Hi again from the ramparts of the Bastion on the Puget Sound. We are delighted beyond belief to report that one of the largest and most endangered denizens of the deep is making a remarkable comeback.
Yep, the humpbacked whale is the one we’re talking about here.
I’ll confess to this weird love affair with creatures I never expect to meet mammal to mammal. Nope, I do not want to swim with them. I don’t want to go down in a submarine (I’m a tad claustrophobic and at six three, I have a big wingspan). I don’t want to be ON the ocean when they’re breaching or cruising on the surface and I certainly do not want to cavort with the young of something bigger than most houses I’ve lived in.
On the other hand, to be on a coastal bluff when these beautiful leviathans are on the move, to watch the grace and dignity of these huge submarine mammals as they feed, migrate and interact with one another…and then to realize that these big creatures have never contested our right to share a portion of their home but have only struck back because we left them no other choice…this is a straight line to the purest definition of strength and compassion I’ve found in some while.
It speaks well of us that we’ve stopped slaughtering them. I suspect it speaks far more resonantly that they have forgiven us.
Well, today is St. Patrick’s Day and like millions of people of Irish descent throughout the world, I pause on this day to reflect on the individual for whom this holiday is named.
What impresses me most about St. Patrick is that he was nothing else, if not persistent. He was born in Britain in the Fourth Century, at a time when most of what we now know as the United Kingdom was under Roman rule. He was captured by a marauding seaborne Irish chieftain who was to become King of Ireland, sold into slavery, escaped, returned to England, was captured again and this time made his way to Europe, where he studied Christianity at a monastery in France and then returned to England as a priest.
Despite the harshness of his life in Ireland, he fell in love with that emerald isle and its people, eventually returned there and managed to convince the king of Ireland that Christianity was better than the ‘paganism’ (symbolized by a snake) and managed to convert most of Ireland. (What I found just a little ironic about this, though, is that what he sought to supplant was a Druid culture which had been flourishing for hundreds of years before and was, in its own way, as worldly and as sophisticated as Athens at the time of Roman conquest.) So when St. Patrick is credited with driving the snakes from Ireland, it’s not meant to be taken literally but simply as another way of saying that he brought Christianity to Erin.
In the ensuing centuries, Ireland was invaded by the English, who met with fierce and enduring resistance. It was like the proverbial irresistible force meeting the immovable object and millions of Irish were subjugated, murdered, starved, disenfranchised and either shipped to the vast ends of the mighty British empire as slaves or chose immigration in the hopes of making a better life for themselves and those family and friends they helped pay to join them.
The end result was that today, there is hardly a nation in the world which cannot claim among its citizenry, the sons and daughters of the shamrock. For some rather stark details of what has also been called “the Irish Diaspora,” please go here. For more on the life and times of St. Patrick, who died on March 17 at the age of 76, and on Ireland in general, check this out.
Now, before we tag out here for green beer, et al, I’m well aware that not everyone under these seven flags celebrates this holiday. Two of my colleagues do not. One of them lives in London, the other in Dublin.
To the Northstar Journal, St. Patrick’s Day is not so much a celebration of an exemplary Irishman or Catholic priest as it is an individual who believed he could make a difference to the very people who put him through such incredible hardship. He did that and regardless of what else happened around him then and since, he did NOT do it with a pike or a sword.
In the same way, St. Patrick’s Day is also not a story about the triumph of the Irish over British oppression nearly so much as it is yet another example of how a nation of essentially farmers and fisherfolk who want mostly just to be left alone can eventually triumph over the mightiest empire in the world. Just like the English did when they threw Rome out.
As rich and exciting as that legacy and history is, it is also the history of most nations and has been for some while. What’s different, at least to me, is that both these island nations seemed to have learned something about the benefits of getting along with one another.
And also, perhaps, that while it is one thing to respect tradition, it is entirely another to be bound to senseless slaughter by it. That we have learned the difference, Dublin and London, is, I hope, the prayer of every Brit and every shamrock, orange or green, on the face of this planet. I know that’s the prayer of some folks in both places for whom I care a very great deal.
