Best Canine Hiking Partner Ever

Still.

Idiocy of the Day

From the Washington Post:

A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates who want to use the shots aggressively to prevent thousands of malignancies and social conservatives who say immunizing teenagers could encourage sexual activity.

Let's set aside the false dichotomy posed by the wingnuts -- that you have to choose between vaccinating against a deadly sexually transmitted disease and not "encouraging" sexual activity. My question is "so what if we do?" Heaven forbid we should have the attitude that sex is a good thing.

Make no mistake about it. What the theocrats are engaged in is an effort to confine sexuality -- not just theirs, or their children's, but everyone's -- within the boundaries that they set. They've been doing it for ages, and the only difference now is that the Bushies have given them a place at the policy-making table.

Frankly, they're unbelievably sex-obsessed, and just straight-up perverted in some cases. And they sublimate their perversion by squashing everyone else's sex life. Sickos.

Don't believe me? Read this.

Nausea of the Day

This is disgusting. Ugh.

I remember having read about the putrefied shark when TS and I were contemplating a trip to Iceland.

In a similar vein, see "The Devil's Picnic," the book I got TH Brother for his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Bloggerdad

That actually says "Happy BDay Deepaw," which is what TK calls Bloggerdad. But as you can see, TK put a big, long locomotive sticker over "DE." So it looks like "Happy BDay Epaw."

Eye Candy, With a Side of Clearcuts

Head over to the Robot Vegetable's image blog, Middle-Fork. Do not miss the photographs of the clearcuts, especially this one. This is reality, folks. It isn't pretty, it isn't necessary, and there are consequences beyond the visual.

From a markedly different category, this one's great, too. Good stuff.

Scooter, Sulu and a Squid

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, Scooter Libby has been indicted and has resigned. I would ask that you take a look at a very interesting Josh Marshall post, and then be done with it. Those of us obsessed with it – and that includes me – are going to continue to be obsessed with it, and nothing I say can add to anything else being said.

Read the indictment here. Read Fitzgerald’s statement here.

Cheney accepted Libby’s resignation “with regret,” no doubt because it’s difficult to find good people who will perjure themselves in an inevitably doomed effort to save you from a special prosecutor.

Now let’s move on to other more interesting things. I’m occupied today with actual legal work, making progress on Trailhead Images and digging out from the pile of laundry that has threatened my family’s safety for the last two weeks.

That doesn’t mean I was too busy to browse these pictures of a giant squid taken by Japanese scientists. They scared the bejesus out of me, and you should take a look too.

In other news, apparently the White House’s ass is chapped because The Onion has been using the presidential seal. I don’t think this will make the White House feel any better. (via Eschaton.)

George Takei, 68, known fondly to Trekkies as Sulu, came out this week. Good for him.

Nelson Mandela has launched a series of comic books about his life.

Finally, head over to the magnificently titled “Library Bitch” and check out Dubya’s Elvis impersonation. Nice work.

Trailhead Gets a Wild Hair

I've been meaning to do it for some time, but I did it tonight. Trailhead Images is up and running. Ultimately, I'm planning a fancier site, but for now, Blogger is fine.

The first post is "Birds of the Everglades."

I'll be updating as I scan and, of course, as I shoot.

Virtual Hike -- Highline Trail

I was piddling around on TS's computer, and I found where he's been hoarding all our digital snaps from Montana. Here is a slide show from our short jaunt on the Highline Trail.

I'm working on getting my slides -- my "real" images -- scanned and online. It's an ongoing project, which means it's subject to my procrastinatory tendencies.

Together, We Can Do Better Than This Godawful Slogan

Via Shakespeare’s Sister comes the word that the Democrats are trying out a slogan for the 2006 elections that is, as Shakes succinctly puts it, “a piece of shit slogan [that] aspires to cliché hell:”

Together, we can do better.

Yeah, that’s it. “Together, we can do better.”

Let’s see. We’ve had a stolen election, a devastating terror attack, a rash of anthrax, an ill-planned, unnecessary war, a very necessary but terribly executed war, a trashed economy in which Paris Hilton keeps getting richer and everyone else gets poorer, a skyrocketing deficit and debt, escalating global warming, the destruction of one of our most interesting cities and the inexcusably negligent treatment of its inhabitants, and possibly even criminal indictments this week.

Have I left anything out? After all that -- this is all the Democrats have to say? [Congressional Democrat strokes chin thoughtfully] “I say, I think we could probably do a bit better than that, don’t you?”

Oh, that’ll set the electorate on fire.

The sheer vapidity of this slogan reflects a dispiriting truth: these guys don’t deserve to have power. They are governed by fear. It’s much easier to watch the Republicans so spectacularly destroy themselves, than to wield power, make decisions and be responsible for them. If you can only define yourself by what you are not – a fuckup Republican – and cannot or will not define yourself by what you are, then you should expect no one to follow you. And if Democrats generally don’t decide who they are, we will lose the best opportunity we’ve had since the Contract on America threw us out on our butts in 1994.

