Walking Away From Empire

The financial news from Europe is worse every day.  Now (11/23/11) the most stable country in Euro-Land..., Germany, has no buyers for its bonds.  Maybe the Federal Reserve will save the world (again) and Bail Out Germany and the rest of the world’s banks and bond holders..., like they clandestinely did in 2008.  The Fed doesn’t have to buy American T-bonds with QE-2 anymore..., everyone is buying them up now.  Lots of money left to buy Euro-Bonds.  QE-3..., if they  don’t get caught.

I know one guy who hopes they don’t get away with it..., or hopes it fails..., if they do. He hopes the whole shebang comes falling down like the famous bridge in the children’s rhyme. He hopes..., or knows..., that the whole industrial economy of this fragile planet needs to come to a screeching halt in short order. The sooner the better for this Spaceship Earth that we call “ours”. It’s our only hope. He says that if we keep burning the fossil fuels that sustain our industrial economy at the present rate..., let alone at the rate at which it would take to “grow” the current economy enough too “rescue” us from fiscal and monetary collapse..., it would fuel world climate change and global warming to the extent of total extinction of most living species...., including our own.

Some nut-case doomer..., this guy..., you ask? No..., this guy..., is Guy R. McPherson. 

Blog Enhancements...,

or at least that is the intention.  We got two inches of rain yesterday..., so I spent a lot of time at the computer.  I finally mastered..., OK..., figured out..., how to insert hyperlinks into the body of a story..., sometimes.  Lots of frustration at times..., but I think it really is an enhancement.  For those of you..., like my brother Larry..., who is a heck of an equipment operator..., but not so much of a computer operator..., a hyperlink takes you to another web site that relates to the statement highlighted.  Like the phase "my brother Larry" is highlighted and if you hover the mouse over it and click on it..., it takes you to a picture of Larry on my Facebook site.  Hit the "back" button and it takes you back to the blog.  Anyway..., I have updated several of the stories I've posted with these hyperlinks..., like links to pictures of the people I profiled in The April Birthday's Party story.  Let me know if you like it or not.  I primarily wanted to link to the Clearwater Log Drive story by Charlie and Sandra McCollister that I mentioned in Shipping Our Jobs Overseas story..., and the idea sort of took over !!!!

Shipping Our Jobs Overseas

My dear, sweet Aunt Ethel sent me some old family photographs recently.  Of primary interest to me were the ones of my Granddad and his team of logging horses.  The photos date from some time in the 1930’s and they are a reminder of an era long gone.  There are few…, if any…, occupations in life that I could imagine as being more satisfying than working beside and behind horses all day and attending to their care and feeding in the evening after a hard and productive day’s work.  But I will never know that satisfaction…, because, “those jobs have been shipped overseas”.  Whoops…, excuse me…, it seems that I have read and heard that phrase so many times that it just pops out on its own.  And the image of Granddad sending his horses over to China so some low wage coolies could cut the timber and drive the team and save him a little money compared to a high paid American worker and lower his tax base as well, that is precisely the image a lot of folks want you to believe in. 

You Just Don't Get It..., Unless...,

..., you read David Michael Green.  Here's a link to the full story..., well worth the read.  I quoted a few snippets from the piece to lure you into clicking on the link.

http://www.regressiveantidote.net/Articles/All_The_Bad_News_Fit_To_Print.html

All the Bad News Fit to Print

Sometimes, when certain species (you know who you are) are too utterly daft to recognize the obvious, the Universe sees fit to scream it out in the form of big, bold block letters.
...
Let me make it simple, in case anyone wants to share this essay with their idiotic, Republican (pardon the redundancy) cousin Buford: The story of American politics over the last generation is the story of the transfer of wealth from the people to the plutocrats. If you think there is anything else essential going on here, you don’t get it.

You're Not Alone

Another selection from my friend..., Jackson.

Windmills On My Mind

Windmills windmills windmills, a photo by Sam Beebe / Ecotrust on Flickr.

I didn't take my camera..., and I would need many hundreds of photos to show the number of windmills we saw on the trip.

My brother Larry and I were on our way in his car to Newport, OR for the wedding of his son Bert.  Larry and I only see each other once a year at best, now that our parents are gone..., so the trip was a good excuse to spend some time together.  I flew from Forks, WA to Lewiston, ID and Larry met me there.  I saw some windmills from the plane..., and we were a few miles west of Pomeroy, WA when the giant sentinels began appearing.  Larry..., as always..., knew a bit about them and filled me in on what he knew.  We talked about them and marveled at what a huge undertaking the project must have been.  We had worked together on a big Bonneville Power line job back in the 80’s when we were partners in Spence Brothers Logging, so we weren’t just idling speculating.  Those big windmills  were impressive and intimidating..., but they did nothing to prepare us for the immensity of the scene in the Columbia River Gorge.  Hundreds upon hundreds of windmills..., mile after mile after mile of them. 