These colleagues of mine are the latest generation and when I listen to their concerns, it’s like I’m reminded ~ because it’s how my flipping mind works ~ that, like it or not, there’s like this entire generation on this planet wanting to bury the bloody hatchet.
Those are our kids, for crying out loud. They died by the thousands in Ireland because they weren’t important. They died in Dachau. They’re dying around the world, at one end of a bloody bayonet or the other.
All I’m asking here is just try to not make it all about the Irish this year. It’s not and St. Patrick never intended it that way.
And moving right along, we’re sad to note the crossing over of one of our favourite actors. Peter Graves, perhaps best known for his role as Mr. Phelps on the long-running American television series Mission Impossible and as the single-parent rancher on the earlier series, Fury, died at the age of 83 of a heart attack at his home in Palisades Park, California. A Minnesota native, he was the brother of American actor James Arness of Gunsmoke fame.
Well, just about the time I think chicken manure is passé in some places, it surfaces where I least expect it and in this case, the Barnyard Bullshyte Award goes to the International Skating Union for threatening Canadian figure skater Joannie Rochette with unspecified sanctions if she performs the routine dedicated to her mother that won her a Bronze in this year’s Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on American television network ABC’s Thin Ice. For more details and outrage far more articulate than ours, check out Rosie DiManno’s column in the Toronto Star. Honest to God, this is really over the top. And thank you, Siobhan, for tipping us off to this one.
And still moving right along, but also in the Why is this trip necessary? category, several of you have written in to report being stalked and/or harassed on the Internet. So it’s probably about time for me to remind you guys and you guys to tell your people, this stuff is against the law now. You don’t have to take it and if you’re thinking about using it as a tactic, I’d suggest you’d have better odds of bringing a bobcat home by the tail and with a lot better chance of surviving the experience.
In other words, cyberbullying is treated ~ and appropriately so ~ the same as it is offline. They investigate, the prosecute and they put people in jail for this. So if you’re being victimized online or you know someone who is, here’s the first place to go to put an end to it. It’s the Stalking Resource Center division of the National Center for Victims of Crime.
If that doesn’t work for you, contact us at minstrel312@aol.com and we’ll see if we can’t identify resources that will. We also strongly advise you to contact your local law enforcement agencies and your state attorney general’s office. There is absolutely no excuse for Internet harassment and stalking so it’s time to take care of this and get on with life.
We’re pleased to report that the University of Washington’s men’s basketball team took the PAC 10 this year. I say that not being into college athletics but because I live in the heart of Husky Land and there are like 42,000 of them who are ecstatic (and occasionally insufferably so) when they win and a real pain in the arse to deal with when they lose. I happen to be, if anything, a fan of the UW’s traditional rival, the Washington State University Cougars. My neighbors know this.
And occasionally I’ve contended, albeit mildly, in their presence that the one advantage in being a cougar kitten is that nobody can ever call you a son of a (you guys know the word). They are not generally amused by this observation but it does tend to bank the bonfires a bit. Like my infamous Grandpa Seamus said about pushing a wheelbarrow up a hill. Sometimes, if you’re not going backwards, you’re still making progress.
MORE GOOD NEWS
We happened to listen to one of the most absorbing radio interviews we’ve heard in a long time. Evan Williams, Twitter co-founder, shared with the BBC’s World Service his vision that “social networks will become a fundamental way we communicate with our governments, businesses and loved ones.” For a transcript and an audio clip, please go here.
The electrification of private transportation will be a reality in big way on the West Coast by the end of this year and just in time for a mass marketing by Nissan and Chevrolet of their Leaf and Volt models, respectively. Last year, the federal Department of Energy commissioned the construction of charging stations in five states and California, Oregon and Washington were among them. These will be located in shopping malls, theater parking lots and wherever else drivers are inclined to leave their electric cards for a couple of hours. To see how this all came together and see how you can participate in suggesting other sites for these charging stations, please go here.
