Some people don’t spend their winters in the Bitterroot. They go to warmer climes so they don’t have to wear heavy winter clothes, put chains on their tires, or stoke their woodstoves. I personally know of Bitterrooters who winter in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Hawaii, and Florida. For example, the Kampa family, West Fork residents, recently sent some pictures from their Florida “getaway” vacation. Tell Jimmy Buffett hello from the Bitterroot Life!
This is a forwarded email worth helping out on:
Greetings! It’s the New Year, and one of my resolutions is to get on with the fight to keep Ravalli County free of the Big Box plague. We can’t do anything about the Bird Flu, but this is a scourge we can fight! You are invited to a meeting at Chapter One Book Store on Monday, Jan. 16 at 7 p.m., to form a group or coalition to get ordinances or regulations passed countywide, and in our incorporated cities. We’ll need plenty of >help, but we have many good models for action.Bring a friend, and think of groups with which we can partner to get this done. RUSS LAWRENCE
Vacuity. What does it mean?
1. Total absence of matter; emptiness.
2. An empty space; a vacuum.
3. Total lack of ideas; emptiness of mind.
4. Absence of meaningful occupation; idleness: “the crew, being patient people, much given to slumber and vacuity” (Washington Irving).
5. The quality or fact of being devoid of something specified: a vacuity of taste; a vacuity of emotions.
6. Something, especially a remark, that is pointless or inane: a conversation full of vacuities.
Is this blog vacuous? Don’t think so. I use it to center my thinking about the crumbling modern world just outside my door. And I write so that others who visit here will hopefully take something away that adds a shred of meaning and depth to their overfed lives in the age of diminishing expectations.
The world is full of wonder and beauty, and greed and filth. By taking a few moments to ponder and comment on the state of the world and its inhabitants human, plant and animal, I feel better about it, and stronger for it too. And when I encounter someone who is a blatantly vacuous consumerist in the real world, I am blessed with the strength to offer an opinion of that person’s excesses that can be expressed in clear terms. There is truth with a capital T and it is an honor to serve it.
All your strokin’ comes down to a no-reply kinda diss?
Okay bro, let me get brown on you for a minute, I’ve taken a few years of this.
You’re obviously smokin’ the shit because you’d otherwise have to say
To the jib-jab man, silence it is just a word and not the way.
Fool, you know what it is to exhaustively communicate
You put a subject to a verb and you use E tools to relate.
Remember I helped you and you tried to help me?
All along I was remote but powerful, helpful and friendly,
Till the day I took an axe from the peanut fairy man-
And you swung it for a promotion and I got dusted with temporary sand.
6 years I did a first-rate job and it wasn’t my fault
I got a Homer Timpson sendoff all packed up nice in salt.
I’m wrapping up all the details I find rather fishy
And sending them south real soon so the suits can blather and get legally pissy
I know the sitch you’re in
You get to be ice now and you have to play to win.
The truth will out and set this contractor free
You see big D, unlike you, I know I was not really a temporary, I was a full-time employee.
Now see, I’m as done with you as you are snide with me.
And I’m goin to make whoopee in a full report for the whole wide world to see.
This is my bitchslap back and you’re right smack yaba-dabba in the middle
Soon it’ll be your turn to jabba and be uptight about playin the notes on your particular third-string fiddle.
Maybe I mistook your zeal and our nerd friendship is officially dead.
Eeek, well least I ain’t a Clinglish pony ridin’ herd for Big Red.
Yo, all that proud strokin’ about a friendship is broken and I even hear a hiss
Okay, let me throw down a sec, I’ve had enough of this.
You’re obviously deluded because you never concluded
Silence is just a word and not a way.
Fool, you know how to exhaustively communicate
We put subjects to verbs intensively and used to relate.
Remember I helped you and you tried to help me?
All along I was remote but powerful, helpful and friendly,
Till I took an axe from the new director man-
And I got dusted with temporary sand.