George Lawrence Saddle Collection

UPDATE - 5/18l11  I added a link to a youtube video about the George Lawrence Company at the bottom of the post.

Nice day yesterday..., don't anyone tell Julie that I was working on saddles..., and The Blog..., instead of doing my chores !!!  You can click on these thumbnail photos and view them in a larger format.

Just don't understand WHY those horses would turn thier backs on these fine George Lawrence saddles?

From left to right..., newest to the oldest by age.

"Sing the Truth..., Scream it Loud"

I wrote about Tom Russell and attending a performance here on this Blog and on The Agonist a while back. At that performance I picked up one of Tom's CD's called "Hotwalker" I am not capable of explaining what it really is..., certainly not a purely musical CD. But when I heard this song "Woodrow" (an ode to Woody Guthrie) out in The Saddle Bar(n) for the first time...,I knew it was something special..., very special.  If I had heard it before the performance at The Tree House I guarantee you that I would have put on a performance of my own..., in insisting that he do "Woodrow".  But it was far too late for that..., and as I played it over and over out in The Saddle Bar(n) I wanted so bad to share it with others. I began to contemplate putting together a video of the song..., but I could never have made anything of the caliber that is demonstrated on this You-Tube video by "paganmaestro". The opening may be a bit disconcerting due to the nature of "Hotwalker"..., read the description of the album on You-Tube for a little insight and/or read Thom Jurek's review of the album here http://allmusic.com/album/hotwalker-r729083/review. 


But whatever you do..., hang in there and give this song a listen.





I would not recommend "Hotwalker" as an introduction to Tom Russell's music..., but it certainly shows another side to Tom and his talents.  So..., that said..., here's another video clip from "paganmaestro" of a song of Tom's that was written back in 1988 that still resonates strongly today.

The April Birthday's Party

We’re calling this one the 30^th Anniversary…, but we really aren’t sure.  There was much discussion, debate, and even a fair bit of delusion bantered about before the 25^th Anniversary was declared five years ago.  And to this day Dave and I don’t have enough fingers to count back on and figure out just what year we might have thrown in together and started buying a keg of beer and asking a few friends to join us in a celebration of our birthdays, which are just three days…,  and one year apart.  He’s the old fart…, just needed to make that clear.  He’s turning 60 on the 16^th of April this year and he feels it’s about time to “retire” from this particular party scene.  And since this Pugilist will be 59 three days behind Dave …, I am backing him up and throwing in the towel too.  Yeah..., that old rock and roll has declared victory in the fight for my soul, it’s time to put down the gloves, live on love, and retire in my prime..., before I am counted out and can’t get up off the mat anymore.  With a very special hat tip to Tom Russell.

In the interest of full disclosure, the seeds of this function were sown in about 1975.  I got my name in the paper for things that didn’t exactly make my parents proud..., OK..., not at all proud.  Thanks to my Dad and brother Larry and the Bail Out Funds they provided..., I wasn’t in jail.  I had a new girlfriend from Lewiston and she hadn’t meet a lot of my Weippe friends yet, so I thought that throwing a birthday party for myself at a friends house would be a good idea.  I miscalculated a little..., and failed to send an engraved invitation to the Clearwater County cops.  They were a bit insulted by that I guess.  It’s not like I sent out invitations, it was all word of mouth..., and they got the word alright.  So I am not sure just what their problem was..., but they definitely had one.  They stopped several car loads of prospective attendees and informed them that the party had been cancelled.  Luckily for those folks, there were laws back in those days against unreasonable search and seizure..., that were respected and observed by even the most zealous of cops and courts.  But it did scare the celebratory intentions right out of a lot of people.  Including yours truly.

Tom Russell

The Show was over and Julie and I stepped outside the Treehouse Café for a smoke in the cool, crisp air of the Olympic Peninsula while we waited for the crowd to thin out. Tom Russell had put on a performance that was everything we had anticipated…, and more. Back inside, there I was with five of Tom’s CD’s in hand, standing in what was then a short line, to get them autographed by him…, and wondering what I should say…, besides, “Thank you,”?

It had been about a year since I had “discovered” Tom’s extraordinary songwriting and musical abilities. I had read a piece of his writing, posted on The Agonist Blog, which was linked from Tom’s own “Notes From the Borderland” blog. Intrigued by that piece, I began to read his other posts on his blog. They went back in time a bit, and many of them were about the songs from his newly released CD, “Blood and Candle Smoke”. I don’t buy…, or even listen to…, any “new” music these days. The old chain saw, rock concert, barroom boogie days have left these old ears of mine ravaged to a degree that if I don’t already know the words to a song, I can barely discern them. But based on Tom’s writing I decided to take a chance and bought “Blood and Candle Smoke” and “Veteran’s Day – The Tom Russell Anthology”. It had been almost 20 years since a new artist’s work had graced my collection. I wish I could say that it was worth the wait…, but what I really wish…, is that I had discovered Tom 40 years and 25 albums ago.