, Maine to Bangor, Washington State take our lead from that, we’re going to continue to sink into a morass of our own making.

I am, thank you God, three thousand miles northwest of the Potomac and I’m very fortunate to live in a state where local governments are of necessity much too responsive to the needs of the constituency to either put up candidates for or sell tickets to a political dog and pony show.

From the time he got into office, this national executive who happens to be equally parts white and black has been subjected to more rabid scrutiny and more insane and bigoted speculation than any one in history since that sad day when Jesus carried his own cross up the hill to die between two thieves and crying out to his Father, the author of all divine providence, to forgive those who were killing him.

They were expecting a Messiah then too. Jesus may or may not have been that and certainly Barack Obama is not nor has ever suggested he is. But they do have two things in common. They were exceptional human beings who answered the call of the constituency. And that constituency turned on them.

I find it rather remarkable that down at least two thousand years, we still do this. I am, however, somewhat reassured by what Darwin said about survival not being about the strongest but the most adaptable.

I hope most of all that a very troubled national executive realizes that he’s doing the best he can and that some of us don’t give a bloody damn about anything except the content of his character and the integrity with which he conducts himself as a man. He hasn’t let some of us down in those regards and he won’t let me and mine down regardless of any election returns from here forward.

He hasn’t failed us. We’ve failed him and everyone else who ever cared about us as much as we should be caring about ourselves.

IN OTHER NEWS

Not to our surprise, a recent British study confirms that alcohol is far more destructive than heroin, crack cocaine, Ecstasy or marijuana. Researchers measured not only the systemic impact it has on an individual but the price society pays for the self-destructive and often lethal behavior of the addicted. It further concluded that legal drugs also cause more damage than illicit ones. For more on this one, go here.

For possibly as long as ten years, the University District in Seattle has been plagued by professional burglar (one who does it as a full time living as opposed to an amateur who just does it to help his sick grandma or his kid sister through beauty college) who specialized in fraternity houses because the residents of them are either still sleeping or profoundly hung over in those several hours between last call and dawn. However, last week, he invaded a UW fraternity house that had sober residents who were also early risers. They tackled him, held him down until 911 arrived and are now feeling duly proud of themselves for temporarily lowering the curtain on the brilliant career of a property appropriation artist who very likely became a burglar because he couldn’t get a paper route or a box person job. Yep, for more on this one, go here.

In response to a rise in suicides, motor vehicle accidents and other self-destructive behavior among American military combat veterans, Defense Department researchers are concluding that the armed services are attracting a lot more adrenalin junkies who actually love battle action and have a very difficult time living without it. I’m not sure I buy that personally after reading a first person account of what war is like in Afghanistan. This is absolutely the most vividly intense coverage I’ve ever read. The story’s entitled “The Last Patrol.”Felina: I see that humans have again “discovered” something that the rest of us have known since the first of us was created.

Sam: Okay. I’m going to take a shot at this and guess it’s not that the Law of Gravity is what keeps us all grounded.

Felina: Quite so.

Sam: Or that if they sail far enough, they’ll slip over the edge and into oblivion.

Felina: No, my love. I sincerely believe those are no longer issues with them. Samuel, is alcohol found anywhere in nature by itself?

Sam: Not that I know of, Lass. But just because we’ve never looked for it doesn’t mean it’s not out there.

Felina: But we have traveled and I remember one of the most beautiful flowers was the poppy.

Sam: From which humans made opium and then heroin.

Felina: And the cocoa leaf, which the humans south of that big belt they put around the planet in their maps.

Sam: The Andes Mountains of South America?

Felina: Yes, those Andes Mountains and quite so. The humans who live there chew the leaves of this plant to give them strength.

Sam: And other human beings take the leaves and turn them into crack cocaine.

Felina: This study lists it as a dangerous drug but not as lethal as this alcohol. And this marijuana, this I think I have actually seen growing down the mountain and across the glen. Where the humans who wear clothing that looks like trees and earth and prowl where this marijuana grows. With guns.

Sam: Yep, that would be a “pot patch”, as they call it. And those humans are guarding it.

Felina: Guarding it from what? I have never seen any other creature but humans even remotely interested in it. They put fire to it and take it into their lungs. And then they behave even more strangely than usual.

Sam: Kind of like those chipmunks who ate those mushrooms their mom told them expressly to stay away from.

Felina: It was interesting watching them try to fly. And when they tried to mug Homer the Wolverine, I thought that was so precious. Homer displayed a great deal of patience with them.