Sitting Down On the Job

Rosa Parks is dead at 92.

The common Rosa Parks narrative is that one day in Montgomery, Alabama, this black woman who’d never raised a fuss in her life was tired after working all day and decided, right then and there, to refuse to give up her seat to a white guy in violation of the transit rules. This out-of-the-blue act of civil disobedience sparked a movement that culminated in the death of Jim Crow, at least in the Montgomery bus system.

There’s one problem with the popular narrative. It’s wrong. Not the part about her gutsy refusal to comply with a racist directive, or that her act was one of the linchpins of the civil rights movement – those things are true, of course. But the perception that Ms. Parks acted spontaneously is not only wrong, it fails to accord Ms. Parks all the credit she is due for her role in the Montgomery bus boycott and the change it effected.

On December 1, 1955, when Ms. Parks declined to give up her seat to a white man, she was already the secretary of the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. The summer before her arrest, Parks had attended the Highlander Folk School, an education and training center involved in labor issues and desegregation. Ms. Parks was already actively working in the civil rights movement when she took her famous stand.

Somehow it’s more gratifying to perceive the process of social change as a single, dramatic, whizbang kind of moment. It’s easy to forget that progress is more often the result of constant, inconspicuous, taxing work. Rosa Parks did that kind of work before she had her celebrated moment of resistance.

Paul Rogat Loeb has written about the flaws in the popular Rosa Parks narrative:

Parks didn't make a spur - of - the - moment decision. Rosa Parks didn't single - handedly give birth to the civil rights efforts, but she was part of an existing movement for change, at a time when success was far from certain. This in no way diminishes the power and historical importance of her refusal to give up her seat. But it does remind us that this tremendously consequential act might never have taken place without all the humble and frustrating work that she and others did earlier on. And that her initial step of getting involved was just as courageous and critical as her choice on the bus that all of us have heard about.

Loeb goes on to argue that these legends we generate for our heroes may impede more than they inspire, because they create an impossibly high standard. Such ideas suggest that we don’t make a difference unless we act with such larger-than-life boldness, in a manner that is far beyond the ken of an ordinary person.

But really, the essence of a dramatic flourish is a culmination of quieter, but no less significant, events that lay the ground for the peak. In this way, each small actor contributes to the cataclysm of change, often in ways they don’t know.

In her 1995 book, Quiet Strength, Parks wrote, "Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like [people] to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom."

For What?

Steve Gilliard has a post up that you should read.  It’s deeply affecting in its spare, deflated, what-the-fuck-more-can-they-do tone.

When we hear numbers, we don’t see people.  

It’s too easy.  It shouldn’t be that easy.

Larch Mountain

One of the most accessible scenic vistas in the Portland area is Sherrard Point, on Larch Mountain. It's a twisty 16-mile drive through the Mt. Hood National Forest off Interstate 84, and and from the parking lot, an easy quarter mile hike up to the viewpoint. On a clear day, you can see five volcanoes in 360 degree perspective: Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Rainier, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood, and Mt. Jefferson.

I went up there at sunset and shot a roll and a half of slide film, and took these digital snaps as well. It will be some time before I get the slides back, but I'll share the best ones when they arrive. Needless to say, there is a stark difference between the capability of my digital point-and-shoot and my Nikon F100. But the snaps convey the basic idea.

I shared the cold sunset with two couples and a dog with a considerable underbite named Charlie. Charlie thought I was about to distribute treats when I opened the ziploc bag to retrieve my film. I'm afraid the disappointment quite ruined the sunset for her.

Once More, With Feeling

Like Harriet Miers, I've been asked to redo the questionaire. Rose protests that I have unfairly dodged the first section by disputing the main premise.

Fine, Rose, if you're going to be so particular about it.

Assuming, for purposes of argument only, that I will die, here are seven things I want to do before that happens -- in no particular order and with no representation that these are the top priorities:

1. Finally hike the damned Appalachian Trail already (after having opportunities fade away twice in ten years.)

2. Organize my house.

3. Live and grow old on a spread in the mountains with my horses, chickens, dogs, garden, friends, and family. (That was certainly not in order of importance. Just so you know.)

4. Sit around for many, many hours -- perhaps in front of a nice fire or on a deck facing the mountains, or maybe in a cozy bookstore like the Wy'East -- and read, talk, laugh and eat.

5. Get to Patagonia.

6. Trek around Annapurna. (Otherwise known as the "Annapurna Circuit.")

7. Travel to Churchill, Manitoba and photograph the polar bears.

Trailhead's List of Seven

Rose has tagged me with a meme. This one is irresistible. It’s the “Seven Things” meme. Reading through Rose’s lists, it’s easy to see why we read each other’s blogs. Some of the items will be identical. Here goes:

7 things I want to do before I die:

Die? What do you mean, die?