6 years I did a first-rate job and it wasn’t my fault
I got a Homer Timpson sendoff all packed up nice in salt.
I’m wrapping up all the details I find rather fishy
And sending them soon so the suits and me can get legally pissy
I know the sitch you’re in
You get to be ice man now and you have to freeze to win.
But the truth will out and set me free
I was in need and deed a bad-time, good-time full-time Novell employee.
Now see, I’m as done with you as you are snide with me.
And I’m goin to make whoopee in a full report for anyone who cares to see.
You’re right smack dabba in the middle
Your turn to jabba and be a bit uptight playin your scenario-building fiddle.
Your corporate zeal is for real and this nerd friendship is clinically dead.
Eeek, well least I ain’t a cynically slanted Clinglish pony ridin’ herd for the New Big Red.
George W. Bush
8-5-04
He’s fallen off a Segway on the White House lawn. He regularly falls off his mountain bike. He’s also tripped himself while jogging with his Secret Service agents. Is he a hyper-aggressive athletic type or just a klutz with locomotor ataxia and grade-school grammar skills? He’s also put his foot in his mouth so many times that he’s probably rather scared to open it for fear of what will come tumbling out next.
All of this embarrassing behavior is happening in the public eye. Which begs the question: what kind of Americans (and how many) will vote for George Bush in November? Acrobats and gymnasts? How about dancers and musicians, psychologists or scientists? Or factory workers or families whose sons have died for this man’s dictatorial ambitions? How about the Republican rank and file? How about you?
Do you feel safer now than in 2001? Worth less now than in 2001? Feeling…Bushed? If not, congratulations, you must be a core Republican in high cotton because you haven’t “misunderestimated” the man.
www.stupidity.com is a fascinating yet boringly academic read about history of stupidity in the Western world, and the propensity of we modern-day humans to continue being incredibly shortsighted, shallow, arrogant and self serving.
Sure there are good people, intelligent people, and you might count yourself as one of them. But good people are losing the war by a country mile because their methods, uh, are stupid. If you don’t think this is the case, you really need a wake up call.
“Until we find proper places for people and nature in the equation “Technology=progress”, we will continue to pay the price for the arrogance which flaws the Western psyche and characterizes the official attitude of the Establishment. In fact, early in this century, even the most reverent believer in the invincibility of industrial technology should have learned from the fate of the Titanic that all our mechanical skill could not guarantee human safety when coupled with a vainglorious disrespect for nature.”
We had a really nice trip to Europe, including northern Italy, Bavaria in southern Germany, Switzerland and Austria. There are lots of pix. Here’s one to get started. If you click on the pic it will take you to the WHJ Travel page for the full view of our excellent holiday!
Here are some pics from our friend and neighbor Linda Hiatt, who came across this timid young male black bear in a tree near our house last week. We were on vacation, shucks!
“Cold Turkey” Great read from Kurt Vonnegut
Scalia Apologizes for Recording Erasure in Hattiesburg, MS:
During the April 7 speech in Hattiesburg, Miss., a deputy federal marshal demanded that reporters for The Associated Press and The Hattiesburg American erase recordings of the justice’s remarks. She said the justice had asked that his appearance not be recorded.
When the AP reporter resisted, the officer took the digital recorder out of the reporter’s hands. The reporter then showed Marshal Melanie Rube how to erase the recording. The exchange occurred in the front row of the auditorium while Scalia delivered his speech about the Constitution.
Never have so many watched or listened to so little. Home Shopping Network. Michael and Janet Jackson, Ozzy Osbourne, Disneyland. The Daytona 500. The Super Bowel. People who are fat in both body and mind because they don’t really do anything artistic or cultural themselves. That’s our modern world…worn out from working, most people basically give the remainder of their lives over to others’ music, cultural activities, and team sports, be it from stadiums, compact discs or television. Far from having self-made art, literature or music in our own lives, we put money, deep feelings and rabid brand loyalty to the corporate machines whose products essentially promote inactivity and spectating as a way of life. In a sense, corporations are turning art, music, and even sports from a means of self-enrichment into a hypnotic and endless stream of swill that embeds itself into the minds of spectators frozen in place, giving mainly vicarious pleasure, a lot of advertising, and little else, unless you count knowing yesterday’s score between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Jests–or what was around Janet’s nipple at the end of her Superbowl routine–as something valuable.