Sam: He might just not have been hungry at that particular moment, Felina.

Felina: Quite so. Though I have never considered chipmunks an entrée.

Sam: You also don’t have a wolverine’s total lack of culinary discrimination. If it’s breathing and he can bring it down, it’s on the menu.

Felina: Not unlike what humans refer to as “the paparazzi”. Those strange creatures with little boxes that flash and little metal pinecones on long sticks who surround another human being and assail their victim with words.

Sam: Yep, a lot like “the media,” I believe is the term they use. However, we digress.

Felina: We are the Romeo and Juliet of digression.

Sam: The Mike Nichols and Elaine May of digression.

Felina: The George and Gracie of digression.

Sam: We are legends in our own time.

Felina: And in our own minds. And so, this alcohol, which humans must create rather than take on the paw, as it were, is very dangerous when ingested. They appear to consume this dangerous substance in vast commodities.

Sam: Enough for every kit, female and male to have an annual consumption of seven bottles of whiskey, 12 bottles of wine and 230 cans of beer. What’s even more amazing is that one-third of Americans don’t drink and among the other nations of their society, there are 39 others who consume more per capita.

Felina: Amazing is certainly one word for it. They pay for the privilege of poisoning themselves. Others make their sustenance producing this toxic liquid and providing it to them. And it is legal to do all this while the harvesting and consumption of that which grows naturally, they punish by forced confinement in those big caves of theirs with iron bars on the windows.

Sam: Yep, that’s it pretty much. However, in a self-correcting universe, stupidity is kind of a population control device. Can you imagine them over-running the joint?

Felina: Sam, please, not this close to lunch?

Sam: Gotcha. And on that note?

Felina: And on that note, gentle readers, until next week then, eh? And may the Creator bless and keep you.

SURVIVING HARD TIMES

Sometimes surviving hard times is also about being inspired by a good example. This comes to us from Northern California. It’s about some students in a small junior high school who turned their newspaper into a profit-making operation and their teacher, who defied the school administrators who told them business and education did not mix. If a movie’s not made out of this one eventually, some future Frank Capra is really missing out on a prize dramatic moment. Yep, go here.

ON THE CANCER FRONT

Green salad lovers are not only good for the food chain, they’re also much less susceptible to a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. If you need another reason for eating more like a rabbit and less like a wolf, that’s as good as any we can think of. And yep, for more, go here.

As someone I loved who lost her own battle with cancer reminded me ~ and it’s as true about surviving the Big C as it is life in general ~ there is no underestimating the healing power of a good example. This story of a survivor certain falls squarely in that category. Yep, this is another one of those and if you’re up for it, please go here.

RESOURCES AND RELATED LINKS:
Cancer Research Journal
National Cancer Institute (American)
Fighting Breast Cancer: Breast Cancer Survivor Stories
Science Daily: Health & Medicine News
American Cancer Statistics 2009
Canadian Cancer Statistics 2009

HEALTH NEWS

Small talk might be a pleasant way to pass the time but it’s not as good for you as an intelligent discussion of substance. A recent study of college students determined that those who engaged in meaningful dialogue instead of mind-numbing chit chat were both happier and healthier. Yep, for more, go here.

GOOD EXAMPLES

Four retired Boeing engineers are proving that you’re never too old to make a difference. Several years ago, these four friends with an active interest in “green” energy, came up with a unique way to harvest the power of waves far out at sea. Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat caught up with the creative quartet, the oldest of whom is 92 and the youngest, 74, at a recent science convention and filed this report.

This is not to suggest that God is on the side of the green but we could not help noting that the Seattle area’s first publicly accessible electrical vehicle recharging station is located in the parking lot of the Wooden Cross Lutheran Church. Yep, for more on this one, go here.

NORTHSTAR FAVORITES

Sightline Daily is the best Pacific Northwest source of environmentally friendly news we’ve encountered yet. They draw from newspapers and National Public Radio sources in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.

Meade Fisher Observes Humanity From A Safe Distance is a blog authored by an outdoor writer, photographer, West Coast kayaker and environmentalist living in the San Francisco Bay area. These short, humorous, few holds barred observations on the machinations of the human species run from the whimsical to the arid and occasionally to the quietly outraged. I’ve been a fan of this particular writer for years and I’ve always found him worth the read.

The Northstar Gallery features photography of Seattle available as postcards, computer wallpaper and workspace art.

SEATTLE SCENES

Green autumn backyard harvest, Seattle
Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller.

What’s Going On Here?

