Happy Halloween!

We all celebrate in our own way. This is mine......

Devil's Night

The night before Halloween is a major kid holiday--or at least it was so in my day. We would (theoretically) get up to all sorts of devilry, and try to find clever tricks to play on folks. But, in any event, there were always the old tried and true tricks: soaping windows, toilet papering trees.

Tonight, while the kids were PLAYING OUTSIDE, someone TP'd their house. It was quickly determined it must have been a neighbor, Mary, so revenge was planned. A roll of toilet paper was found, and all NINE cousins set off a bit noisily down the street.

These poor kids were devilry neophytes, we soon discovered. First, the need to keep quiet had to be repeatedly stressed. Once they reached Mary's house, it became evident that they had NO IDEA how to TP a tree; they began tearing off bits of paper and carefully festooning the branches, as though it were Christmas!!!


Due to the noise, they were quickly discovered by Mary's dad. Rather than scolding them, though, he took pity on them. He went into the house, got a fresh roll of paper, and took them across the street to the Smith's' house to show them how to properly TP a tree (throw the entire roll, letting it stream off). They learned quickly, and then had to run just as quickly to escape detection......


Well, they'll be much better prepared next year!

Thirteen Candles

My oldest niece, Kalyna, turned thirteen this week. Yes, we now have a teenager in the family. The thought frightens all of us, but we will somehow persevere.


Tonight she had her family birthday party. Friday night she'd celebrated with friends, hosting a slumber party. Laurie found the girls still up at 3:30 yesterday morning....... But today it was aunts, uncles and grandparents, with a huge helping of cousins. There were gifts and a birthday cake with lots of candles:


Happy Birthday, Kalyna, and may all your wishes come true!

Pumpkin Carving Time

I've carved many a pumpkin in my day, I must say. Why, I've even carved pumpkins in Ukraine and Australia (although the latter was an odd whitish variety). This year I had a chance to help my nieces and nephew carve theirs.

First, of course, the pumpkins had to be gutted. Maria and Kalyna don't seem to particularly enjoy this aspect of the process,


but Nick seems to have a natural affinity for it.


Then designs were drawn onto the pumpkins, and Bill and I did the carving with sharp knives. Smoochie paid close attention throughout:


Little did we know it was because she had a taste for pumpkin flesh. Note that Kalyna's jack-o-lantern has a missing eyeball. Miss Smoochie apparently found it quite delectable.


Note: I was able to later perform reconstructive surgery with a pumpkin eyeball transplant.

More photos can be found here

Still Miserable

Doctors make lousy patients, or so I have been told. Luckily, I'm at home alone, with no one to drive crazy. Hot soup and hot lemon tea, with regular doses of generic Tylenol make life bearable. As does sleeping in until noon.

About the only things I can do without getting utterly exhausted are working at the computer or working on my pysanky (I'm making some Halloween patterned ones). Walking up the stairs or even across the room still requires a long rest after the exertion. And my cough is productive and quite irritating.

Meanwhile, down in Arkansas, WalMart continues to innovate in that field it knows best--screwing their workers and the taxpayers.

And it looks like Rove may be frog marched soon. Oh happy day!

Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks died the other day. She was born in the South, but chose to live out her days in my hometown, Detroit. We were proud of her, and she will be missed.

Unfortunately, her life's work is not yet done, as long as bigotry and discrimination exist in this country. We must continue to work to accomplish her dream.

2000

It's official. 2000 dead American soldiers, sacrificed for the imperial dreams of the Right. Blood for oil.

2000 families with an empty place at the table this Thanksgiving......and every holiday to come.


Tomorrow there will be candlelight vigils held throughout the country. To find one near you, click here.

A really lousy day

...all around. Not only is it cold and rainy out, but I've been felled by a respiratory virus. You know the culprit--cough, body ache, plugged ears, sore throat, and exhaustion. I wonder why I got out of bed at all today....

Anyway, as a scientist, this is the sort of intelligent design I go for:

Who smiles for their mugshot?

Apparently, Tom Delay is in good company:


(click on the photo to have it open in large format in a new window)

Halloween Fun

I had a nice time at Garry and Loraine's annual Halloween part last night (and well into this morning). It's their favorite holiday, and they go all out with decorating, to the extent of having built their very own cemetery in their back yard (no actual occupants yet):


We drank wine, ate pizza, wandered through the haunted forest, and sang in front of a blazing bonfire (Ukrainian folks songs, of course). Garry gave hay rides on a small wagon attached to his riding mower, an activity quite enjoyed by the children (and even a few adults).


(Loraine and Lizzie on a hay ride)

Silly Love Songs

Unlike Sir Paul, these two young California girls thinks the world HAS had enough of silly love songs. Thirteen-year-old twins Lamb and Lynx Gaede, known as Prussian Blue, have one album out, another on the way, a music video, and lots of fans. But none of that bubble-gum crap for them--they are white nationalists and sing about hate.