7 things I cannot do:

1. A pull-up.

2. Burp on command.

3. Listen to Rush Limbaugh or George Bush.

4. Stay in one place for very long.

5. Get out enough.

6. Drink tequila.

7. Keep my desk organized.

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. Adventure

2. Intellect

3. Humor

4. Outdoor competence.

5. A rock climber's body. Doesn't have to be tall, but those finely toned muscles get me every time.

6. Understands and likes kids

7. Likes socializing

7 things that I say most often:

1. “You have to be fucking kidding me.”

2. "I need a diet coke/coffee/backrub."

3. “Where the hell did all that money go?”

4. "What should we do this weekend?"

5. “Good night, sleep tight..."

6. "Move to strike, non-responsive."

7. "What a tool."

7 celebrity crushes

1. Viggo Mortensen

2. John Cusack

3. Jon Stewart

4. Johnny Depp (what's with the Johns?)

5. Paul Hackett. (Ohio lawyer and Iraq war vet who very narrowly lost a Congressional special election in a district that had been going Republican by a 50% margin. (And has thrown his hat into the ring for the Democratic Senate primary.) He said "I don't like the son of a bitch that lives in the White House but I'd put my life on the line for him." Oh, yeah, baby. Say that again.)

6. Howard Dean. (Are you sensing a theme here? Don't laugh. He's cute when he gets in a froth.)

7. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Darn it, he's just what a Kennedy ought to be.)

7 people I want to do this:

Why, all seven of my readers, of course. Do a list or two in the comments section. And Tony.

Proof that God has a Sick Sense of Humor and Was Really Bored Yesterday

A wealthy Republican senator from New Hampshire has won $853,492 in Powerball.

Leave it to a Democrat, however, to fire off a nice quip at such news.  Kent Conrad, Senator from North Dakota, said that Senator Gregg should use the money to pay down the federal deficit.  Heh.

In other news, apparently the winning $340 million ticket was purchased in Oregon.  It wasn’t me, though I did get one number.  Come on, doesn’t one number win anything?

Like I told Full Moon this afternoon, a ten dollar scratch-off is looking pretty damn good right now.

Trailheadache

This is what happens when you spend three days in close proximity to a sick little someone who isn't yet aware that it is improper to cough in your face.

The nightmare scenario: Both Trailhead and Trailhead Spouse are sick, but Trailhead Kid is well -- bouncingly, demandingly well.

Someone send in the National Guard.

Time-Waster of the Day

Don't miss JibJab's latest effort, "Big Box Mart."  

Bob and Me

Day three of the sick room.

It’s hard to blog when you’re busy watching the same episodes of Bob the Builder over and over again.  This is the sort of thing that happens when I relax my TV rules, so I’ve no one to blame but myself.

I try in vain to get him to watch something else.  

“Elmo?  Dragontales? Dora?” I plead.
“I want Bob,” Trailhead Kid insists.
“Caillou?”
“Bob.”

Don’t get me wrong.  I like Bob.  It’s one of the more watch-able kids’ shows.  But I’ve memorized the episodes from the On Demand feature on our cable as well as the DVDs.  I hear Bob in my sleep, sing the theme song in the shower.  We clearly – clearly – need a new Bob DVD if I’m to get through this illness with my mental faculties intact.

Can we go stark raving mad?

Yes we can!

Excuse Me If I Nod Off

I’m a bit draggy today, having gotten approximately four minutes of sleep last night – and not even four consecutive minutes.

A little after midnight, TK began to raise a ruckus, and when we went in to check on him, he was radiating heat like a little hot coal poked out of a campfire.  And so the night progressed, and we discovered he could not breathe properly while lying horizontally.  Reclining too far on the bed produced a series of rattling, phlegmy coughs, and I would have to bring him back to a ninety-degree angle before he could conquer them.  

Unfortunately, one of these coughs overtook him entirely, and he upchucked lavishly and with admirable force on my bare feet.  I must say, you haven’t experienced the fullness of parenting a preschooler until you have had burped-up lime Gatorade and Tylenol between your toes.  

So when we were not sitting in the steamy bathroom or walking about on the deck in the moist night air, we were nervously watching him sleep on the pile of pillows I had stacked at a careful 45 degree angle.  These measures helped quite a bit, and forestalled a trip the ER.

We just returned from the pediatrician’s office.  Two chest X-rays later, we are advised that he has a nasty little virus, but no lung infection.

At about 3:45 a.m., by way of preparation should the need arise, I told him we might be getting in the car soon to take a trip to see a special doctor.  He leaned in and said, in a hoarse, conspiratorial whisper, “And if we are very quiet, we might see an elk.”

We’ve been hiking a lot lately.

Hand It Over Or The Bird Gets It

It’s a crisp fall day.  There’s a motor noise in the background.

Trailhead Kid:  What’s that?

Trailhead Spouse:  A weed whacker.

Trailhead Kid (Pondering this):  No, it’s not.
  
Trailhead:  What is it then?

Trailhead Kid:  It’s a bird whacker.

Trailhead to Trailhead Spouse:  I’d hate to see that in action.