Whether you live here or plan to visit ~ and whatever it is you enjoy doing at home or as a tourist ~ you’ll find it, you’ll find it listed here at seattlepi.com.

SEATTLE FACTS AND FIGURES
Seattle Rainfall in Comparison To Other US Cities
Seattle Geography & Climate
For more information about Seattle

OTHER RELATED STUFF FROM THE SHORES OF THE SALISH SEA
For live cameras on Seattle, the Puget Sound and Washington State
Mount Rainier slide show
Eat healthy while you’re here – Seattle PCC Co-Op
Take some fresh produce back to your hotel – Seattle Farmers Markets

CRITTER STUFF

When Kasatochi volcano erupted two years ago, the surrounding waters of this tiny island in the Aleutian chain were covered with ash. But instead of that being an ecological disaster for the North Pacific, satellite photos showed that the marine plant life went totally nutzoid. More specifically, the plankton upon which so many species feed, including some whales, ate the ash that fell in the ocean and had a population explosion that blossomed right up the food chain producing, among things, the biggest run of Fraser River sockeye salmon in 97 years. Yep, for more on this one, go here.

And under the “I’m Kind of Glad I Wasn’t Alive Whe This One Was” category, fossil hunters in Romania last month discovered the remains of a new species of Velociraptor, the familiar single-claw predator featured in the Jurassic Park movies. This one has double claws, is built a little lower to the ground and apparently was a lot fiercer. It was about the size of a big wild turkey and lived about 65 million years ago. Yep, for more and photos, go here.

Recommended Related Links:
National Wildlife Magazine
Go Northwest: Northwest Wildlife Websites
BBC’s wildlife finder
National Geographic Daily News - Animals
Retrieverman’s Weblog: Engaging articles on domestic & wildlife in the American South

YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP

I found it very interesting to note that in addition to America’s chief executive needing to worrying about how his constituency at home feels, apparently President Obama has reason to be aware of how he’s received by moneys in India. I hope the Secret Service really is on top of this. It’s hard for me to imagine these federal bodyguards being taught how to handle a life form that, in some ways, is a lot smarter than we are, acts in concert with others of its own kind and has as much right to resent human encroachment on its home ground as the bear, the cougars, the owls, the mountain goats and other creatures indigenous to the Pacific Northwest. Monkeys are revered in India so euthanasia, which this writer doesn’t believe in, is not an option. Negotiation is one and this just might be Divine Intervention so President Obama can show the world what true global diplomacy actually entails. Remember, however, I also believe in the Passover Bunny and in a pair of mated mountain lions who talk to one another about humans and let me eavesdrop. So good luck with that one, guys.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for the ear. Before you leave, if you’re in a shopping mood and into some interesting choices? We’ve got a “reader stocked” General Store that you might want to check out. If you’d like to sell something with us or know someone who does, email us at minstrel312@aol.com and we’ll see what we can do.

The Northstar Journal is funded by contributions from readers like yourself. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please click the donate button below.

Can the federal government protect our children?

Hi again from the Bastion on the Puget Sound. We’ve reported several times about American youth who succumbed to suicide, most recently, University of Washington co-ed Carly Henley, We have also expressed grief and outrage for those American youth who were driven to this final tragic act by their peers. According to studies by the Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), suicide is the leading cause of death of those between 15 – 24 and the fourth among children 10 – 14. More and more of these deaths are being attributed to bullying at school and on the Internet.

We were, therefore, encouraged to learn that ~ in preparation for a national conference on the subject ~ the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to American schools detailing the responsibilities of these educational institutions and in particular, how to recognize when bullying becomes a violation of the victim’s civil rights, a federal crime.

While I admit this is a good start, I don’t think it’s nearly enough. It’s just all the federal government can afford to do at present. I have some concerns now about the budgetary ability of federal prosecutors to investigate reports of civil rights violations in Academia. I am less unsure, particularly in these hard times, whether the schools alone have the resources, money or person power to effectively monitor the sadistic tendencies among their respective student bodies. And especially where lesbian and gay students are concerned, whether it’s as high a priority as preserving a sports curriculum or making capital improvements against a projected growth in the student population.

I also have serious doubts about whether increased security, greater vigilance or sterner sanctions by the government or the schools will do as much as hoped to solve the problem. There is a particular and unprecedented virulence in the cruelty our children are inflicting on one another. These are not just random attacks on targets of opportunity. They are intelligent, creatively constructed, sadistic campaigns by a group of young people to inflict maximum pain on another young person. Suicide is their ultimate goal and with the media coverage out there and a peer network online, every time a child kills themselves, other children contact those responsible to learn more about driving someone to suicide.