The girls who are, of course, home schooled, live with their Mom April and grandfather. (Those horrible gays must have broken up another happy Christian home. The horror!) Grampa

surrounds the family with symbols of his beliefs — specifically the Nazi swastika. It appears on his belt buckle, on the side of his pick-up truck and he's even registered it as his cattle brand with the Bureau of Livestock Identification.

"Because it's provocative," explains April of the cattle brand, "to him he thinks it's important as a symbol of freedom of speech that he can use it as his cattle brand."

One of their lovely songs is called "Sacrifice", and is a tribute to Nazi Rudolf Hess, Hitler's deputy Fuhrer. The lyrics praise Hess as a "man of peace who wouldn't give up."

It's nice to know there are still some idealists left in this country.

Cognitive dissonance

...or maybe just standard Republican Operating Procedure (i.e. IOKIYAR).

On Meet the Press, discussing the Plame investigation, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson said today:

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Remember the Clinton impeachment? Clinton was impeached on two counts, grand jury perjury and obstruction of justice. We had long, solemn pontification from the right about the seriousness of these charges, and how it wasn't about the sex, it was about the LYING?

Now let's jump into the "Way Back" machine, travel back to 1998 and listen in on Senator Henry Hyde:

"The question before this House is rather simple. It's not about sex ... The matter before the House is lying under oath. This is called perjury."

Hyde said perjury and obstruction of justice "cannot be reconciled with the office of the president of the United States ... The people's trust has been betrayed."

He accused Clinton of a "premeditated, deliberate corruption of the nation's system of justice."

BTW, perjury is just a "little" technicality punishable by up to five years in prison.

Deja Vu

Anna Quindlen's most recent Newsweek column says so much about the failure of this administration to learn the lessons of Viet Nam. There are too many good points to quote them all here, but she sums up her point so well:

If we are such a great nation, why are we utterly incapable of learning from our mistakes? America's sons and daughters are dying to protect the egos of those whose own children are safe at home. Again.

Just read it.

UCARE Benefit

Time to put on your top hat, tie up your white tie, and brush off your tails:


You can have a great time and help a good cause by coming to our UCARE benefit. For info or tickets, call 248-526-0899

Red State Disconnect

I just had to post this cartoon--it seems to encapsulate the Red State approach to the federal government--adamantly opposed to paying taxes, but first in line to claim benefits. Remember the "Montana Freemen" who were so anti-government? Several of their leaders were first at the trough for farm subsidies.


(If you double-click on the cartoon above, it will open in a larger format in a new window...at least it does on my computer!)

Republican Weenies

I had to go to the mall today--and unpleasant but necessary task--and came out to find that someone had vandalized my car:


I managed to rub some of it off, and stick "Republican Vandalism" labels over some of the scribbles, but the mess is still there. That'll have to do until the new bumper stickers I ordered arrive from CafePress.

Sad, isn't it, how petty small minds can be? That someone can be so insecure that an opposing view expressed on a piece of paper sets them off? I mean, really, if they felt secure in their beliefs, would they need to act in such a childish way? Some of us hold the First Amendment sacrosanct (free speech and all), and others are more in the jack-booted thug mode (see above).

It's bad enough when someone is a poor loser, but being a poor winner is really pathetic. Why is it that Republicans feel the need not only to beat the opposition, but to crush them, destroy them, and rub defeat in their opponent's faces? It's sad, really. I have friends who had their Kerry signs disappear during the last election, but no Bush sign went missing in their neighborhood.

Or maybe it's the response of the cornered rat--lashing out, knowing that its end is at hand. Watergate was child's play compared to the conspiracy entangling the White House now. Cheney and Rove are in hiding, leaving poor W to try and actually try and run the country.

Let the indictments roll!

Scenic Byways

I spent a day today on the trail of Lewis and Clark--well, on the trail they would have taken had they had motorized vehicles. I drove along the L&C Scenic Byway, a series of gravel roads that took me up into the mountains, through Lemhi pass, and back down again (after an unintentional detour into Montana). It was quite a pretty drive, although the four inches of snow and icy roads were a bit of a surprise, as it was sunny, warm and dry at lower altitude.

The Jeep and I got a bit muddy, and I saw a bit of wildlife--pronghorns, mule deer, strange little chipmunk-like shy squirrels, and a slew of magpies and chickadees. The deer have the habit, common to deer world-wide, of standing by the road and waiting for cars to dart out in front of.

I stopped at the Sacajawea Center just outside of Salmon--it was a nice place to walk, look at the Bitterroot Mountains, and learn about the ways of her people.

And then tonight I cooked borscht and converted two more people to the Daily Show. Jon Stewart IS America's greatest newsman.