Lamentably, the eyes and ears of the common person have been hijacked by our sacharrine and censorial culture shapers, where the only art and recreational opportunities being presented are those that pad the corporate bank accounts. We’ve been trained to trust only the experts in any given arena and ignore the truth of art and recreation all around us.
The orginal art of a busy lawyer, or even the streetside ranting of a shabby transient, reflecting on his destitute life and honest experiences is generally more credible and worthy than the loftiest expressions of a trained, professional artist.
The passion and grace of a lone gypsy dancing around a campfire beats all of the florid fluttering of the corps de ballet whose costumes are those of class enslavement and entombment.
The music of a single individual is far more potent than an entire Brahms concerto by the Boston Pops. Symphonic music is a syphillis.
The endeavor of a being a backpacker or kayaker is far more interesting than watching 22 meatheads slam into each other for an hour over a sphere of leather. Stadiums are proof that we haven’t learned a thing since the time of the Romans.
Petroholics. You read it here first. Average time we working Americans spend just driving to and from work, per day? 101 minutes. That’s almost 8.5 hours a week, or 17.5 days each year. Besides a petroleum-guzzling problem, we don’t have time to stop and consider how to save time, much less ever build a less resource-intensive existence.
President Bush sent Congress a $2.4 trillion election-year budget on Monday featuring big increases for defense and homeland security but also a record $521 billion deficit. To battle the soaring deficits, Bush proposed squeezing scores of government programs and sought outright spending cuts in seven of 15 Cabinet-level agencies. The Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency were targeted for the biggest reductions.
With presidents like this, who needs terrorists?
Three Texas surgeons were playing golf together and bragging about surgeries they had performed.
One said, “I’m the best surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident, I reattached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the Queen of England.”
The second surgeon said; “That’s nothing. A young man lost his arms and legs in an accident, I reattached them, and 2 years later he won a gold medal in field events in the Olympics.”
The third surgeon said, “You guys are amateurs. Several years ago a cowboy who was high on cocaine and alcohol rode a horse head-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the horse’s ass and a cowboy hat. Now he’s president of the United States.”
-unattributable
Get togethers in the Bitterroot are fun affairs because all the people are interesting, resourceful, wittay and unafraid to be “rural Montana” people. Whatever that means. Thanks to Hanna, Ted, Amy, Doreen, Cliff, John, Sharie, Quint and Tamera for a fun evening.
If “the people” ever managed to cooperate long enough to build a viable alternative to the Micro$oft Windows hegemony, what would it look like? What if “the people” built a computing environment that was totally free, and at least as good or better than the software and hardware vendors and their proprietary offerings? Well, it’s happening.
By now you have heard of Linux, the open source operating system written by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Since then Linux has, uh, matured into a business-class operating system for both desktops and servers, and is already muscling out Apple’s Macintosh OS as the #2 desktop, with approximately 3% market share. On the server side, Linux is taking market share from Windows, NetWare and Unix servers, and is destined to become the market leader. And why shouldn’t it? It’s free, stable, secure, the source code is freely downloadable and modifiable. Plus, there are thousands and thousands of open source applications, such as OpenOffice, to make the Linux environment as rich and diverse as either of the “proprietary” operating systems from Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
Of course most people still use Windows, and a minority of folks still swear by Apple on the desktop. But that could change in the next few years as Linux matures. Why is Linux a no-brainer next big thing? Well, nothing beats free. Just like no company owns the Internet, no company owns Linux, and it could be argued that it is owned by anyone and everyone who embraces and uses it. That’s a very different scenario than renting software from Microsoft or Apple. And unlike these proprietary vendor desktop and server computing environments, the hood isn’t glued shut on Linux.