SURVIVING HARD TIMES
Sometimes surviving hard times also means knowing what you’re really up against so you can deal more realistically with life in general. That’s what’s nice about weather forecasters and despite all the jokes about them, I respect them as a profession. The weather here is both moody and often unpredictable. It has a mind of its own and is as alive as the trees and everything else below and around it. So these women and men do a pretty good job of letting us know if it’s going to be too windy to use an umbrella or too cold to wait very long for a bus.
I look at economic forecasts for the same reason and I ran across one in The Atlantic that nearly froze my blood it was so stark and unsparing in discussing the psychological damage this Recession has caused to all concerned but particularly to children.
I read the whole thing but not all at once. I looked at it from, “like how much of this really applies to my situation, where I live ~ but most importantly ~ what we, as a city, county, state and region are doing about each of these impacts. It’s just like these statistics about getting published or making the Manchester United. There are two things they never factor in, talent and heart. I can understand that. It’s like trying to tack Jell-O to the wall (I’ve never understood why anyone would want to do that but as a figure of speech, it works so I’m using it.)
In this case, what this examination of the long range effects of this Recession does not factor in is the ability of individuals, families and communities to proactively deal with all of these issues on a broad front and in some ways that haven’t been tried in a long time.
Again, I go back to what Darwin said about survival of the species and that’s that it’s not about the strongest. It’s about the most adaptable.
So if you want to read that article in the Atlantic, please go here.
We reported earlier about a new “cult” of people who are taking things they enjoy doing and are good at and making a living. The eighth in this series of 14 asks what is so good about handmade and then went on to answer it eloquently. Yep, check it out here.
HEALTH NEWS
For those (like me) who believe that virtue is its own reward, smile because now medical science seems to have reached the same conclusion. According to realage.com, volunteering, doing a good deed each day and in general, helping others, engages the human brain in ways that are not only healthy on a daily basis but keep it young, as well. Yep, check it out here.
Registered organ donors in Israel will now be rewarded if they or members of their family are also awaiting an organ transplant by being moved up the line. According to Aron Heller of the Associated Press:
“The new law is the first of its kind in the world, and international medical authorities are eager to see if it boosts organ supply. But it has also raised resistance from within Israel's ultraorthodox Jewish minority.”
Yep, for more, check it out here.
Seattle Facts and Figures
Seattle Rainfall in Comparison To Other US Cities
Annual Precipitation
City/State Precipitation (In Inches)
Atlanta, GA 48.6
Vancouver, B.C. 46.0
Houston, TX 44.8
New York, NY 44.1
Boston, MA 43.8
Washington D.C. 39.0
SEATTLE, WA 38.6
Chicago, IL 33.3
Los Angeles, CA 12.1
For more information about Seattle, click here.
For live cameras on Seattle, the Puget Sound and Washington State, click here.
CRITTER STUFF
Global warming and the pollution humans have contributed to the degradation of the environment are having some dramatic impacts on the behavior of thousands of species on the planet. Some of them are surviving by adopting some truly unusual and remarkable behaviors. For a fascinating description of how such creatures as the polar bear, red fox and Edith’s checkerspot butterfly, please go here.
YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP.
Okay, it’s not like I don’t think you’ll believe me this time, it’s that even as environmentally dedicated and critter friendly as I am, raising miniature goats in the city is a stretch. Apparently, this ‘fad’ is not exactly inciting city fathers around the country to rapture either. In a story headlined Goat fans, cities butting heads, USA Today’s Judy Keen reports:
“Herd the latest?
“Looking for a pet that can live in your urban yard, answers to its name, wears a leash for strolls — and might produce milk you can drink or turn into cheese? Meet the minature goat.
“That's the case goat fans are making to city officials across the USA. Hillsboro, Ore., held three community meetings this year, including one last week, to ask residents whether goats and chickens should be added to a list of acceptable pets. City spokeswoman Barbara Simon says views run "more pro than con."
Yep, for the rest of this one, click here.