Yellowstone, Again

I decided to take a different route into Yellowstone, one which didn't involve driving through a construction zone on the side of the mountain. Instead, I drove along the Chief Joseph Scenic Byway, which proved to be beautiful--at least what I could see of it. Most of the time I was driving through the clouds in a snow storm. At one scenic overlook, there were about six inches of snow on the ground.


The park was also cloudy with lots of snow. I saw a lot of buffalo, and a lot of clouds. In the area near Mammoth Springs (NW corner), the sun shone in a postcard sky.


I enjoyed the weather briefly, as did this raven, but decided to cut my tour of Yellowstone short, as it was snow and more snow further south, with black ice in the Grand Tetons.


Instead I drove to Idaho, to the Salmon River valley, to visit with my friend Pam. I saw lots of fishermen along the way, enjoying a fine autumn afternoon.

Yellowstone in the Snow

I seem to have a knack of picking snowy days to visit Yelllowstone. In 2003 I had one fairly good day, and one day of blizzard conditions. I had never seen Yellowstone Lake, even though I'd driven along the shore. I had hoped to change my luck.

It was not to be, even though I came a month sooner. The day was cold with constant sleet, making it unpleasantly wet to walk around. I visited many sights, but only briefly. I got a good look at the falls, and saw lots of buffalo, but most of the time the landscape was shrouded in steam and snow.


I did finally get a look at the lake though--the weather cleared as I was leaving the park. This was not an altogether good thing--being a flatlander, I have a slight concern with (not fear of) heights, and especially precipices. The drive in and out of the park was via the southeast entrance, which was under construction. And, let me tell you, the drive along a muddy track on the side of a very high mountain was much more concerning when you could see the valley below quite clearly!

Cody Crime Wave

While I was busy blogging away in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, someone was out in the parking lot trying to break in to my Jeep. Mind you, this was directly in front of the hotel in broad daylight. It was a low tech crime of opportunity--they tried to pry the lock out of the door with a screwdriver. It was crime interruptus though, as the perp got scared away. Lucky for me, nothing got taken, but the lock was a mess (although it still worked).

What bothered me more than the crime itself was the response to it. The hotel staff couldn't believe it had happened there, and the manager of the motel I was staying at stated that "it was awful that people bring their big city ways with them" to poor little Cody. As if theft were purely a big city concept that would never, ever have occurred to honest, upright small town citizens.

Not in my experience. I lived in, worked in, and went to school in Detroit for a combined total of 13 years, and still go downtown almost weekly for cultural events. I have NEVER experienced any crime there. I did have my handbag stolen from the chemistry lab at my suburban high school, had my car broken in to in my own driveway in West Bloomfield, and had several hubcaps disappear in the suburbs as well.

Oh well, I'll have to get that dangling lock fixed before some other upright citizen is seduced by its sight into a life of crime.

Internet Access

One difference I have noted between the USA and the rest of the world is the lack of public internet access here in the States. When I've travelled elsewhere, internet centers and cafes abound. Even in remote towns in South America and India, I've always been able to find a place to check my e-mail. It might be a slow or tenuous connection, but there is a connection.

Not so here in the USA. Few towns have an internet center independent of the local public library, which has limited hours and greatly limits one's time on-line. It's not a matter of cost alone; there simply isn't paid access in most places. I think that most Americans access the internet at home, and its just not an economically viable option outside of collecge towns and big cities.

I am posting courtesy of the nice young man at the Holiday Inn of Cody, Wyoming. They have wireless internet, and he's letting me use it for free (as they don't even have a mechanism to charge for the service--it's part of the room fee, which is easily twice what I'm paying at the motel down the street). I'll try and write a few more items, and post them before I leave.

Otherwise, I'll be online again when I get to Pam's place in Idaho.

Bighorns and Buffalo Bill

I drove this morning through Wyoming from Gillette to Cody. The scenery was spectacular high mountain desert for the most part.


I spent the rest of the day at the Buffalo Bill Cody museum complex, where I visited all five museums. The Natural History museum was full of stuffed creatures and helped me to understand the ecology of Yellowstone and the high desert. The Buffalo Bill museum told the story of his life and times, and included ancient film footage of the Buffalo Bill show. I found him to be quite a liberal guy, standing up for women's and Indian's rights, as well and conservation.


One museum that I could have given a miss to was the firearms museum--apparently it houses the largest collection of guns in the world. There are some 20,000 on display, with another 12,000 in their library. I watched the video on the history of the gun, and tried to go through, but got deathly bored by the second display case. Really, the differences are minimal, and a hundred or so would have been enough for me.......


The museum of Western Art was fun; many of the pieces were interesting more form a historical perspective, some were lovely works of art, and some (in the modern section) were just fun. I enjoyed the Remington landscapes more than his sculptures, and found the depictions of Indians through the ages to be interesting.




The best museum, though, was the Museum of the Plains Indian. They did a marvelous job of integrating objects with depictions of their functions and the cultures that created them. It was much better than the showcases of dusty objects, shown out of context, that such exhibits often are. I loved it.