If anyone has suggestions for that which must be done or seen, let me know. I head home Friday.
Public transportation here seems to be overpriced, but I can rent a bike for $15, so I think I might do that tomorrow. Walking around today, it looked this area was bike-friendly, but the other side of the Willamette River… not so much.
I’m off to the islands. I don’t expect to have internet access till I get back, and I don’t have the sidewinder adapter for my new phone, so communications will be scarce. See you around.
Do you know anyone who travels but is vague on where they're going? Check
Do you know someone with documents in different names for no obvious reason? Check
Do you know someone buying large or unusual quantities of chemicals for no obvious reason? No
Handling chemicals is dangerous, maybe you've seen goggles or masks dumped somewhere? Check
If you work in commercial vehicle hire or sales, has a sale or rental made you suspicious? n/a
Have you seen someone with large quantities of mobiles? No
Have you seen anyone taking pictures of security arrangements? Check
Do you know someone who visits terrorist-related websites? Check
Have you seen any suspicious cheque or credit card transactions? Check
Is someone is asking for a short-term let on a house or flat on a cash basis for no apparent reason? No
Looks like I meet 6/10 of their requirements for being a terrorist. 60% isn’t considered a passing grade, in my experience. Take that, you pesky neighbors!
Soldiers from the 5th Battalion, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team use smoke grenades for concealment as they engage anti-Iraqi forces in Baqubah last week.
It’s interesting what they choose to title the Bad Guys™. No longer rebels, insurgents, freedom fighters, or terrorists.
Anti-Iraqi. Certainly there are citizens of Iraq who disagree with the ideals of those getting smoked by the Stryker Brigade, but the term “anti-Iraqi” implies some sort of overwhelming consensus in the country that these people are wrong – implies that the Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurds feel some sort of political unity, which I really don’t see as the case. The country of Iraq is purely a figment of the West’s imagination.
(On another note, is it just me, or are those guys in the picture wearing Multi-Cam? Shouldn’t they be in ACU? Perhaps they grew tired of getting shot at due to crappy, useless – not to mention ugly – camo. Revolt!)
Nelson Zink‘s The Structure of Delight is a book of stories within stories. A sort of manual for reprogramming you mind, it’s the book that Daniel Quinn would write if Quinn had been a student of Freud.
Through the interwoven stories, Zink challenges perception and meaning, expounding that all is rooted in the mind, shifting the reader’s experience of reality.
For those who have yet to read David Abram’s The Spell of the Sensuous, this interview by Scott London does a good job of introducing some of the book’s ideas.
I just accepted a job at Kings Canyon National Park, in the southern Sierra Nevadas. I’ll be there mid-June till mid-September.
The work is through SCA, which was recommended to me by a friend at the WFR course. It only pays $60 a week – enough for groceries, I think – but the housing is free. From what I’ve been told, it’s more-or-less impossible to get a real, actually-paying job with the Forest/Park service before you’ve done some sort of volunteer or internship thing with them. So at least this way I’m getting payed something.
The idea is, if I like the work, I can get a job as a seasonal Ranger. Work the summer and bum around the rest of the year.
Dates will be posted when I know them. I’ll be driving, so some of you California people will have to offer to put me up for the night. (And then you should come visit me in the park.)
It seeks to tell people that Iran, which is in the Axis of Evil now, has for long been the source of evil and modern Iranians' ancestors are the ugly murderous dumb savages you see in 300.
I must have missed something because, when I saw the film, the Spartans were clearly depicted as savage, inhuman barbarians.
The film-makers even drew a direct correlation between the Spartans and Timur, with their wall of corpses. If Timur wasn’t a war-mongering ass-hat, I don’t know who was.
So I was sitting here, at work, doing work stuff, when a reminder popped up. “Work in 14 minutes”. “Wait a second,” I thought “I’m already at work.” I check the calendar. I’m not supposed to be at work till 3. My (atomic) watch said it was 2:47. Time.gov agreed with it.
I’m supposed to be in class 2-3 – but I went to that class. The professor was there, my friends were there.
Have you ever wanted to know the plants that grow all around you?
Would you like to learn how wild plants, even in cities, can both feed you and take care of your health?