How children turn out and how they behave is first and fundamentally not only the province but the purview of their primary caregivers. So when I see young human beings acting with such deliberate savagery, I cannot help but wonder what on behind the closed doors and shuttered windows of the homes in which some of these kids live.

Is that where bullies picked up the idea that predatory behavior is acceptable? Like many child abuse victims, are they rationalizing the license to do that because their parents are hurting them at home? As busy as many American parents are working 50 – 60 hours for less than they made working 40 three years ago, is this a case of children not getting enough time and personal attention at home and taking it out on some of their age peers? Are the television programs, films, DVDs and video games which have replaced pacifiers as entertainment while parents pursue the private pleasures that are sometimes the only way to cope with life stress, are these desensitizing our youth to the needs of others for understanding and compassion?

This letter the Department of Education is sending out to the schools this week should find its way into the mailbox of every American household. If our children need to be parented by a community in order to stop killing one another, it’s about time we cared about them and accepted that responsibility.

If we cannot do that, we can at least be honest with them, tell them they’re not that important and then stop preaching compassion out of one side of our mouth and laissez faire material acquisition out of the other.

IN OTHER NEWS

We reported earlier this year the arrest of a man who left vulgar, obscene and threatening voice mail messages with Washington’s U.S. Senator Patty Murray. We considered such behavior totally inappropriate and apparently so does the federal judge who put this idiot in jail for a year and a day. I wonder where a man who threatens a woman politician ranks in the prison hierarchy. I can’t believe it’s real high so I imagine he’s going to have some interesting nights. Yep, for more on this, please go here.

There’s a new dam across the Colorado River just south of the Hoover Dam that will absolutely and totally take your breath away, even if you never drive across the flipping thing. I’m real judicious in recommending any human engineering achievement which seeks to outdo the majesty of what was here first. This bridge, like Hoover Dam itself, is an example of what humankind can do when it works with nature. The story and the photographs are awesome so for more, yep, go here.

Well, it’s nice to know someone’s making out in the worst recession since the Great Depression. According to a report recently released by America’s Social Security Administration, wages for the 131 best paid workers increased five hundred percent between 2008 – 2009. Both average and median incomes dropped and one in 34 workers did not have any income at all. For more on this, go here.

Thanks to the vision, daring, courage and sheer chutzpah of a European scientifically-trained financier and investor, a “green” factory in Oregon has become one of the state’s largest employers. The SolarWorld factory in Hillsboro makes photovoltaics, which is a broad term to cover the collection, storage and generation of solar energy. Experts, including this international businessman, predict that within two years, the United States will be the second largest market for the solar energy industry, behind Germany but ahead of Japan and Spain. Yep, for more on this one, please go here.

We were neither surprised nor even outraged to learn that a Congressional investigation has determined that both BP and Halliburton were both responsible for the failure of the cement which precipitated the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Debacle. I will say, however, that if BP and Halliburton were parents who birthed and raised me, I’d probably be doing some serious praying for orphanhood. And that the total lack of ethics and concern for the impact on other human beings does not also become a hallmark of emerging green industry giants. Yep, for more, go here.

Felina: Well, that one is finished and sent. Do human beings still punish the bad among them by putting them in dark caves under their domiciles and chaining them to the walls so they cannot escape?

Sam: Ummm, I’m going to take a shot at this. Do they still incarcerate miscreants in dungeons under castles?

Felina: Dungeons and castles, yes. Quite so.

Sam: Maybe back East, Felina. I haven’t seen too many castles out here in the Northwest.

Felina: There are some in Victoria. But I do not remember smelling incarcerated human beings the nights we visited them.

Sam: And you’d have noticed. That was the holiday where you tried to give a Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman a pooper scooper for his horse.

Felina: He was actually quite decent about it.

Sam: Cornered in a stable, having no idea how we got in there, looking into a set of smoldering blue eyes that are impressive even to other cougars, and then discovering that something big enough to eat him can also communicate with him, yep, I can appreciate why he might possibly have been on his best behavior.

Felina: “A set of smoldering blue eyes that are impressive even to other cougars,” eh?

Sam: And obviously to this member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. They inherited a stiff upper lip from the English and then made it a global behavior gold standard.

Felina: The English are those people who live on the island on the other side of the one with little humans and lots of four leaf clovers. Where that Big Clock and all the castles with dungeons are. And where they drink lots of tea, eat little fried fish for breakfast, and sometimes kill each other after a soccer game.