That’s it for this week. We’ve got some cool stuff down below you might want to check out. And if you’re in a shopping mood, be sure peruse our amazon.com ads and our reader-generated Northstar General Store.
Stay the course, gang. We’re getting there and we’re going to make it. And thanks once again for the ear. And stuff.
Rusty
For the ezine (graphics enhanced) version of The Northstar Journal, please email a request to mminstrel312@aol.com and you'll be added to the subscriber list.
NORTHSTAR RECOMMENDS
FUN STUFF
Ever been told you look like someone famous? Ever not been told that but would like to have been? Find a photo of yourself, go to this site, MyHeritage.com, upload it and get a gallery of celebrities you resemble, to one degree or another. Yep, it’s a total waste of time and an unabashed indulgence of ego. Probably two reasons why I totally loved it, even though a couple of my own pix didn’t turn up any results. It’s fun to play with so enjoy.
If you’re into a real interesting and visual escape, we certainly recommend The Art In LA website. It’s a virtual art gallery created by a real gentle, occasionally obnoxious but totally good-hearted soul with standards as fine as those of any engineer I’ve ever met. It’s also a good place for healthy meditation. If you’re lucky, you might just run into the artist herself. Her name is Colleen and she’s a trip, trust me. Yep, she was born under the fourth flag on our masthead.
Writer At Work is a blog which comes to us from Stoke on Trent, Staffordshire, England and here’s another case of appropriate hyperbole. Cadie, its author, is a university writer in training with a visually impressive informational website worthy of a professional with three decades more time in grade. Whether it’s specific advice to her peers or a dynamite story on a literary event in the United Kingdom, she does an admirable job of, as they say in the Colonies, “covering her bases.” She learns quickly, this one, and passes it along. What I also truly like about this site is that it is also a lifestyle slice of Merry Olde and from as ingenuous a source as I’ve met in some while. She’s a trip, gang. Check her out here.
HEALTH
Ten foods that really do help prevent cancer.
Grub you libido will love.
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.
Take this test to see how your memory compares with the average.
Click here for fun games to improve your memory.
ONLINE TOOLS FOR THE KIT
PC World – This is the best source we’ve found yet for totally free, useful, reliable and secure (no viruses) downloads ranging from games through utilities and with a nice selection of screen savers, etc. What I particularly appreciate about it is how easy the site is to navigate. They also have a daily letter featuring two “daily downloads.”
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.
FOR YOUR SHOPPING CONVENIENCE
And for a truly unique shopping experience, drop by and browse THE NORTHSTAR GENERAL STORE.
MEDIA
Overview
For those interested in what’s going on in the world of magazines and newspapers in general, we highly recommend Woodenhorsepub.com. They publish a weekly online newsletter for media professionals and for readers simply interested in the future of the publications they enjoy and an advance on new ones they might. Their website is located here.
Good “Reads”
News
BBC – Best source of international news.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (multi-media), the Toronto Globe & Mail and the Vancouver Sun -- outstanding sources for Canadian national, provincial, and world news.
KING 5 News – Best source of video news of Seattle and the Greater Puget Sound.
New York Times – Best source of American news.
Reuters – Best source of an international perspective on American headlines.
Seattle Times – Best source for news of the city and the Puget Sound. Its reportage is unbiased but their columns and other opinion pieces do reflect the predominant values of the Pacific Northwest.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – Best source of Pacific Northwest regional news. Delivered daily by email, it covers Alaska, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
Entertainment
BBC Knowledge Magazine – designed to give the American magazine National Geographic the proverbial run for its money.
Writer At Work -- a visually impressive informational website which includes specific advice to writers, a list of resources for same and dynamite stories on a literary events in the United Kingdom, this one is for the aspiring writer and the professional alike.
TomatoMan Times -- For those who love good writing, there are fewer finer contemporary craftsmen out there now than professionally known as Tomatoman Mike. He’s as Northern Californian as John Steinbeck is, albeit with a dash of Sam Clemmons, Bret Harte and Robert W. Service in him. He’s a romp to read, trust me.
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.
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
See you next week, eh?