My personal goal is to migrate to Linux in the next six months, and I’ll be documenting the process of becoming a penguin. Should be scintillating reading.
Ah, speaking of the gift of fine art, this one’s from one of my oldest and dearest friends. Susan Rayborn is the artiste of this wonderful painting of BB laying into Lucy. It’s all framed up now and has a place of honor in the music room. Thanks again, Su!
Fascinating read about Heddy Lamar and the birth of spread spectrum radio waves
“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
- A. J. Liebling
This year the sledding has been almost perfect; the snow’s plentiful, it’s cold, and the guy who plows our road knows just how Nelson Creek sledders like it! It’s 3/8 mile to the mailbox and sliding there is the only way to fly, besides skiing down. Course, ya gotta walk back up…
Happy New Year! May your 2004 be one to remember for having taken life by the horns instead of getting it the other way around. 
All kinds of folks showed up over the holidays…here’s Tamera’s daughter Tiffany and her beau Matt….
Peace to all. Or else there be no peace.
Dogman, if people were half as decent, loyal, strong, caring and loving as you we humans wouldn’t be in the sitch we’re in as a species, isn’t that right?
Here are a few more pics of our house, from when we moved in up to now:
Here’s some pics of our recent addition of a great room, this is the foyer to the big room that is our office and retreat from domestic intrusions…that’s one-eyed Rita (my sharpest critic) on the stair rail. Almost all of the wood used in this project came from our property, including the beams, stair rails, trim, etc. (Trees felled by me and milled with help of a neighbor, the inimitable Cal Toliver.)
Bummer dude:
AhphreakinHEM! I’d like to state CATEGORICALLY and UNEQUIVOCALLY that I have never, to the best of my knowledge, supported a Republican platform, policy or politician. Let alone a Texas GOB like you, Dubya. More bad ‘intel’ from the guy who built a stolen presidency on it. The closest I get to being Replubican ;-0 is living in Montana.
MIAMI (Reuters) – Fighter jets were scrambled at Miami airport on Tuesday after an elderly woman threw a fit on an American Airlines plane and flight attendants thought she would attack them, police said. Reports said the woman was aged between 69 and 79. “They said old,” a police spokeswoman said, adding she could not confirm her precise age.
The pilot of flight AA-2133 with 126 passengers on board announced an emergency as a precaution shortly after taking off for Caracas, and fighter jets were scrambled to escort the plane back to Miami international airport.
The plane landed safely.
Tamera and I spent a wonderful week in southern Utah with old friends, watching the total lunar eclipse, and mainly traipsing the sandstone in search of what’s always just around the corner. This pic taken by good buddy Paul Boruff is from Little Wild Horse Canyon, near Goblin Valley.
A record to be proud of: GEORGE W. BUSH – ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT
I spent the US surplus and bankrupted the US Treasury.
I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for the most personal bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history (tough to beat his dad’s, but he did).
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by a president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their jobs.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for most real estate foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president, since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other US president in history.
I presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I’ve made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (The poorest multimillionaire, Condoleeza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her).
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously struggle against bankruptcy.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the vast majority of the international community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to compel the United Nations remove the US from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the less congressional oversight, than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world’s sympathy for the US after 9/11, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.
I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the Civil War.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
RECORDS AND REFERENCES:
I have at least one conviction for drunk driving in Maine (Texas driving record has been erased and is not available).
I was AWOL from the National Guard and deserted the military during time of war.
I refuse to take a drug test or even answer any questions about drug use.
All records of my tenure as governor of Texas have been spirited away to my father’s library, sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All records of any SEC investigations into my insider trading or bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
All minutes of meetings of any public corporation for which I served on the board are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.
Any records or minutes from meetings I (or my VP) attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review.
(Note: this information should be useful to voters in the 2004 election. Circulate to as many citizens you think would be helped by being reminded about my record.)