Sam: Yep, those English.

Felina: Ah, so “the smoldering blue eyes” was not just some of your Yankee Doodle flipping charm, then?

Sam: Felina, we’ve been mated like eight millions years or so and there’s nothing wrong with our love life. So yeah, it was some charm and the total truth. However, we digress.

Felina: Quite so. We are the Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Brownings of digression.

Sam: In a land where there aren’t very many castles so probably not very many dungeons either.

Felina: Where they punish the bad among their number by putting them together in cages in conditions unparalleled in the rest of Creation.

Sam: Yep, that about describes the American penal system. The world inside those cages is more savage that any jungle in all of time. All of the terrible things they did that got them sent there in the first place, they do to one another and there is absolutely no escape and no relief.

Felina: And the good human beings pay to keep them there and then are victimised when these savage specimens are released and again free to prey on their own kind. And this, they consider rehabilitation. Even for Jonah’s whale, that is a lot to swallow. The stupidity of it is absolutely stunning.

Sam: In a way, it’s an inspirational monument to bad examples.

Felina: In a land with so many such shining tributes.

Sam: So now that we’ve sort of re-established that, what’s with the emails and the question about those caves under the castles?

Felina: I was asking that this man who made the threats to Patty Murray be confined in such a place because I had not embraced the utter hell of those cages.

Sam: And before you found out there are no dungeons.

Felina: And before I found out there were no more dungeons. I have decided that this person is probably being punished enough. It still makes me sad but I am no longer angry.

Sam: Felina, human beings are the poor country cousins of the animal kingdom. As Dueling Banjo backwards as they sometimes appear, they are hard not to love. Just don’t let ‘em break your heart, Lass because if you care about them too much, they surely will.

Felina: Sigh. I know, my love. But they are quite talented banjo players.

Sam: They are indeed, Felina. They are indeed. And on that note?

Felina: And on that note, gentle readers, thank you and may the Creator bless and keep you.

SURVIVING HARD TIMES

Our thanks to Ray and Mei Ling in Brooklyn, New York for sending us this link to economic survival tips. The Recession has necessarily spawned a swarm of these but this particular website covers every from the single person renting to a home-owning family having trouble making their mortgage payments. It’s an easy site to navigate and the language is clear, concise, straightforward and friendly. Yep, for more, please go here.

ON THE CANCER FRONT

Taking aspirin to prevent colon cancer and to reduce its mortality rate has been an accepted protocol now for decades. The side affects of the recommended dosage, however, were enough for doctors to discourage the practice in those with a low risk factor. Now, it has been determined that a much smaller amount, like a tablet of baby aspirin, will accomplish the same thing but without the harsh side effects. Yep, for more on this one, please go here.

RESOURCES AND RELATED LINKS:
Cancer Research Journal
National Cancer Institute (American)
Fighting Breast Cancer: Breast Cancer Survivor Stories
Science Daily: Health & Medicine News
American Cancer Statistics 2009
Canadian Cancer Statistics 2009

HEALTH NEWS

I do so love it when one of my alleged passions turns out to be not only virtuous but healthy. I have a passion for chocolate second only to something else which is not a food group. My wife, Loretta Joy, God rest her soul, once bet one of her girlfriends that if she could get me to eat anything as long as it was either dipped in chocolate or coated in it. I don’t know what I ate that night and I don’t ever want to know. The bet she won we spent on a weekend at the ocean so there’s one more reason for loving chocolate. Yep, all this to tell you that scientists have “discovered” that drinking a couple cups of hot cocoa every day improves the health of the brain and sharpens mental acuity in general. Yep, for more, please go here.

One in three Americans could be diagnosed with diabetes by 2050, according to a recent study released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. The disease was the seventh leading cause of death in the States in 2007. The dramatic increase in the prevalence of this disease is closely linked to an equally alarming rise in the obesity rate, particularly among children. For more, please go here.

In an effort to entice appropriate choices, rather than force them, school lunch program administrators are doing what smart restaurateurs have been doing since mammoth steaks and tusk soup were on the commercial menu. They’re presenting it better. And it’s working. Yep, for more, please go here.

GOOD EXAMPLES

As any health care provider knows, individualized attention to patients can make all the difference. A nurse practitioner in Bellingham, Washington, a community of 80,000in the northwest corner of the state on the border with Canada, visits her patients at their homes and workplaces on a specially designed bicycle and trailer. Two years ago she started Mobile Medicine and made quite an impact on the community. For more on a dedicated medical profession who found a way to return to the days when country doctors made house calls, yep, please go here.