This informative and hands on weekend experience introduces participants to the most common and useful plants of our area through direct experiences of touching, eating, cooking, and making meals and medicines.
The nature of this weekend offers a new relationship with plants--whether found in urban yards or vast wilderness--that intimately connects us to their lives while enhancing the nourishment, nutrition, and health of our own.
Skills include:
Plant identification to confidence and safety
Herbal oils and salves for most minor first aid situations
Tincture making with wild plants for cold & flus
Herbal teas and infusions
Herbal nourishment for better daily health
Mineral vinegars: the ULTIMATE "vitamin"
Making a wild foods meal that is nutritious AND delicious
Poisonous plant identification
Herbal first aid so you can treat yourself naturally
AND lots of other fun herbal surprises
We will weave all these skills into a way for you to bring wild herbs into your life to enhance your health.
What is seen by many as an overwhelming subject will be presented in a simple way, so you can easily access herbal wisdom on your own. There will be a good balance between class time and herbal activities.
Students will go home with herbal remedies for their home first aid kits.
Students will also go home with a free copy of Wild Foods for Every Table, an amazing 100 page wild foods books with delicious recipes such as sorrel soup, creamy nettle soup and spiced wildberry jelly.
Last night somebody setup a keyboard on the street corner and serenaded me to sleep. It didn’t sound like the guy had ever taken a piano lesson in his life, but I respect him for performing a random creative act.
Have you ever noticed that, with the majority of aid organizations, when you visit their website and head to their ‘Get Involved’ or ‘Help Out’ sections, they only ask for money? Or poster-ing? Perhaps, at best, they’ll give you some office work. They never actually ask for people to go overseas. Never ask for people to help distribute the supposed aid. It doesn’t quite help support the notion that these organizations are actually doing anything. They’ve got nobody in the field!
Isn’t it strange how people get degrees in fields related to NGO work?
It reflects the attitude that aid is an industry – something permanent, instead of a sad necessity that must be temporarily pursued until governmental disputes can be settled or unfortunate weather events overcome.
The other day I met someone who was pursuing a degree in refugee assimilation. It doesn’t make sense! She will be solving no problems – only propagating old ones. (Though she will be guaranteed a steady stream of subjects.) Why not get a degree in “nonviolent conflict resolution” or, if that doesn’t pack enough umph for you, “tactical warlord disposal” or “guerrilla warfare education for refugees”. Something to cut the problem off at its source.
Walking around town last weekend, I stumbled upon this old brick building with a “Fallout Shelter” sign on it.
Always good to know where your local bunkers are, I suppose. I imagine the thing is a remnant from the ‘50’s or ‘60’s and that it isn’t stocked or maintained anymore. But, still, I doubt the shambling masses of the undead will be able to eat you in there.
Thomas Cleary’s The Essential Koran is a sort of summarized version of the Islamic text. It consists of passages selected for the opening of Islam to the modern Western mind.
I was surprised at the lack of myth in the book. It seemed to be filled with “God is this, God is that, disbelievers are poopy.” Names were dropped (Moses, Jesus, etc) and the Garden of Eden* was given a full page, but there were no real stories – the most important aspect of any religion or believe system. I’m forced to think that this is a result of the summation, that the actual Qur’an contains more myth.
I found many disagreements in the text, though none that I think are specific of Islam. Rather, all large, organized religions seem to fall to this.
Despite the beauty of the words, it describes a life of fear. Fear of some god, some master hanging over you. Even those who claim to love and find joy in their god must consider with every action what their judge will think of them. There is no harmony in this – these tiered systems, that find a distinction between heaven and earth.
They do not comprehend anything...except as God wills.
What’s this? Are humans not sentient? You are your own being. You are god. You know as well as any what lays before you and what lays behind you.
And what is the life of the world but the stuff of deception?
How can one live so removed? How can one deny the joys and beauties and truth of life?
There is much good in Islam – kindness, benevolence, tolerance – but it is still a structure of (dank) submission. A belief that separates its followers from the Earth.
A note on the Garden of Eden story: this version has the fruit enlightening Adam and Eve to their bodies. It is said “and when they tasted of the tree, their shame was exposed to them; and they began to sew together leaves from the garden to cover themselves.”. Our bodies are now something to be shameful of? So much for humans shaped in the image of their God, and all that.