In what is seen as a brilliant academic application of cyber technology, the Israel Antiquities Authority, the custodian of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the 2,000-year-old biblical and apocryphal texts discovered last century in caves in the Judean desert, earlier this week announced that it is joining with Google to download newly digitalized images of these ancient writings and make them available on the Internet. Now, since the reproductions are at least as legible as the originals and in some case, more, there’s no need to risk further degradation of them by exposing them to light and air. Yep, for more on this one, please go here.

I’ve always been a strong proponent of fathers and sons doing cool stuff together but I’ve got to admit I’d never have imagined such a team putting a camera into outer space, recovering it and publishing some incredible photos. Then again, these two individuals are native New Yorkers and even more specifically, from Brooklyn. If I’ve learned one thing about this particular “tribe,” it is that it is they who put the “push” in pushing the window. Nice going, guys. Yep, for a video on how they did it, go here.

NORTHSTAR FAVORITES

Sightline Daily is the best Pacific Northwest source of environmentally friendly news we’ve encountered yet. They draw from newspapers and National Public Radio sources in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.

Meade Fisher Observes Humanity From A Safe Distance is a blog authored by an outdoor writer, photographer, West Coast kayaker and environmentalist living in the San Francisco Bay area. These short, humorous, few holds barred observations on the machinations of the human species run from the whimsical to the arid and occasionally to the quietly outraged. I’ve been a fan of this particular writer for years and I’ve always found him worth the read.

SEATTLE SCENES

Fountain on the campus of the University of Washington
Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller.

What’s Going On Here?

Whether you live here or plan to visit ~ and whatever it is you enjoy doing at home or as a tourist ~ you’ll find it, you’ll find it listed here at seattlepi.com.

SEATTLE FACTS AND FIGURES
Seattle Rainfall in Comparison To Other US Cities
Seattle Geography & Climate
For more information about Seattle

OTHER RELATED STUFF FROM THE SHORES OF THE SALISH SEA
For live cameras on Seattle, the Puget Sound and Washington State
Mount Rainier slide show
Eat healthy while you’re here – Seattle PCC Co-Op
Take some fresh produce back to your hotel – Seattle Farmers Markets

CRITTER STUFF

I am an unabashed, unreconstructed and unrepentant animal lover who gauges the compassion of others by the way they treat other life forms. To me, there are few higher callings than animal/wildlife rehabilitation and rescue and when it is federally funded, I am proud my tax dollars are being spent that way. Therefore, I thoroughly loved this story about how rescued seals in my state are cared for and released back into the wild. Scientists have long been curious about how many of these healed animals survive and they’ve come up with a real simple way to determine that. Yep, for more on this one, please go here.

We’re pleased to announce that one of our ‘resident’ orcas had a baby and she’s a real cuter, this one. There are two pods and this is the southern one, L-116, which spends most of its time in the Salish Sea in the American San Juans and the Puget Sound. This is the mother’s first offspring but another orca was born back in August and it is doing fine. This brings the population of L-116 to 86 now. For more and a picture of mom and offspring, yep, go here.

Recommended Related Links:
National Wildlife Magazine
Go Northwest: Northwest Wildlife Websites
BBC’s wildlife finder
National Geographic Daily News - Animals
Retrieverman’s Weblog: Engaging articles on domestic & wildlife in the American South

YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP

There’s a heavy earth moving equipment operator in Seattle who owes his life, twice, to his co-workers. Twice within three months, working on the same equipment at the same job site, this guy had a heart attack and the other guys on the job gave him the CPR that kept him from flat-lining. I think that’s all great but at least for me, it’s also a little spooky and I can’t help but wonder if maybe the reason he had those cardiac incidents in the first place might have had something to do with his fitness for the work, job stress, maybe the equipment didn’t like him or maybe the job they’ve been working on isn’t supposed to be completed. We’re watching this one and if it happens again in three months, we’re assuming a supernatural spin on this, wishing it a good life and never ever bringing it up again. I hear Pandora’s Box was beautiful as long as it was kept shut. Yep, for more on this one, go here.

Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for the ear. Before you leave, if you’re in a shopping mood and into some interesting choices? We’ve got a “reader stocked” General Store that you might want to check out. If you’d like to sell something with us or know someone who does, email us at minstrel312@aol.com and we’ll see what we can do.

The Northstar Journal is funded by contributions from readers like yourself. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please click the donate button below.

Rusty